e permitted to break ranks. I was too tired to sleep. Where we were I
knew not, and I know not--somewhere in Fairfax County, Virginia. Willis,
who was near me, lying on his blanket, his cartridge-box for a pillow,
said that we were the left of McDowell's army; that the centre and right
extended for miles; that the general headquarters ought to be at Fairfax
Court-House at this moment, and that if Beauregard didn't look sharp he
would wake up some fine morning and find old Heintz in his rear.

* * * * *

Before the light we were aroused by the reveille.

The moving and halting process was resumed, and was kept up for many
hours. We reached the railroad. Our company was sent forward to relieve
the pickets. We were in the woods, and within a hundred yards of a
feeble rivulet which, ran from west to east almost parallel with our
skirmish-line; nothing could be seen in front but trees. Beyond the
stream vedettes were posted on a ridge. The men of the company were in
position, but at ease. The division was half a mile in our rear.

I was lying on my back at the root of a scrub-oak very like the
blackjacks of Georgia and the Carolinas. The tree caused me to think of
my many sojourns in the South. Willis was standing a few yards away; he
was in the act of lighting his pipe.

"What's that?" said he, dropping the match.

"What's what?" I asked.

"There! Don't you hear it? two--three--"

At the word "three" I heard distinctly, in the far northwest, a low
rumble. All the men were on their feet, silent, serious. Again the
distant cannon was heard.

About five o'clock in the afternoon the newspapers from Washington were
in our hands. In one of the papers a certain war correspondent had
outlined, or rather amplified, the plan of the campaign. Basing his
prediction, doubtless, upon the fact that he knew something of the
nature of the advance begun on the 16th, the public was informed that
Heintzelman's division would swing far to the left until the rear of
Beauregard's right flank was reached; at the same time Miles and Hunter
would seize Fairfax Court-House, and threaten the enemy's centre and
left, and would seriously attack when Heintzelman should give the
signal. Thus, rolled up from the right, and engaged everywhere else, the
enemy's defeat was inevitable.

The papers were handed from one to another. Willis chuckled a little
when he saw his own view seconded, although, he was beginning to