Captain--Old Rosy, and How to Silence Secesh Women--The Old
Woman's Fixin's--The Captain's Orderly._

Picket duty, while in this camp, was light. Even the little tediousness
connected with it was relieved by the beautifully romantic character of
the scenery. Confined entirely to the river front, the companies
detailed were posted upon the three bluffs that extended the length of
that front, and on the tow-path of the canal below.

The duty, we have said, was light. It could hardly be considered
necessary, in fact, were it not to discipline the troops. The bluffs
were almost perpendicular, varying between seventy-five and one hundred
feet in height. Immediately at their base was the Chesapeake and Ohio
canal, averaging six feet in depth. A narrow towing-path separated it
from the Potomac, which, in a broad, placid, but deep stream, broken
occasionally by the sharp points of shelving rocks, mostly sunken, that
ran in ridges parallel with the river course, flowed languidly; the
water being dammed below as before mentioned.

On one of the most inclement nights of the season, the Company
commanded by our Western Virginia captain had been assigned the
towing-path as its station. No enemy was in front, nor likely to be,
from the manner in which that bank of the river was commanded by our
batteries. In consequence, a few fires, screened by the bushes along the
river bank, were allowed. Around these, the reserve and officers not on
duty gathered.

In a group standing around a smoky fire that struggled for existence
with the steadily falling rain, stood our captain. His unusual silence
attracted the attention of the crowd, and its cause was inquired into.

"Boys, I'm disgusted; for the first time in my life since I have been in
service; teetotally disgusted with the way things are carried on. I'm no
greenhorn at this business either," continued the captain, assuming, as
he spoke, the position of a soldier, and although somewhat ungainly when
off duty, no man in the corps could take that position more correctly,
or appear to better advantage. "I served five years as an enlisted man
in an artillery regiment in the United States army, and left home in the
night when I wasn't over sixteen, to do it; part of that time was in the
Mexican war. Yes, sir, I saw nearly the whole of that. Since then, I've
been in service nearly ever since this Rebellion broke out, and the
hardest kind of service, and under nearly all kinds of officers