e was
greatly alarmed with the idea that a battle would be fought round her
house next day.

O'Ganlon, of Meagher's staff, had taken the fever, and sent anxiously
for me, to compare our symptoms.

I bade the good people adieu before I went to bed, and gave the man
"Pat" a dollar to stand by my horse while I slept, and to awake me at
any disturbance, that I might be ready to scamper. The man "Pat," I am
bound to say, woke me up thrice by the exclamation of--

"Sure, yer honor, there's--well--to pay in the yard! I think ye and the
Doctor had better ride off."

On each of those occasions, I found that the man Pat had been lonesome,
and wanted somebody to speak to.

What a sleep was mine that night! I forgot my fever. But another and a
hotter fever burned my temples,--the fearful excitement of the time!
Whither were we to go, cut off from the York, beaten before
Richmond,--perhaps even now surrounded,--and to be butchered to-morrow,
till the clouds should rain blood? Were we to retreat one hundred miles
down the hostile Peninsula,--a battle at every rod, a grave at every
footstep? Then I remembered the wounded heaped at Gaines's Mill, and how
they were groaning without remedy, ebbing at every pulse, counting the
flashing drops, calling for water, for mercy, for death. So I found
heart; for I was not buried yet. And somehow I felt that fate was to
take me, as the great poet took Dante, through other and greater
horrors.

CHAPTER XVI.

M'CLELLAN'S RETREAT.

The scene presented in Michie's lawn and oak grove, on Saturday morning,
was terribly picturesque, and characteristic of the calamity of war. The
well was beset by crowds of wounded men, perishing of thirst, who made
frantic efforts to reach the bucket, but were borne back by the stronger
desperadoes. The kitchen was swarming with hungry soldiers who begged
corn-bread and half-cooked dough from the negroes. The shady side-yard
was dotted with pale, bruised, and bleeding people, who slept out their
weariness upon the damp grass, forgetful, for the moment, of their
sores. Ambulances poured through the lane, in solemn procession, and now
and then, couples of privates bore by some wounded officer, upon a
canvas "stretcher." The lane proving too narrow, at length, for the
passing vehicles, the gate-posts and fence were torn up, and finally,
the soldiers made a footway of the hall of the dwelling.

The retreat had been in progress all night, as I had heard th