rehension was that we might be derailed and the despatches captured;
for as fast as our army had advanced, the track of it had closed again,
like the wake of a ship at sea. Guerillas were roving about, tearing up
ties and destroying bridges.

There was one five-minute interval of excitement when, far down the
tunnel through the forest, we saw a light gleaming. The engineer said
there was no house there, that it must be a fire. But we did not slacken
our speed, and gradually the leaping flames grew larger and redder until
we were upon them.

Not one gaunt figure stood between them and us. Not one shot broke the
stillness of the night. As dawn broke I beheld the flat, gray waters of
the Sound stretching away to the eastward, and there was the boat at the
desolate wharf beside the warehouse, her steam rising white in the chill
morning air.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SAME, CONTINUED

HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,
CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, March 28, 1865.

DEAR MOTHER: I arrived here safely the day before yesterday, and I hope
that you will soon receive some of the letters I forwarded on that day.
It is an extraordinary place, this City Point; a military city sprung up
like a mushroom in a winter. And my breath was quite taken away when I
first caught sight of it on the high table-land. The great bay in front
of it, which the Appomattox helps to make, is a maze of rigging and
smoke-pipes, like the harbor of a prosperous seaport. There are gunboats
and supply boats, schooners and square-riggers and steamers, all huddled
together, and our captain pointed out to me the 'Malvern' flying Admiral
Porter's flag. Barges were tied up at the long wharves, and these were
piled high with wares and flanked by squat warehouses. Although it was
Sunday, a locomotive was puffing and panting along the foot of the ragged
bank.

High above, on the flat promontory between the two rivers, is the city of
tents and wooden huts, the great trees in their fresh faint green
towering above the low roofs. At the point of the bluff a large flag
drooped against its staff, and I did not have to be told that this was
General Grant's headquarters.

There was a fine steamboat lying at the wharf, and I had hardly stepped
ashore before they told me she was President Lincoln's. I read the name
on her--the 'River Queen'. Yes, the President is here, too, with his wife
and family.

There are many fellows here with whom I w