about his mouth--

"Hartsuff, God bless you, how-de-do?"

"Stuart, how are you?"

They took a quiet turn together, speaking of old school-days, perhaps;
and when they came back to the log, Surgeon Ball produced a bottle of
whiskey, out of which all the Generals drank, wishing each other an
early peace.

"Here's hoping you may fall into our hands," said Stuart; "we'll treat
you well at Richmond!"

"The same to you!" said Hartsuff, and they all laughed.

It was a strange scene,--this lull in the hurricane. Early was a North
Carolinian, who lost nearly his whole brigade at Williamsburg. He wore a
single star upon each shoulder, and in other respects resembled a homely
farmer. He kept upon his horse, and had little to say. Crawford was gray
and mistrustful, calmly measuring Stuart with his eye, as if he intended
to challenge him in a few minutes. Hartsuff was fair and burly, with a
boyish face, and seemed a little ill at ease. Stuart sat upon a log, in
careless posture, working his jaw till the sandy gray beard brushed his
chin and became twisted in his teeth. Around, on foot and on horse,
lounged idle officers of both armies; and the little rill that trickled
behind us was choked in places with corpses. A pleasanter meeting could
not have been held, if this were a county training. The Surgeon told
Gen. Stuart that some of his relatives lived near the Confederate
Capital, and as the General knew them, he related trifling occurrences
happening in their neighborhoods, so that the meeting took the form of a
roadside gossip, and Stuart might have been a plain farmer jaunting home
from market. The General, who was called "JEB" by his associates, so far
relented finally as to give me leave to ride within the Confederate
outer lines, and Lieut. Johnson accompanied me. The corpses lay at
frequent points, and some of the wounded who had not been gathered up,
remained at the spots where they had fallen. One of these, whose leg had
been broken, was incapable of speaking, and could hardly be
distinguished from the lifeless shapes around him. The number of those
who had received their death wound on the edge of the brook, while in
the act of leaping across was very great. I fancied that their faces
retained the mingled ardor and agony of the endeavor and the pang. There
seemed to be no system in the manner of interment, and many of the
Federals had thrown down their shovels, and strolled across the
boundary, to chaff and loiter w