Richmond, where they joined in the work, to which the whole of the
ladies of the town and neighborhood devoted themselves, of attending to
the wounded, of whom, while the fighting was going on, long trains
arrived every day at the city.

Vincent himself had taken no active part in the fighting. Magruder's
division had not been engaged in the first attack upon McClellan's
force; and although it had taken a share in the subsequent severe
fighting, Vincent had been occupied in carrying messages from the
general to the leaders of the other divisions, and had only once or
twice come under the storm of fire to which the Confederates were
exposed as they plunged through the morasses to attack the enemy. As
soon as it was certain that the attack was finally abandoned, and that
McClellan's troops were being withdrawn to strengthen Pope's army,
Vincent resigned his appointment as aid-de-camp, and was appointed to
the 7th Virginia Cavalry, stationed at Orange, where it was facing the
Federal cavalry. Major Ashley had fallen while protecting the passage of
Jackson's division, when hard pressed by one of the Federal armies in
West Virginia.

No action in the war had been more brilliant than the manner in which
Stonewall Jackson had baffled the two armies--each greatly superior in
force to his own--that had been specially appointed to destroy him if
possible, or at any rate to prevent his withdrawing from the Shenandoah
Valley and marching to aid in the defense of the Confederate capital.
His troops had marched almost day and night, without food, and depending
entirely upon such supplies as they could obtain from the scattered
farmhouses they passed.

Although Richmond was for the present safe, the prospect of the
Confederates was by no means bright. New Orleans had been captured; the
blockade of the other ports was now so strict that it was difficult in
the extreme for a vessel to make her way in or out; and the Northerners
had placed flotillas of gunboats on the rivers, and by the aid of these
were gradually making their way into the heart of several of the States.

"Are you thinking of going out to the Orangery again soon, mother?"
Vincent asked on the evening before setting out on the march north.

"I think not, Vincent. There is so much to do in the hospitals here
that I cannot leave. I should be ashamed to be living in luxury at the
Orangery with the girls while other women are giving up their whole time
nursing the woun