h woods," said Ephraim, "scrub oak and pine and cedars
and young stuff springin' up until you couldn't see the length of a
company, and the Rebs jumpin' and hollerin' around and shoutin' every
which way. After a while a lot of them saplings was mowed off clean by
the bullets, and then the woods caught afire, and that was hell."

"Were you wounded?" asked the President, quickly.

"I was hurt some, in the hip," answered Ephraim.

"Some!" exclaimed Cynthia, "why, you have walked lame ever since." She
knew the story by heart, but the recital of it never failed to stir her
blood! "They carried him out just as he was going to be burned up, in a
blanket hung from rifles, and he was in the hospital nine months, and
had to come home for a while."

"Cynthy," said Ephraim in gentle reproof, "I callate the General don't
want to hear that."

Cynthia flushed, but the President looked at her with an added interest.

"My dear young lady," he said, "that seems to me the vital part of the
story. If I remember rightly," he added, turning again to Ephraim, "the
Fifth Corps was on the Orange turnpike. What brigade were you in?"

"The third brigade of the First Division," answered Ephraim.

"Griffin's," said the President. "There were several splendid New
England regiments in that brigade. I sent them with Griffin to help
Sheridan at Five Forks."

"I was thar too," cried Ephraim.

"What!" said the President, "with the lame hip?"

"Well, General, I went back, I couldn't help it. I couldn't stay away
from the boys--just couldn't. I didn't limp as bad then as I do now. I
wahn't much use anywhere else, and I had l'arned to fight. Five Forks!"
exclaimed Ephraim. "I call that day to mind as if it was yesterday. I
remember how the boys yelled when they told us we was goin' to Sheridan.
We got started about daylight, and it took us till four o'clock in
the afternoon to git into position. The woods was just comin' a little
green, and the white dogwoods was bloomin' around. Sheridan, he galloped
up to the line with that black horse of his'n and hollered out, 'Come
on, boys, go in at a clean, jump or You won't ketch one of 'em.' You
know how men, even veterans like that Fifth Corps, sometimes hev to be
pushed into a fight. There was a man from a Maine regiment got shot in
the head fust thing. 'I'm killed,' said he. 'Oh, no, you're not,' says
Sheridan, 'pickup your gun and go for 'em.' But he was killed. Well,
we went for 'em through all the