eeing, who wore a tall beaver hat and
rode a piebald pony. To the usual crowd of lads who had gathered around,
they said they were going to give a show in the next town and wanted
them all to come, would give them free tickets, and each a hatful of
"goobers"; then pointing to the old gentleman on the spotted pony, who
had now ridden up, said, "Ah, there is our clown; he can give you full
particulars." One hundred and thirty miles from the battlefield of
Sharpsburg the dawn of the second day of our journey showed again the
procession of wounded men, by whom we had been passing all night and who
had bivouacked along the road as darkness overtook them.

They were now astir, bathing each other's wounds. The distance from
Winchester to Staunton is ninety-six miles, and the trip was made by our
stage in twenty-six hours, with stops only long enough to change horses.

From nine to ten o'clock in the night I was utterly exhausted, and felt
that I could not go a mile farther alive; but rallied, and reached
Staunton at six o'clock in the morning, having been twenty-six hours on
the way. Here Sam Lyle and Joe Chester, of the College company, detailed
as a provost-guard, cared for me until the next day, when another
stage-ride of thirty-six miles brought me to Lexington and home. With
the aid of a crutch I was soon able to get about, but four months passed
before I was again fit for duty, and from the effects of the wound I am
lame to this day.

Since going into the service in March, 1862, six months before, I had
been in nine pitched battles, about the same number of skirmishes, and
had marched more than one thousand miles--and this, too, with no natural
taste for war.

CHAPTER XIX

RETURN TO ARMY--IN WINTER-QUARTERS NEAR PORT ROYAL

On December 13, 1862, the great first battle of Fredericksburg had been
fought, in which four men--Montgomery, McAlpin, Fuller and Beard--in my
detachment had been killed, and others wounded, while the second piece,
standing close by, did not lose a man. This section of the battery was
posted in the flat, east of the railroad. As I was not present in this
battle I will insert an account recently given me by Dr. Robert Frazer,
a member of the detachment, who was severely wounded at the time:

"First battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862.--We reached the
field a little after sunrise, having come up during the night from Port
Royal, where we had been engaging the enemy's gunboats. Th