and a small amount of ammunition. The guns were hunting
pieces, all loaded. The woman of the house was very indignant, and spoke
in disrespectful terms of the Union men of the neighborhood, whom she
suspected of instigating the search. She said she "had come from a
higher sphere than they, and would not lay down with dogs." She was an
Eastern Virginia woman, and, although poor as a church mouse, thought
herself superior to West Virginia people. As an indication of this
lady's refinement and loyalty, it is only necessary to say that a day or
two before she had displayed a secession flag made, as she very frankly
told the soldiers, of the tail of an old shirt, with J. D. and S. C. on
it, the letters standing for Jefferson Davis and the Southern
Confederacy.

Four or five thousand men are encamped here, huddled together in a
little circular valley, with high hills surrounding. A company of
cavalry is just going by my tent on the road toward Beverly, probably to
watch the front.

As we were leaving camp this morning, an officer of an Ohio regiment
rode at break-neck speed along the line, inquiring for General
McClellan, and yelling, as he passed, that four companies of the
regiment to which he belongs had been surrounded at Glendale, by twelve
hundred secessionists, under O. Jennings Wise. Our men, misapprehending
the statement, thought Buckhannon had been attacked, and were in a great
state of excitement.

The officers of General Schleich's staff were with me on to-day's march,
and the younger members, Captains Hunter and Dubois, got off whatever
poetry they had in them of a military cast. "On Linden when the sun was
low," was recited to the hills of Western Virginia in a manner that must
have touched even the stoniest of them. I could think of nothing but
"There was a sound of revelry by night," and as this was not
particularly applicable to the occasion, owing to the exceeding
brightness of the sun, and the entire absence of all revelry, I thought
best not to astonish my companions by exhibiting my knowledge of the
poets.

West Virginia hogs are the longest, lankest, boniest animals in
creation. I am reminded of this by that broth of an Irish lad, Conway,
who says, in substance, and with a broad Celtic accent, that their noses
have to be sharpened every morning to enable them to pick a living among
the rocks.

Colonel Marrow informs me that an attack is apprehended to-night. We
have sent out strong pickets. The c