ourt House as headquarters. Our line of
pickets intercepts the Leesburg turnpike at Drainesville and extends to
the Potomac, a distance of about twenty miles.

GUERILLAS AND BUSHWHACKERS.

As guerillas and their brethren, the bushwhackers, infest the country
more or less, picketing is dangerous as well as difficult. Between the
Rappahannock and the Potomac lies a vast territory which abounds in
creeks, marshes, deep, dark forests, with only here and there a village
or settlement. A little to the west of this plain extend the Bull Run
Mountains, with their ravines and caverns. This is a very fit
hiding-place for mischief-makers. The guerillas consist mostly of
farmers and mechanics, residents of this region, who, by some means, are
exempt from the Rebel conscription. Most of them follow their usual
avocations daring the day, and have their rendezvous at night, where
they congregate to lay their plans of attack on the pickets.

They resort to every stratagem which a vile and savage spirit could
inspire. Sometimes a picket is approached by the stealthiest creeping
through the dark thickets, when the unfortunate sentinel is seized and
quickly despatched by a bowie-knife, or other like weapon, which a
Southron can always use most dexterously. When mere stealth cannot
accomplish the task, other methods are used. For instance, on a dark
night, a vedette, stationed by a thick underbrush, heard a cow-bell
approaching him, and supposing that the accompanying rustle of leaves
and crackling of dry limbs was occasioned by a bovine friend,
unwittingly suffered himself to be captured by a bushwhacker. But the
boys soon learned to be suspicious of every noise they heard; so much
so, that one night a picket, hearing footsteps approaching him, cried
out, "Halt! Who comes there?" His carbine was instantly brought to a
ready, and as no halt occurred nor answer was made, a second challenge
was given; but failing to effect any thing, he fired in the direction of
the noise, when he distinctly heard a heavy fall, and then groans, as of
somebody dying. The sergeant of the post, running up to ascertain the
cause of the alarm, found that an unfortunate ox, that had been grazing
his way through the forest, lay dying, with his forehead perforated by
the faithful sentry's bullet. The incident caused considerable
merriment, and the pickets were supplied with poor Confederate beef
during the remainder of their term of duty.

But the attacks are