's skirmish line feeling the way through the
tender green foliage of the spring. The days were warm and the leaves
far advanced--the woods so dense it was impossible for picket or
skirmisher to see more than a hundred yards ahead--at some points not a
hundred feet.

The thin, silent line suddenly swept into the little opening of a negro
cabin with garden and patch of corn. A kindly old colored woman was
standing in the doorway.

She looked into the faces of these eager, slender Southern boys and they
were her "children." The meaning of war was real to her only when it
meant danger to those she loved.

She ran quickly up to Ned, her eyes dancing with excitement:

"For de Lawd's sake, honey, don't you boys go up dat road no fudder!"

"Why, Mammy?" he asked with a smile.

"Lordy, chile, dey's thousan's, an' thousan's er Yankees des over dat
little hill dar--dey'll kill every one er you all!"

"I reckon not, Mammy," Ned called, hurrying on.

She ran after him, still crying:

"For Gawd's sake, come back here, honey--dey kill ye sho!"

She was calling still as Ned disappeared beyond the cabin into the woods
redolent now with the blossoms of chinquepin bushes and the rich odors
of sweet shrub.

They climbed the little ridge on whose further slope lay an open field,
and caught their first view of Howard's unsuspecting division. They
halted and sent their couriers flying with the news to Jackson.

Ned looked on the scene with a thrill of exultation and then a sense of
deepening pity. The boys in blue had begun to bivouac for the night,
their camp fires curling through the young green leaves. The men were
seated in groups laughing, talking, joking and playing cards. The horses
were busy cropping the young grass.

"God have mercy on them!" Ned exclaimed.

It was nearly six o'clock before Jackson's men had all slipped silently
into position behind the dense woods on this little slope--in two long
grim battle lines, one behind the other, with columns in support, his
horse artillery with their big guns shotted and ready.

Ned saw a slight stir in the doomed camp of blue. The men were standing
up now and looking curiously toward those dense woods. A startled flock
of quail had swept over their heads flying straight down from the lull
crest. A rabbit came scurrying from the same direction--and then
another. And then another flock of quail swirled past and pitched among
the camp fires, running and darting in terror on