knapsacks upon the sidewalk, in order that they
could be taken up while the command would pass. It was marched by
another route, however, and in the cold, pelting rain, the men, while
marching up the opposite slopes of the Rappahannock, had ample reason to
reflect upon the cold forethought that could crowd a Head-quarters'
train, and deprive them of their proper allowance of clothing. Six hours
later, our Division had the credit of furnishing about the only booty
left by the army that the Rebels found upon their reoeccupation of the
town.

Sadly and quietly, the troops retrod the familiar mud of their old camp
grounds. The movement had been a failure--a costly one in private and
national sacrifices,--and no one felt it more keenly than the
broad-shouldered, independent, and much injured Burnside. Strange that
this costly sacrifice should have been offered up on ground hallowed in
our early struggle for freedom--that the bodies of our brave volunteers,
stripped by traitor hands, should lie naked on the plain that bears a
monument to that woman of many virtues, "Mary, the mother of
Washington"--that ground familiar to the early boyhood of the Great
Patriot, should have been the scene of one of the noblest, although
unsuccessful, contests of the war. Fit altar for such a sacrifice! A
shrine for all time of devout patriots, who will here renew their
vows,--of fidelity to this God-given Government,--of eternal enmity to
traitors,--and thus consecrate to posterity the heavy population we have
left in the Valley.

CHAPTER XVII.

_The Sorrows of the Sutler--The Sutler's Tent--Generals
manufactured by the Dailies--Fighting and Writing--A Glandered
Horse--Courts-martial--Mania of a Pigeon-hole General on the
Subject--Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel in Strait-Jackets._

If the reader can imagine the contents of his nearest corner grocery
thrown confusedly together under a canvas covering, he will have a
tolerably correct idea of the interior of a Sutler's tent. Probably, to
make the likeness more truthful, sardines, red herring, and cheese,
should be more largely represented than is customary in a corner
grocery.

Our Sutler, although upon his first campaign, was no novice in the
craft. He could be hail-fellow-well-met with the roughest of crowds
thronging the outside of his rude counter, and at the same time keep an
eye upon the cash drawer. And he was behind no one in "casting his bread
upon the waters," in the sha