ence. He stood, the central figure in a dun picture, in an
atmosphere of smoke, a dirty-looking Georgian in flying coat and
high-boots. With hands in pocket he surveyed the objects brought before
him, concisely delivering his orders over the stem of his teeth-clasped
pipe. His clerk was at a table near, on which lay the papers of his
office; and the splintered rafters behind him made the background to a
cabinet-picture that should have been done in chocolate.

We were placed in charge of a rather mild-looking officer, who wore his
rank upon his sleeve in so elegantly twisted a knot that I could not
make out his degree, and who had on a brand-new riding-jacket, of a dark
blue, to which the sleeve was attached, adorned with the staff-buttons
of our army. It was his duty to command the guard that drove the
captives of the Rebel hosts, in which safe branch of the service, as I
afterwards learned, he had been engaged since '62. No doubt his many
opportunities for demanding what he wanted, and for seizing, like Ahab,
what was denied him, had furnished alike the jacket and the buttons; and
were it not for his placid countenance, I should have fathered his
entire outfit upon the Yankees,--as having fallen to his shoulders by
the same easy process. He was directed to drive us to the road at once,
and to keep his herd in motion all the time. Hurried orders had come
from headquarters, that set all the small bees about this lesser hive in
a whirl of confused labors, whereby our departure was delayed for some
moments. The provost-marshal's clerk was even then packing up his
rattling desk, pigeon-holing papers that would hatch knotty questions in
the coop, and making due preparation for the departure of the Georgian
magnate himself. I observed that their army-wagons kept trailing
southward, like chalk vertebrae, in an unbroken string, and promised for
a long while yet to obstruct the road. It was growing a little cloudy,
too. It was now three hours after noon, and I hoped nervously for a
sullen night.

Just before we set out on our melancholy march, I saw a man make a move
towards me, and hastily clap one finger across his firm lips. It was the
Adjutant T----, of whom I have spoken, and who did not wish me to
recognize him. It was his object to approach me, and to walk as a
stranger at my side, so that the guards should not part us,--and, I knew
at once, to speak of a project common to both. The old stories of our
camp-fires had fli