by and the cause, individualism of
a citizen soldiery, and a naive indiscipline all their own--such were
Ashby's men! Not a few now acted upon the suggestion of the devil who
tempts through horse flesh. In the dust they went by Steve like figures
of a frieze.

Inefficient even in plundering, he found himself possessed of but a
handful of crackers, a tin of sardines--a comestible he had never seen
before and did not like when he tasted it--and a bottle of what he
thought wine but proved vinegar. Disgusted, he moved to the next wagon,
overswarmed like the first by grey ants. This time it was ale,
unfamiliar still, but sufficiently to his liking. "Gawd! Jest to drink
when you're thirsty, and eat when you're hungry, and sleep when you're
sleepy--"

A drum beat, a bugle blew. _Fall in! Fall in!_ Officers passed from
wagon to wagon. They were ready enough with the flats of their swords.
"For shame, men, for shame! _Fall in! Fall in!_ General Jackson is
beyond Newtown by now. You don't want him to have to _wait_ for you, do
you? _Fall in!_"

The Valley pike, in the region of Middletown, proved a cumbered path.
From stone fence to stone fence, in the middle trough of dust, and on
the bordering of what had been, that morning, dew-gemmed grass and
flower, War the maniac had left marks. Overturned wagons formed
barriers around which the column must wind. Some were afire; the smoke
of burning straw and clothing and foodstuffs mingling with the yet
low-lying powder smoke and with the pall of Valley dust. Horses lay
stark across the way, or, dying, stared with piteous eyes. The sky was
like a bowl of brass, and in the concave buzzards were sailing. All
along there was underfoot much of soldiers' impedimenta--knapsacks,
belts, accoutrements of all kinds, rolled blankets and oilcloths,
canteens. Dead men did not lack. They lay in strange postures, and on
all the dust was thick. There were many wounded; the greater number of
these had somehow reached the foul grass and trampled flowers of the
wayside. Prisoners were met; squads brought in from the road, from
fields and woods. There was one group, men and horses covered with the
dust of all time, disarmed, hatless, breathless, several bleeding from
sabre cuts. One among them--a small man on a tall horse--indulged in
bravado. "What are you going to do with us now you've got us? You've
nowhere to take us to! Your damned capital's fallen--fell this morning!
Yes, it did! News certain. Re