r all the levels, presaging heat.
_Column Forward!_ To-day was a repetition of yesterday, only accented.
The sun girded himself with greater strength, the dust grew more
stifling, the water was bad, gnats and mosquitoes made a painful cloud,
the feet in the ragged shoes were more stiff, more swollen, more
abraded. The moisture in the atmosphere weakened like a vapour bath. The
entire army, "foot cavalry" and all, marched with a dreadful slowness.
_Press Forward--Press Forward--Press Forward--Press Forward!_ It grew to
be like the humming insects on either hand, a mere noise to be expected.
"Going to Richmond--Going to Richmond--Yes, of course we're going to
Richmond--unless, indeed, we're going a roundabout way against McDowell
at Fredericksburg! Richmond will keep. It has kept a long time--ever
since William Byrd founded it. General Lee is there--and so it is all
right--and we can't go any faster. War isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Oh, hot, hot, hot! and skeetery! and General Humidity lives down this
way. _Press Forward--Press Forward--Press Forward. If that noise don't
stop I'll up with my musket butt and beat somebody's brains out!_"

Ashland was not reached until the late evening of this day. The men fell
upon the earth. Even under the bronze there could be seen dark circles
under their eyes, and their lips were without colour. Jackson rode along
the lines and looked. There were circles beneath his own eyes, and his
lips shut thin and grey. "Let them rest," he said imperturbably, "until
dawn." There rode beside him an officer from Lee. He had now the
latter's General Order, and he was almost a day behind.

Somewhat later, in the house which he occupied, his chief of staff,
Ewell and the brigadiers gone, the old man, Jim, appeared before him.
"Des you lis'en ter me er minute, gineral! Ob my sartain circumspection
I knows you didn't go ter bed las' night--nurr de night befo'--nurr de
night befo' dat--'n' I don' see no preperation for yo' gwine ter bed
dish-yer night! Now, dat ain' right. W'at Miss Anna gwine say w'en she
heah erbout hit? She gwine say you 'stress her too much. She gwine say
you'll git dar quicker, 'n' fight de battle better, ef you lie down
erwhile 'n' let Jim bring you somethin' ter eat--"

"I have eaten. I am going to walk in the garden for awhile."

He went, all in bronze, with a blue gleam in his eye. Jim looked after
him with a troubled countenance. "Gwine talk wif de Lawd--talk all night
lo