true, sir," answered the officer, "that I shall take
pleasure in seeing that, when this need is past, your horses are
returned to you. I promise you that you shall have them back in a very
few days. What church do you attend?"

The second soldier returned with the horses. The first mounted stiffly,
pulled a forage cap over his eyes, and gathered up the reins. The light
had now really strengthened. All things were less like shadows. The
Louisa County man saw his visitor somewhat plainly, and it came into his
mind that he had seen him before, though where or when--He was all
wrapped up in a cloak, with a cap over his eyes. The two hurried away,
down the Richmond road, and the despoiled farmer began to think:
"Where'd I see him--Richmond? No, 't wasn't Richmond. After Manassas,
when I went to look for Hugh? Rappahannock? No, 't wasn't there.
Lexington? Good God! That was Stonewall Jackson!"

CHAPTER XXIX

THE NINE-MILE ROAD

In the golden afternoon light of the twenty-third of June, the city of
Richmond, forty thousand souls, lay, fevered enough, on her seven hills.
Over her floated the stars and bars. In her streets rolled the drum.
Here it beat quick and bright, marking the passage of some regiment from
the defences east or south to the defences north. There it beat deep
and slow, a muffled drum, a Dead March--some officer killed in a
skirmish, or dying in a hospital, borne now to Hollywood. Elsewhere,
quick and bright again, it meant Home Guards going to drill. From the
outskirts of the town might be heard the cavalry bugles blowing,--from
the Brook turnpike and the Deep Run turnpike, from Meadow Bridge road
and Mechanicsville road, from Nine-Mile and Darbytown and Williamsburg
stage roads and Osborne's old turnpike, and across the river from the
road to Fort Darling. From the hilltops, from the portico or the roof of
the Capitol, might be seen the camp-fires of Lee's fifty thousand
men--the Confederate Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Rappahannock,
the Army of Norfolk, the Army of the Peninsula--four armies waiting for
the arrival of the Army of the Valley to coalesce and become the Army of
Northern Virginia. The curls of smoke went up, straight, white, and
feathery. With a glass might be seen at various points the crimson flag,
with the blue St. Andrew's cross and the stars, eleven stars, a star for
each great State of the Confederacy. By the size you knew the arm--four
feet square for infantry, three