icer, scanning him from head to foot,
and then started again towards our lines. On this the Federal
Lieutenant, drawing his little sword, galloped after him, and ordered
him with an oath to throw down the rifle. The soldier halted, then
walked round the officer once again, very slowly, looking him up and
down, and at last said, pointing to his fine boots: "I shall shoot
you tomorrow, and get them boots;" then strode away to his command.
The Lieutenant made no attempt to follow.") And they were not raised
in mockery. The battle-field was the soldier's harvest, and as the
sheaves of writhing forms, under the muzzles of their deadly rifles,
increased in length and depth, the men listened with straining ears
for the word to charge. The counterstroke was their opportunity. The
rush with the bayonet was never so speedy but that deft fingers found
time to rifle the haversacks of the fallen, and such was the
eagerness for booty that it was with the greatest difficulty that the
troops were dragged off from the pursuit. It is said that at
Fredericksburg, some North Carolina regiments, which had repulsed and
followed up a Federal brigade, were hardly to be restrained from
dashing into the midst of the enemy's reserves, and when at length
they were turned back their complaints were bitter. The order to halt
and retire seemed to them nothing less than rank injustice.
Half-crying with disappointment, they accused their generals of
favouritism! "They don't want the North Car'linians to git anything,"
they whined. "They wouldn't hev' stopped Hood's Texicans--they'd hev'
let THEM go on!"

But if they relieved their own pressing wants at the expense of their
enemies, if they stripped the dead, and exchanged boots and clothing
with their prisoners, seldom getting the worst of the bargain, no
armies--to their lasting honour be it spoken, for no armies were so
destitute--were ever less formidable to peaceful citizens, within the
border or beyond it, than those of the Confederacy. It was
exceedingly seldom that wanton damage was laid to the soldier's
charge. The rights of non-combatants were religiously respected, and
the farmers of Pennsylvania were treated with the same courtesy and
consideration as the planters of Virginia. A village was none the
worse for the vicinity of a Confederate bivouac, and neither man nor
woman had reason to dread the half-starved tatterdemalions who
followed Lee and Jackson. As the grey columns, in the march th