sediments of coffee. I saw her crafty white eyes look up to mine as she
muttered some jargon, and pretended to read the arrangement of the
grains.

"Honey," she said, "gi' me de money, and let de ole 'oman dream on it
once mo'! It ain't quite clar' yit, young massar. Tank you, honey! Tank
you! Let de old 'oman dream! Let de ole 'oman dream!"

She disappeared into the house, chuckling and chattering, and the sons
of the forest, loitering awhile, dispersed in various directions. As I
followed my conductor to the riverside, and he parted the close bushes
and boughs to give us exit, the glare of the camp-fires broke all at
once upon us. The ship-lights quivered on the water; the figures of men
moved to and fro before the fagots; the stars peeped timorously from the
vault; the woods and steep banks were blackly shadowed in the river.
Here was I, among the aborigines; and as my dusky acquaintance sent his
canoe skimming across the ripples, I thought how inexplicable were the
decrees of Time and the justice of God. Two races united in these
people, and both of them we had wronged. From the one we had taken
lands; from the other liberties. Two centuries had now elapsed. But the
little remnant of the African and the American were to look from their
Island Home upon the clash of our armies and the murder of our braves.

By the 19th of May the skirts of the grand army had been gathered up,
and on the 20th the march to Richmond was resumed. The troops moved
along two main roads, of which the right led to New Mechanicsville and
Meadow Bridges, and the left to the railroad and Bottom Bridges. My
division formed the right centre, and although the Chickahominy fords
were but eighteen miles distant, we did not reach them for three days.
On the first night we encamped at Tunstalls, a railroad-station on Black
Creek; on the second at New Cold Harbor, a little country tavern, kept
by a cripple; and on the night of the third day at Hogan's farm, on the
north hills of the Chickahominy. The railroad was opened to Despatch
Station at the same time, but the right and centre were still compelled
to "team" their supplies from White House. In the new position, the army
extended ten miles along the Chickahominy hills; and while the engineers
were driving pile, tressel, pontoon, and corduroy bridges, the cavalry
was scouring the country, on both flanks, far and wide.

The advance was full of incident, and I learned to keep as far in front
as po