road leading through Port Republic, south and
west to Staunton. Close on the eastern horizon rose the Blue Ridge. To
this side turned off a rougher, narrower way, piercing at Brown's Gap
the great mountain barrier between the Valley and Piedmont Virginia.

The column was put into motion, the troops stepping out briskly. Warm
and lovely was the sunshine, mildly still the air. Big cherry trees were
in bloom by the wayside: there was a buzzing of honey bees, a slow
fluttering of yellow butterflies above the fast drying mud puddles.
Throughout the ranks sounded a clearing of throats; it was evident that
the men felt like singing, presently would sing. The head of the column
came to the Brown's Gap Road.

"What's that stony old road?" asked a Winchester man.

"That's a road over the mountains into Albemarle. Thank the Lord--"

"_Column left._ MARCH!"

It rang infernally. _Column left._ MARCH!--Not a freight boat horn
winding up the James at night, not the minie's long screech, not
Gabriel's trump, not anything could have sounded at this moment so
mournfully in the ears of the Army of the Valley. It wheeled to the
left, it turned its back to the Valley, it took the stony road to
Brown's Gap, it deeply tasted the spring of tragic disappointment.

The road climbed and climbed through the brilliant weather. Spur and wall,
the Blue Ridge shimmered in May greenery, was wrapped in happy light and
in sweet odours, was carpeted with wild flowers and ecstatic with singing
birds. Only the Army of the Valley was melancholy--desperately melancholy.
Here and there through openings, like great casements in the foliage,
wide views might be had of the Valley they were leaving. Town and farm
and mill with turning wheel were there, ploughed land and wheat fields,
Valley roads and Valley orchards, green hills and vales and noble woods,
all the great vale between mountain chains, two hundred miles from north
to south, twenty-five from Blue Ridge to Alleghenies! The men looked
wistfully, with grieved, children's faces.

At the top of the mountain there was a short halt. The up-hill pull had
been hard enough, heavy hearts and all! The men dropped upon the earth
between the pine trees of the crest. For the most part they lay in the
sullen silence with which they had climbed. Some put their heads upon
their arms, tilted hat or cap over their eyes. Others chewed a twig or
stalk of grass and gazed upon the Valley they were leaving, or upon the