un. The
Shenandoah, like a silver thread broken by intervening foliage, lay at
their feet. Far to the right, miles distant, was Charlestown, where old
John's soul, appreciative of the beauties of nature at the dread hour of
execution, seeing in them doubtless the handiwork of nature's God,
exclaimed "This is indeed a beautiful country." In the front, dim in the
distance, was Winchester, readily discovered by the bold mountain spur
in its rear. Smaller villages dotted the valley, variegated by fields
and woods--all rebellious cities of the plain, nests of treason and
granaries of food for traitors. A blind mercy that, on the part of the
Administration, that procured its almost total exemption from the
despoiling hand of war.

Some in the ranks on Snicker's Summit that fine morning could remember
the impudent Billingsgate of look and tongue with which Mrs. Faulkner
would fling in their faces a general pass, from a wagon loaded with
garden truck for traitors in arms at Bunker Hill--but an instance of
long continued good-nature, to use a mild phrase, of the many that have
characterized our movements in the field. Well does the great discerner
of the desires of men as well as delineator of the movements of their
passions, make Crook Richard on his foully usurped and tottering throne
exclaim,

"War must be brief when traitors brave the field."

At a later day, in a holier cause, the line remains an axiom. Nor at the
time of which we write was the policy much changed. While all admit the
necessity, for the preservation of proper discipline, of having Rebel
property for the use of the army taken formally under authorities duly
constituted for the purpose, and not by indiscriminate license to the
troops, none can be so blind as to fail to see the bent of the
sympathies controlling the General in command. During the march to
Middle-Borough, horses were taken along the route to supply deficiencies
in the teams, and forage for their use, but in all cases the women who
claimed to represent absent male owners--absent doubtless in arms--and
who made no secret of their own Rebel inclinations, received
Quarter-Master's receipts for their full value--generally, in fact,
their own valuation. These receipts were understood to be presently
payable. The interests of justice and our finances would have been much
better subserved had their payment been conditioned upon the loyalty of
the owner. A different policy would not have co