ills and laid them upon
the desk.

"Gineral Crawford," said he, "orders these boys to be locked up in the
jail. They have been passing this stuff upon the country folks, and
belong to a gang of young varmints who follers the 'lay.' The Gineral is
going to have 'em brought up at the proper time and punished."

The bills were fair imitations of Confederate currency, and were openly
sold in the streets of Northern cities at the rate of thousands of
dollars for a penny. These lads probably purchased horses, swine, or
fowls with them, or perhaps paid some impoverished widow for board in
the worthless counterfeit.

The younger lad sobbed and howled when the order for his incarceration
had been announced, but the elder made a stout remonstrance.

He didn't know the Gineral would arrest him. Everybody else passed the
bills. He thought they wos good bills; some man gave 'em to him. They
wan't passed, nohow, upon nobody but _Rebels_! He could prove that! He
"know'd" a quartermaster that passed 'em. Wouldn't they let him and Sam
off this wunst?

They were both sent to Coventry, despite their tears, and down to the
last day of our tenure in Culpepper, I saw these wicked urchins peeping
through the grates of the old brick jail, where they lay in the steam
and vapor, among negroes, drunkards, and thieves,--an evidence of
justice, which it is a pleasure to record, in this free narrative.

I joined a mess in the Ninth New York regiment finally, and contrived to
exist till the fifth of the month, when Pope moved his head-quarters to
a hill back of Culpepper, and thereafter I lived daintily for a little
while. On the 8th of August, however, an event occurred, which disturbed
the wisest calculations of the correspondent and the Generals, THE
BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GOING INTO ACTION.

While General Pope's army was concentrating between the Rappahannock and
Rapidan rivers, the army of General Stonewall Jackson was lying upon the
south bank of the Rapidan, and that renowned commander's head-quarters
were at Gordonsville, about thirty miles from Culpepper. It was
generally presumed that Jackson had fortified Gordonsville, intending to
lie in wait there, or possibly to oppose the crossing of Pope upon the
banks of the river. It was not believed that Jackson's force was very
great, because the main body of the Confederates were held below
Richmond, where McClellan's army still remained. The Southern capita