ictate. It was as follows:--

"_My dear Mary, we are going into action soon, and I send you my love.
Kiss baby, and if I am not killed I will write to you after the fight._"
The man asked me to mail the scrap at the first opportunity; but the
same post which carried his simple billet, carried also his name among
the rolls of the dead.

At five o'clock I overtook Crawford's brigade, drawn up in front of a
fine girdle of timber, in a grass field, and on the edge of Cedar Creek.
Their ambulances had been unhitched, and ranged in a row against the
woods and the soldiers were soon formed in line of battle, extending
across the road, with their faces toward the mountain. In this order
they moved through the creek, and disappeared behind the ridge of a
cornfield. The hill towered in front, but with the naked eye I could
distinguish only a speck of floating something above the roof of
Slaughter's white house. This was said to be a flag, though I did not
believe it; and as there were no evidences of any enemy, which I could
determine, I turned my attention to the immediate necessities of myself
and my horse. A granary lay at a little distance, and as I was hastening
thither, a trooper came along with a blanket full of corn. Fortuitously,
he dropped about a dozen ears, which I secured, and hitched my animal to
a tree, where he munched until I had fallen asleep. The latter event
happened in this wise.

I had observed a slight person in the uniform of a surgeon. He was
dividing a large lump of pork at the time, and three great crackers lay
before him. I approached and introduced myself, and in a few minutes I
was a partial proprieter of the meat, and he a recipient of some drink.
The same person directed me to occupy a shelf of the ambulance, and when
we lay down together he narrated some of his experiences in Martinsburg,
when the Confederates occupied the place after Banks's retreat. He had
charge of a hospital at that time, and witnessed the entrance of the
Confederate army. The wildness of the people was unbounded, he said, and
all who had given so much as a drop of cold water to the invaders were
pointed out and execrated. The properties of a few, said to be
Unionists, were endangered; and ruffianly soldiers climbed to the
windows of the hospital, hooting and taunting the sick. Not to be
outdone in bitterness, the tenants flung up their crutches and cheered
for the "Union,"--that darling idea, which has marshalled a million