, and the Federal line stretched southeastward,
through Fairoaks, to White Oak Swamp, seven miles away. Porter's corps
still lay between Mechanicsville and New Bridge, on the north bank of
the river, and my old acquaintances, the Pennsylvania Reserves, had
joined the army, and now formed its extreme right wing. This odd
arrangement of forces was a subject of frequent comment: for the right
was thus four miles, and the left fourteen miles, from Richmond. The
four corps at once commenced to entrench, and from Smith's redoubt on
the river bluffs, to Casey's entrenched hill at White Oak, a continuous
line of moderately strong earthworks extended. But Porter and the
Reserves were not entrenched at all, and only a few horsemen were
picketed across the long reach of country from Meadow Bridge to Hanover
Court House. Both flanks, in fact, were open, and the left was a day's
march from the right. We were, meantime, drawing our supplies from White
House, twenty miles in the rear; there were no railroad guards along the
entire line, and about five companies protected the grand depot. Two
gunboats lay in the river, however, and as the teams still went to and
fro, a second depot was established at a place called Putney's or
"Garlic," five miles above White House. I went often, and at all hours
of the day and night, over this exposed and lonely route. My horse had
been, meantime, returned to the Provost Quarters, and the rightful owner
had obtained his stallion in exchange. I rode the said stallion but
once, when he proceeded to walk sideways, and several times rivalled the
renowned Pegasus in his aerial flights. The man named "Pat" essayed to
show his paces one day, but the stallion took him straight into
Stoneman's wall-tent, and that officer shook the Irishman blind. My
little bob-tailed brownie was thrice endeared to me by our separation;
but I warned the man "Pat" to keep clear of him thereafter. The man
"Pat" was a very eccentric person, who slept on the porch at Michie's,
and used to wake up the house in the small hours, with the story that
somebody was taking the chickens and the horses. He was the most
impulsive person that I ever knew, and when I entrusted despatches to
him once, he put them on the hospital boat by mistake, and they got to
New York at the close of the campaign.

Michie's soon became a correspondents' rendezvous, and we have had at
one time, at dinner, twelve representatives of five journals. The Hon.
Henry