settled himself astride a bough. "I don't really know."

"Don't know! To what command do you belong?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know! What is your State?"

"Really and truly, I don't--O Lord!" The Texan scrambled down, saluted
most shamefacedly. The horseman looked hard and grim enough. "Well, sir,
what is the meaning of this? And can you give me any reason why you
should not mount guard for a month?"

Tears were in the Texan's eyes. "General, general! I didn't know 't was
you! Give you my word, sir, I thought it was just anybody! We've had
orders every morning to say, 'I don't know'--and it's gotten to be a
joke--and I was just fooling. Of course, sir, I don't mean that it has
gotten to be a joke--only that we all say 'I don't know' when we ask
each other questions, and I hope, sir, that you'll understand that I
didn't know that 't was you--"

"I understand," said Jackson. "You might get me a handful of cherries."

On the twenty-first the leading brigades reached Fredericksburg.
"To-morrow is Sunday," said the men. "That ought to mean a battle!"
While wood and water were being gotten that evening, a rumour went like
a zephyr from company to company: "We'll wait here until every regiment
is up. Then we'll move north to Fredericksburg and meet McDowell."

The morrow came, a warm, bright Sunday. The last brigade got up, the
artillery arrived, the head of the ammunition train appeared down the
road. There were divine services, but no battle. The men rested,
guessing Fredericksburg and McDowell, guessing Richmond and McClellan,
guessing return to the Valley and Shields, Fremont, Banks, and Sigel.
They knew now that they were within fifty miles of Richmond; but if they
were going there anyhow, why--why--why in the name of common sense had
General Lee sent Whiting, Hood, and Lawton to the Valley? Was it
reasonable to suppose that he had marched them a hundred and twenty
miles just to march them back a hundred and twenty miles? The men agreed
that it wasn't common sense. Still, a number had Richmond firmly fixed
in their minds. Others conceived it not impossible that the Army of the
Valley might be on its way to Tennessee to take Memphis, or even to
Vicksburg, to sweep the foe from Mississippi. The men lounged beneath
the trees, or watched the weary Virginia Central bringing in the fag end
of things. Fredericksburg was now the road's terminus; beyond, the line
had been destroyed by a cavalry raid of McClellan's.