r, while they put the
canteens on the ground, and their respective owners came and got them.
The men did not speak to me.

I had hoped to find the Confederates in line of battle; they certainly
ought to have been in line, and in every respect ready for action, but,
instead, they were here in tents and without any preparation against
surprise, so far as I could see, except the cavalry pickets thrown out
on the roads. If they had been in line, it would have been easy for me
to estimate the number of bayonets in the line of stacked arms; I was
greatly disappointed. The tents seemed to me too few for the numbers of
men who were at the camp-fires. I saw forms already stretched out on
their blankets in the open air. Doubtless many men, in this mild
weather, preferred to sleep outside of the crowded tents.

Hoping that something would be said to give me what I wanted to know, I
sat down.

One of the men asked me for a chew of tobacco.

"Don't chaw," said I, mentally vowing that henceforth. I should carry
some tobacco.

"Why don't you buy your own tobacco?" asked a voice.

The petitioner refused to reply.

A large man stood up; he took from his pocket a knife and a square of
tobacco; he gravely approached the first speaker, cut off a very small
portion, and handed it to him. The men looked on in silence at this act,
which, seemingly, was nothing new to them. One of them winked at me. I
inferred that the large man intended a rebuke to his comrade for
begging from a stranger. The large man went back and sat down.

"Say, Doc, how long are we goin' to be here?"

"I wish I could tell you," said the large man.

There were seven men in the group around the fire; the eyes of all were
upon the large man called Doc. He seemed a man of character and
influence, though but a private. He turned to me.

"You are tired," he said.

I merely nodded assent. His remark surprised and disconcerted me, so
that I could not find my voice. In a moment my courage had returned. The
look of the man was the opposite of suspicious--it was sympathetic. He
was not baldly curious. His attitude toward me might shield me from the
curiosity of the others, if, indeed, they were feeling interest of any
sort in me. I had been fearing that some one would ask me my regiment.

"I want to go home to my mammy!" screamed a voice at the next fire.

Nobody gave this yell the least notice. I supposed it a common saying
with homesick soldiers.

I wondered wh