that state.
After hearing my description of the place which I thought I had
revisited, he expressed the opinion that no Confederate troops at all
had reached the spot in the battle of sixty-one. The place, he said,
was more than a mile from the position of the Confederate army in the
battle; still, he admitted, many scattered Federals retreated over the
ground which interested me so greatly, and it was possible that some
Confederates had been over it to seek plunder or for other purposes; but
as for pursuit, there had been none. I asked if it could have been
possible for me to be a prisoner on that day and to be led away to the
rear of the Federals. "If so," he replied, "you would not have been
allowed to keep or to break your gun. Moreover, the whole army lost in
missing too few men to base such a theory on; the loss was just a
baker's dozen in both Beauregard's and Johnston's forces. For my part, I
think it more likely that, if you were there at all, you were there as a
scout, or as a vedette. General Evans--Old Shanks, the boys call
him--began the battle with the Fourth South Carolina. He was at Stone
Bridge, and found out before nine o'clock that McDowell had turned our
left and was marching down from Sudley. You might have been sent out to
watch the enemy; yet I am confident that Evans would have used his
cavalry for that purpose, for he had a company of cavalry in his
command. A more plausible guess might be that you were out foraging that
morning and got cut off. I will look up the Fourth South Carolina for
you, and try to learn something. Yet the whole thing is very vague, and
I should not advise you to hope for anything from it. I am now convinced
that you did not originally belong to this brigade. You would have been
recognized long ago. By the way, I have had a thought in connection with
your case. You ought to write to the hotel in Aiken and find out who
you are."

"I wonder why I never thought of that!" I exclaimed. "I suppose that a
letter addressed to the manager would answer."

"Certainly."

"But--" I began.

"But what?"

"If I write, what can I say? Can I sign a letter asking an unknown man
to tell me who I am?"

"Write it and sign it Berwick Jones," said Captain Haskell, who by this
speech seemed to give full belief that my name was reversed on the roll
of his company.

As we walked back to our bivouac that night I asked the Captain whether,
in the improbable event of our finding that I had b