d an old wench on the second day of our
march, enthusiastically to the advanced ranks of our Division, as they
wound around the hill in sight of Mt. Holly Church, on the main road to
Kelly's Ford, curtesying and gesturing all the while with her right
hand, as if offering welcome, while with her left she steadied on her
head the cast-away cover of a Dutch oven. A pair of half-worn army shoes
covered her feet, and the folds of her tow gown were compressed about
the waist, beneath a black leathern belt, the brass plate of which
bearing the letters "U. S.," wore a conspicuous polish.

"Massa over yonder," continued she, in response to a query from the
ranks, pointing as she spoke across the river. "Hope you cotch him.
Golly he'um slyer than a possum in a hen-roost."

The anxiety of the wench for the capture of her master, and her
statement of a pre-knowledge of the visit of the troops, were by no
means exceptional. Rarely indeed, in the history of the Rebellion, has
devotion on the part of the slave to the interest of the master been
discovered. The vaunted fealty that would make his cause their own,
lacks practical illustration. An attempt to arm them will save recruits
and arms to Uncle Sam. Nat Turner's insurrection developed their strong
faith in a day of freedom. Their wildest dreams of fancy could not have
pictured a more auspicious prelude to the realization of that faith than
the outbreak of the Rebellion. Well might

"Massa tink it day ob doom,
But we ob Jubilee."

The face of the country at this point was adorned by the most beautiful
variety of hill and dale. Compared with the region about Aquia, it had
been but little touched by the ravages of war. When it shall have been
wholly reclaimed under a banner, then to be emphatically "the Banner of
the Free," an inviting door will open to enterprising business.

A few miles further on we rested on our arms upon the summit of a ridge
overlooking that portion of the Upper Rappahannock known as Kelly's
Ford. The brilliant cavalry engagement of a few weeks previously, that
occurred upon the level ground in full view above the Ford, invested it
with peculiar interest. Who ever saw a dead cavalryman? was a question
that had been for a long time uttered as a standing joke. Hooker's
advent to command was attended by a sharp and stirring order that
speedily brought this arm of the service to a proper sense of duty.
Among the first fruits of the order w