at Doc and the other men were thinking of me. Perhaps I was
thought a friend of one of the men who had brought the water; perhaps
nobody thought anything, or cared anything, about me. Although I felt
helpless, I would remain.

A torn envelope was lying on the ground, within a few inches of my hand.
The addressed side was next the ground. My fears fled; accident had
helped me--had given me a plan.

I turned the letter over. The address was:--

PRIVATE D.W. ROBERTS,
_Co. G, 7th N.C. Reg't,
Branch's Brigade,
Gordonsville, Va._

I rose. "I must be going," said I, and walked off down the street. The
act, under the circumstances, did not seem to me entirely natural, but
it was the best I could do; these men, I hoped, would merely think me
an oddity.

In the next street I stopped at the brightest fire that I saw.

"This is not the Seventh, is it?" I asked.

"No," said one; "the Seventh is over there," pointing.

"What regiment is this?"

"Our'n," said he.

"Oh, don't be giving me any of your tomfoolery," said I.

"This is the Thirty-third," said another.

I went back toward the Seventh, passed beyond it, and approached another
group. A man of this group rose and sauntered away toward the left. I
followed him. I put my hand on his shoulder and said, "Hello, Jim! where
are you going?"

He turned and said, "Hello yourself, if you want anybody to hello; but
my name's not Jim."

"I beg your pardon," said I; "afraid I'm in the wrong pew; what regiment
is this?"

"The Twenty-eighth," said he, and went on without another word.

The nature of the replies given me by my friends of the Thirty-third and
Twenty-eighth made me feel nearly certain that all of Branch's regiments
were from one State. I was supposed to belong to the brigade; it was
needless to tell me the name of the State from which my regiment--from
which all the regiments--came. Had the brigade been a mixed one, the men
would have said, "Thirty-third North Carolina;" "Twenty-eighth North
Carolina"; that they did not trouble themselves with giving the name of
their State was strong reason for believing that all the regiments, as I
knew the Seventh to be, were from North Carolina.

I continued my walk, picking up as I went several envelopes, which I
thrust into my pocket. It must now have been about ten o'clock. The men
had become silent; but few were sitting at the fires. I believed I had
sufficient information as to the