d begun to appear, but,
one and all, the invalids declared that this was their good day.
"Shucks! What's a little ague? Anyhow, it'll go away when we get back to
the Valley. Going back to the Valley? Well, we should think so! This
country's got an eerie kind of good looks, and it raises sweet potatoes
all right, but for steady company give us mountains! We'll drop
McClellan in one of these swamps, and we'll have a review at the fair
grounds at Richmond so's all the ladies can see us, and then we'll go
back to the Valley pike and Massanutton and Mr. Commissary Banks! They
must be missing us awful. Somebody sing something,--

"Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,
Whom we shall see no more!
He wore a grey Confederate coat
All buttoned down before--"

"Don't like it that way? All right--"

"He wore a blue damn-Yankee coat
All buttoned down before--"

The Stonewall Brigade passed a new-made grave in a small graveyard, from
which the fence had been burned. A little further on they came to a
burned smithy; the blacksmith's house beside it also a ruin, black and
charred. On a stone, between two lilac-bushes, sat a very old man.
Beside him stood a girl, a handsome creature, dark and bright-cheeked.
"Send them to hell, boys, send them to hell!" quavered the old man. The
girl raised a sweet and vibrant voice: "Send them to hell, men, send
them to hell!"

"We'll do our best, ma'am, we'll do our best!" answered the Stonewall.

The sun mounted high. They were moving now through thick woods, broken
by deep creeks and bits of swamp. All about were evidences enough that
an army had travelled before them, and that that army was exceedingly
careless of its belongings. All manner of impediments lay squandered;
waste and ruin were everywhere. Sometimes the men caught an odour of
burning meat, of rice and breadstuffs. In a marshy meadow a number of
wrecked, canvas-topped wagons showed like a patch of mushrooms, giant
and dingy. In a forest glade rested like a Siegfried smithy an abandoned
travelling forge. Camp-kettles hacked in two were met with, and boxes of
sutlers' wares smashed to fragments. The dead horses were many, and
there was disgust with the buzzards, they rose or settled in such
clouds. The troops, stooping to drink from the creeks, complained that
the water was foul.

Very deep woods appeared on the horizon. "Guide s