--everything of value, everything
that could walk, or be eaten, or--stolen, was gone--swept away by the
invader, and the peaceful population driven from their homes by the
ruthless hand of war.

A few hours' marching brought us past the scene of yesterday's
"scrimmage," and enlivened by the prospect of another fight, as the
fatigue and stiffness of the previous night wore off, the echoes of song
and laughter floated down the column, taken up and re-echoed from company
to company till they died away in the distance, "and all went merry as a
marriage bell"--for a time.

The roads were good, the air pure, the halts frequent--there was nothing
to find fault with. The people, hitherto the only objectionable feature of
the country, were as kind and hospitable as we could desire; and in
Hogestown, a little village on the "pike," and all along the road,
wherever there were occupied houses, the women (and very pretty women some
of them were, too) turned out _en masse_, with trays of bread and apple
butter, and buckets of cool spring water, to help along the tired troops.
A happy contrast with the customs of the capital we had left behind us.

A regiment of Reserves, who had started fresh and well-fed from Harrisburg
that morning, and had gained on us while we were retarded by the slow
progress of the skirmishers through the tall grain and tangled wheat,
hurried up when the rumor began to spread that Carlisle was evacuated, and
in a manner displaying equal ignorance of the rules of war and politeness,
undertook to push their way through the brigade, "to get in ahead of the
Yorkers," and win the honors of the victory from those who had borne the
burden and heat of the day. In attempting this they soon found that they
had calculated without their host, and that the commanding officers of the
Twenty-second had cut their eyeteeth long before putting foot in
Pennsylvania. When they pushed up on the right, the head of the column
gently obliqued that way; if they changed around, a simple "left oblique"
rendered the movement needless; and when they attempted by high strategy
to come up on _both_ sides, the order, "_By company into line_," filled
the road from fence to fence with a solid front of men, who serenely swept
forward, refusing to budge from their path for all the "preserves" "ever
pickled."

Then, letting down the fences, they took to the fields, and attempted to
get by that way. At the sight of this a wild cry of "double qu