te nor Federal was in
sight. I tramped steadily southward and caught up at Bunker Hill.

* * * * *

By the 24th of July we had crossed the Blue Ridge and were approaching
Culpeper.

During the months of August and September we were in camp near Orange
Court-House.

My distaste for the service became excessive, unaccountably, I should
have thought, but for the fact that my interest in life had so greatly
suffered because of the Captain's death.

My friend was gone. I wished for nothing definite. I had no purpose. To
fight for the South was my duty, and I felt it, but I had no relish for
fighting. Fighting was absurd.

The Captain had said, on the last night of his life, that he imagined
General Lee and perhaps General McClellan felt great reluctance in
giving orders that would result in the death of Americans at the hands
of Americans. I remembered that at Gettysburg, in the act of pulling the
trigger, I had found no hatred in me toward the man I was trying to
kill. I wondered if the men generally were without hate. I believed they
were; there might be exceptions.

We had lost General Pender at Gettysburg. We were now Wilcox's division.
We had camp guard and picket duty.

Since the Captain's death the battalion of sharp-shooters had been
dissolved, and I was back in Company H. The life was monotonous. Some
conscripts were received into each company. Many of the old men would
never return to us. Some were lying with two inches of earth above their
breasts; some were in the distant South on crutches they must
always use.

The spirit of the regiment was unbroken. The men were serious. Captain
Barnwell read prayers at night in the company.

I thought much but disconnectedly, and was given to solitude. I made an
object of myself. My condition appealed to my sympathy. Where had there
ever been such an experience? I thought of myself as Berwick, and pitied
him. I talked to him, mentally, calling him _you_.

Dr. Frost was beyond my reach. I wanted to talk to him. He had been
promoted, and was elsewhere.

At night I had dreams, and they were strange dreams. For many successive
nights I could see myself, and always I thought of the "me" that I saw
as a different person from the "me" that saw.

My health suffered greatly, but I did not report to the surgeon.

Somehow I began to feel for my unknown friends. They had long ago given
me up for dead.

Perhaps, however, some were still h