This was amusing, I thought, but not
very clever, and rather immodest. Had they been handsome, some romance
might have attached to the act; but being homely and not marriageable, I
smiled at the occurrence and entered it in my diary as "patriotism run
mad." The stable arrangements were, if possible, worse. One had to be
certain, from actual presence, that his horse was fed at all, and during
the first three days of my tenure, the black hostler lost me a breast
strap, a halter, a crupper strap, and finally emptied my saddle-bags.

Now and then a woman made her appearance at a front window, stealthily
peeping into the street, or a neighboring farmer ventured into town upon
a lean consumptive mule. The very dogs were skinny and savage for want
of sustenance, and when a long, cadaverous hog emerged from nowhere one
day, and tottered up the main street, he was chased, killed, and
quartered so rapidly, that the famous steam process seemed to have been
applied to him, of being dropped into a hopper, and tumbling out, a
medley of hams, ribs, lard, and penknives. The stock of provisions at
the hotel finally gave out, and I was compelled to purchase morsels of
meat from the steward. Dreadful visions of famishing ensued, but
ultimately the railway was opened to town, and a sutler started a shop
in the village. I lived upon sardines and crackers for two days, and a
Major Fifield, Superintendent of Military Railroads, gave me savory
breakfasts of ham afterward. Troops were now concentrating in the
neighborhood of Culpepper, and a bevy of camps encircled the little
village. Crawford's Brigade, of Banks's Corps, garrisoned the place, and
a Provost Marshal occupied the quaint Court House. Reconnoissances were
made southward daily, and I joined one of these, which left the village
on the second of August, at three o'clock, for Orange Court House,
seventeen miles on the way to Richmond. Detachments of a Vermont and a
New York cavalry regiment composed the reconnoitring party, and the
whole was commanded by Gen. Crawford, a clever and unostentatious
soldier. We bivouacked that night near Raccoon Ford, on the river
Rapidan. No fires were built; for we knew that the enemy was all around
us, and we slept coldly and imperfectly till the gray of Sunday morning.
At daylight we galloped into the main street of Orange Court House,
having first sent a squadron around the village, to ride in at the other
end. At the very moment of our entry, a compa