laid around under the trees--tall, noble trees they
were--and the fresh grass was green and soft under them as on the old
'Campus,' and we had been smoking and talking over a wide, wide range of
subjects, from deep Carlyleism--of which Carlyle doubtless never
heard--to the significance of the day's orders. It was not an
inharmonious picture--Camp Alabama, so we had named it--for it was with
a 'here we rest' feeling that a dozen days before we had marched in at
noon. The ground sloped to the eastward--a single winding road of yellow
sand crept over the slope into the horizon, a mile or more away; north,
a hill rose with some abruptness; south and west, a grove of wonderful
beauty skirted the valley. A single building--an old but large log
farmhouse--stood near the tent, whose fluttering banner indicated
headquarters. This old house was well filled with commissary stores,
and, following that incomprehensible Tennessee policy, four companies of
our regiment, the twenty-third, had been detached to guard them under
Major Fanning--'a noble soldier he, but all untried.' We had never yet
seen active service, and our tents were still white and unstained. The
ground had been once the lawn of the deserted house--in the long ago
probably the home of a planter of some pretension; and, as we lay there
under the trees watching the boys over the fires, kindled for their
evening meal, the blue smoke curling up among the trees, it made, as I
have said, a most harmonious picture.

That fair June evening! I can never forget it, and I wish I were an
artist that I could show you the sloping valley, the white tents,
flushing like a girl's cheek to the good-night kisses of the sun, the
curling smoke wreaths, and far, far above the amethystine heaven, from
which floated over all a dim purple tint. I was the youngest
commissioned officer in the regiment, having been promoted to a vacancy
a week or two before through Major Fanning's influence.

We were all invited that evening to supper with our commanding officer
and his wife--who had been with him for a few days. A fresh breeze
stirred the trees at sunset, and, after slight attention to our
toilette, we dropped by twos and threes into the neighborhood of the
major's tent. A little back from the rows of other tents, a few fine
oaks made a temple in front, worthy even of its presiding genius, Grace
Fanning--but I am _not_ going to rhapsodize. She was a fair, modest,
young thing, with the girl ro