My Second Capture

The Adjutant T—— and myself, not I inexperienced in battles, though, perhaps, like most Americans, infants in warfare, were captured in September last, in the Valley of the Shenandoah, Nature’s noble art-gallery, on the west side of Opequan Creek, a stream that is a picture at almost any point. In one of the gallant charges which our eager cavalry, under General Sheridan, made before the great charge that captured Winchester and the Valley, our regiment had the right, and gained a fine position in the end. But two or three encounters were very close. The sea of battle surged back and forth, tormented only, however, by the mild breezes of a day like May; and as the waves of our army withdrew from the ridge on which the enemy rested, to gain greater impetus, my poor horse was shot under me, stranded, and left rolling upon the ground, midway between friend and foe. The orderly, my attendant, had another in the rear of the retreating column; but, inasmuch as that was now swept by the swift-receding current far beyond us, he could neither have me mounted nor command other present means whereby to get me off. I reclined, like Adonis, upon a soft bed of meadow-grass studded here and there with wild-flowers, an emerald velvet with silver spangles, — but suffering, unlike him, from bruises, and with my best soulless friend dead at my side. I was somewhat sprained by the fall the dying beast had given me. The enemy was close at hand, following with yells and chaotic eagerness upon our troops.

“We’ll take a march to Libby,” said my orderly, dropping on his knees to feel my bones.

He drew his arm through his rein, (having had no idea of deserting me in his sound health by the aid of his ready animal,) and continued his examination whilst his sturdy favorite chopped the short grass within reach of his breathing hitching-post as closely as his long bit would allow. In a very few moments the Rebel foam was surging like wild beyond us, — a private pausing at me for a second, to poke me in the ribs with his piece.

“There’s life there, Grayback,” growled my attendant; and the Rebel ordered us to the rear.

Indeed, had we remained where we were, we would soon have been in the rear, so impetuously did the foe sweep by us. But private soldiers, the potent keystones of the Rebel arch, built to crush the voice of the many, command the Southern armies in every great engagement; and one of these important atoms had given us our hint to move. You never see anything but the rank and file in the heart of a Rebel corps. Our new commander mounted my orderly’s horse, and soon was lost in the distance.

It is not, I have found, a very diverting entertainment to wander free a few moments (a free prisoner) in search of some authority, out of the myriads who have the opportunity, who shall choose to take charge of one. I felt peculiarly as I stood irresolute, now framing one thought, now another, casting about in my mind, weighing the odds with no light fancy-scales, which of the rushing demons on all sides would draw up before me with a curse, and command me to follow him. Our regiment, our corps, our whole army, (this last had not left its works for the little fight,) were far in the distance now; and the ground on which I stood, and which but a short time since was tramped by Northern troops, had, in the mutations of war, become a portion of the Rebel dominions. The September sun shone brightly through the white fleece of the cloud-swans swimming in the morning air; and the early spring breeze that I have mentioned—for Æolus had given freedom to but a tender dove-zephyr—played with the silk fringe of the meadow grass, finding no olive-branch here, venturing its ripple, with the audacity of innocence, under the very heels of the contending forces. Possibly the feeling of loneliness which overwhelms a man at such a time as this is the most acute of all his feelings. I looked my orderly in the face as he supported me on his shoulder. He was gazing coolly before him.

“If we have to march soon, you had better rest,” he said, deliberately. “There’s a tree you can sit under. And if you have money or a watch, you had better hide them in your armpits.”

We went to the tree, and set ourselves against it.

The fresh air that brushed by us, like fine steel points, relieved me of my oozing faintness, and in the ease of my circumstances I could attend somewhat to my bruises. With the aid of my canteen, I relaxed the strained muscles. It was my desire to have my loins girt about and my limbs in good order for the foot-journey that I doubted not was before us. They would march us to Gordonsville, and thence to Libby, carrying us through in an incredibly short time, and without boots at that. I had two objects to labor for, as I began to get myself into condition: first, to be taken in charge by an officer; and then—to escape from him that night, whilst the train was in disorder. I was of opinion that my companion, a taciturn machine, who labored, like the miners, well with his little light, had some such plan of his own, as I saw him buckling his belt beneath his trousers. He was stowing away his watch and a photograph, — which every soldier must have, of some poor maid or other who toils in the shades of obscurity at home, — and making himself ready for a run at any favorable moment. I thought that I would sound him.

“You had better do it, orderly, soon in the day,” I said; “since the enemy will march you between two files, and you will then have but little chance.”

“So I think,” he replied. “I thought no time better than now. But then” —

“But what?” I asked.

“Well, it’s rather hard to leave you here. What with your sprain, and your blow on the head, you’re pretty sure to halt at Libby.”

I had no chance to answer, for the Rebel was before me who was to have the honor of my capture.

He was of the flabby white-flesh species of the genus Rebel, a, Quaker scarecrow with matty locks, that many of my brethren in arms have met; harmless in units, but ponderous, as even scarecrows will be, if hurled back and forth in thousands, swarms; lank, cadaverous, and whining; snuff-chewing, and grossly filthy, even under the best of circumstances. His flesh was set dough, and his hair was long and yellow. He spoke through the dirty causeway of his nose. The road-dust and drab of his uniform, so called in satire, have often been described. These gentlemen’s faces, to me, who incline to an intelligent expression on the human index, look like tallow-vats or nursery-suet, pliable and swill-fed; and their mien and carriage have never impressed me favorably. I had seen them rush with a wild yell, an army like the Paris mob of intoxicated rags, upon our Gibraltar at Gettysburg; and had myself charged upon their Attila-works (behind which they had their household gods piled up and ready for burning) at Fredericksburg. I had even taken a ball from one of them in the shoulder, whilst skirmishing, in the shiftings of my experience; and they had before had the honor of my capture, in sunny, grape-growing Maryland. Perhaps all these scenes passed in panorama before my mind’s eye, as I rose to my captor and eyed his dirty linen. Here was an indignity, indeed. My soul revolted at the thought of a journey southward, and all my instincts warned me against so dire an undertaking. I stood before the Rebel with my determination in my eye.

“A couple of Yanks, lolling under a tree,” he screamed to his companions, pointing the finger, and garnishing his speech, in Rebel manner, with an oath. “P’rhaps you thought you were off;” he chuckled.

He was “goin’” to take us to the “Gen’ral.” He muttered more oaths with his orders, and directed us to be right “smart,” and to “git.”

I glanced at my orderly, who was inaugurating an onset upon the weaker side of this mean battery, or ditch-work, — and who evidently counted upon effecting a breach by rapid, electric charges, — by handing over his pistol. It was freely offered, before demanded, and the recipient took it in silence. He then drew out his tobacco, a treasure with which, I well knew, he would not willingly part, and which was the little ewe-lamb of his unjewelled life, — which, also, was taken quickly, but under a nod of acknowledgments from the Rebel. The battery was shaken, but, in truth, continued to draw fire. “Give me your boots,” said the critical captor, and the orderly knocked off his leathers in the best good-humor in the world. When we had walked a little farther, the orderly, now marching as the Moslems do on holy ground, asked our guide if he had any grub about him; and accepted a piece of pork. There was a variety of viands in the haversack from which this fragment came, — both pork and bacon, — but the fire-eaters, I have noticed, always prefer the latter meat. I divined at once that my orderly was laying in stores for a solitary tramp, and making a raven in this, to him, strange desert, of the ill-omened bird that had pounced upon us. He would conciliate his enemy, and when the latter was growing careless he would spring into some woods. The pork, with the berries to be found there, would sustain him after he had broken leash, — and would be all that he would eat, no doubt, in the course of two or three suns.

We noticed a great stir on all sides of us, converging streams of stragglers, wounded men, and prisoners, as we made our way, scattering grasshoppers, over the fields, and soon mingled with the throng of troops on the open road to Winchester. It was about three miles from this town that our capture had taken place; and from the immense wagon-trains rumbling along with us, and the excited manner of their officers, I augured not as well for the Rebel cause. Perhaps Fortune had altered her humor, and the white eagles of victory had settled with the opposite side. Other parties of Union prisoners journeyed with us, and through the urgent manner of their guards I thought I could discern a sunlit loop-hole to freedom. In five minutes’ time I was assured that the Rebels were preparing, to retreat. Their six-horse teams were rushing to the rear, and their outlying bodies of cavalry were being hurriedly dispatched the other way. My mind was very busy upon the new aspect of affairs.

The last I saw of my orderly was when he had divested himself of the workman’s incumbrance, — his coat, — and was tramping, bootless, haltingly along in the dustiest part of the road. He had conciliated his watchman into almost indifference, and was spreading himself with the sand, (tossed knee-high in little clouds by his feet,) having then become quite a Rebel in looks. In five minutes I turned upon him; but he had fallen out of the squad. I have never seen him since.

My own plans would keep me in the Rebel lines some hours longer. It was my object to escape; but I had already decided upon the evening, when darkness, and, I hoped, rain, would settle down upon us. I indulged a hasty prayer in behalf of the vanished man, and durst not more than snatch a look at where he should have been, lest the guard should miss him also. At one mile beyond Winchester, which town we had avoided by a branching road, we came to the office of the provost marshal, a very humble shell-work; and those of us who wore shoulder-straps were hustled into his presence. He stood, the central figure in a dun picture, in an atmosphere of smoke, a dirty-looking Georgian in flying coat and high-boots. With hands in pocket he surveyed the objects brought before him, concisely delivering his orders over the stern of his teeth-clasped pipe. His clerk was at a table near, on which lay the papers of his office; and the splintered rafters behind him made the background to a cabinet-picture that should have been done in chocolate.

We were placed in charge of a rather mild-looking officer, who wore his rank upon his sleeve in so elegantly twisted a knot that I could not make out his degree, and who had on a brand-new riding-jacket, of a dark blue, to which the sleeve was attached, adorned with the staff-buttons of our army. It was his duty to command the guard that drove the captives of the Rebel hosts, in which safe branch of the service, as I afterwards learned, he had been engaged since ’62. No doubt his many opportunities for demanding what he wanted, and for seizing, like Ahab, what was denied him, had furnished alike the jacket and the buttons; and were it not for his placid countenance, I should have fathered his entire outfit upon the Yankees, — as having fallen to his shoulders by the same easy process. He was directed to drive us to the road at once, and to keep his herd in motion all the time. Hurried orders had come from head-quarters, that set all the small bees about this lesser hive in a whirl of confused labors, whereby our departure was delayed for some moments. The provost-marshal’s clerk was even then packing up his rattling desk, pigeon-holing papers that would hatch knotty questions in the coop, and making due preparation for the departure of the Georgian magnate himself. I observed that their army-wagons kept trailing southward, like chalk vertebrae, in an unbroken string, and promised for a long while yet to obstruct the road. It was growing a little cloudy, too. It was now three hours after noon, and I hoped nervously for a sullen night.

Just before we set out on our melancholy march, I saw a man make a move towards me, and hastily clap one finger across his firm lips. It was the Adjutant T——, of whom I have spoken, and who did not wish me to recognize him. It was his object to approach me, and to walk as a stranger at my side, so that the guards should not part us, — and, I knew at once, to speak of a project common to both. The old stories of our camp-fires had flitted across his mind, and had blanched his cheek since morning. His blood was just thawing as he signalled me. I took no notice of him till after we had started, a company of men with bent brows, and he had marched on my right some forty rods. I then muttered slowly, “Speak little, and to the point”; whereat he waved his hand. It was singular and sad to ignore thus an old companion in the very hour of need, when surely a bitterness hung upon our souls that more than ever required balm. We were, perforce, to play the stranger, when at no time in life did we more thirst for the tender friend. Doubtless, our hopes of escape depended much upon each other; and we could but communicate those plans in insufficient monosyllables, which, if misunderstood, would lead to disaster. If ever plentiful words, in great ear-measures, are pardonable, it is at such moments as this, — when even half-words—diamonds flashing betrayal—are imprudent. The Adjutant edged a little closer.

“Before dark, or after?” he asked.

To which I replied, —

“After.”

He gradually glided away from me, and for some time marched at the other side of the column.

I had noticed that he was walking without his jacket. The guards were accosting the officers in their neighborhood, and had taken his among other vestments. Most of the party of sad victims were well peeled ere their melancholy was an hour older. A rough boor turned to me and demanded my gauntlets. A basilisk fire shone through his eyes, and the breath which he blew through the grating of his teeth, over his thin, livid lips, and into my face, was freighted heavily with the fumes of whiskey. When I made bold to refuse him, he was dumbfoundered in astonishment, and was pleased to compress his jaws.

“You d——d Yankee!” he screamed, profanely, red with the inspiration of his anger, “if you don’t give me your gauntlets, I’ll tear your hands from your body.”

There was enough energy in his action to have guarantied even a more vehement manœuvre; and as he made his threat, he raised his arm above me. But I had it in my mind to see myself through the affair in the course that I had chosen; and having noticed our mild officer a few paces in the rear of us, mounted upon his horse, and placidly sitting with his hand upon the pommel, I turned to him at once.

“If you will do me the favor, Sir,” I said, with some gravity of manner, “I would like you to accept my gauntlets, — a new pair from the box, that has only seen this day’s work.”

“They’ve had an unlucky birthday,” he said, not inaptly, and rather courteously, as he took them.

“Yes, my gloves heretofore have all been spoiled by the sabre,” I replied, keeping step with his charger. “I don’t know but that you have to thank a drunken guard for the pair, Sir; since he threatened to kill me, if I kept them on my hands.”

He gave a hasty look for his orderly.

“Point out the man, if you can, Sir,” he said to me, and beckoned a trooper to his side.

“I am obliged to you for your interference,” I answered. “The man marches third on the left there, and has his piece slung behind him. I hope that some day, Sir, I may do you a favor.”

A sense of humor, for which I must be grateful, considering the sombre dejection of my marching mates, filled my breast as I thanked him for putting one under guard for attempting (drunk) what he himself so soberly accomplished, — the capture of my buckskins. He kept the gauntlets very willingly, and ordered a sergeant to accompany me. But there was generosity and magnificence in his action; the acquisition, per duress, of others’ property was a daily habit with him, — and to have a sergeant for a guard was a considerable favor.

It was my desire to cultivate the Sergeant thus cast within my reach, who otherwise might be a marplot, and who had good of some sort in him, I judged from his appearance; although, as with his kind, it was evidently very barren winter in his purse, and his summer clothes were apparently too open. His butternut jacket, a poor tweed with a cotton filling, was clasped about his throat with a shred of twine, flying away thence loosely, showing a dirty cotton shirt beneath, and the rough edge of the waistband of his pantaloons. The material of which these last were made was a very impressible jean, and marked the number of his journeys, could one but decipher them, in stains and intricate creases. He had the same face of lifeless suet, and the yellow hair, that I have noticed as very prevalent in the Rebel armies, — but withal an elasticity of carriage that seemed too honest for the cause, an almost openness of countenance, a cast of features tending towards amiability, which imbued me with a trembling hope. I had designs upon the Sergeant, and intended opening upon him with rhetoric, after, perhaps, some amicable skirmishing. His detail to guard my person was a compliment to me which only the initiated—those who have made the same journey—can appreciate. The young provost-officer with the sleeve-knots desired to offer me a delicate attention in return for my hand-furniture, and, perhaps, to impress me in some sort with his sense of right, even though he was of so wrong-headed a company. What a dainty, dew-sipping bunch of violets would be to conscious beauty, — what a quaint volume of old matter, dust-breeding and crumbling, would be to the blinking scholar, — what refined gold, or gold ore, or gold stamped in the mint, would be to a Wall-Street broker, — was this sergeant to myself. He was the gift of a royal potentate who stood not upon little matters. There was no calculation in the largess. I was to have the entire sergeant as all my own. We fell a rod behind the officer, and trudged evenly along.

Although big with an evil design, I did not intend to address my companion at once. The monotony of my walk, as I had at present nought else to think of, I allowed to engage a number of my thoughts. I hazarded conjectures upon many idle points, as my narrative will show. I fell to watching my feet, and to placing them, as far as practicable, directly in the footmarks of him who marched before me, instituting a sort of comparison between our soles, finding his smaller than mine, as, behind his back, I ventured upon his measure. I watched the ruts in the road, made by the wagons in advance of us, and wondered if those behind us had axle-trees as wide to an inch, — as they would have, if made by the same contractor; — in which case, I mused, it is just possible the coming train may move in this same rut. It seemed, then, a comfortable sort of place. I saw the clouds of dust that had been provoked into rising in anger and rolling away sullenly many a day that weary summer, and that almost buried the wretched company in which we journeyed, hover heavily above the road-side, and choke the pretty weeds blooming there, by way of a mean revenge upon its human tormentors. Thereupon I envied the blue things, not their incubus, but their insignificance: for neither artillery, nor camp wagon, nor passing prisoner was aught to them. I wondered what each man here would say, if each man could tell his thoughts. Primarily, I was convinced, each captive would declare himself sick at heart: that is the only expression which will convey the sinking feeling. Once I heard a bird sing gayly a clear-throated song from a clump of trees; at which my heart grew sick also, to render me as miserable as the rest.

My mind reverted to the Adjutant T——, of the manner of whose capture I knew nothing, and whom I had left that morning in camp, as the regiment set out for the fight. I doubted not but that he would be with me in a moment, to throw another mild projectile, a half-sentence, at me. I had myself a catechism of one question with which to greet him. As some little parley might be necessary between us, which could not go on without the consent of our guardian, I concluded that then was the time to throw a sop to my sergeant. I turned coolly upon him.

“We are marching rather briskly, are we not, Sergeant?” I said, endeavoring to insinuate the independence of unconcern in my bearing.

“Wal, — right smart,” he replied.

“I cannot tell by your uniform,” I continued, with a half-smile, for the fellow was all beggar’s rags and patches, “whether you are in the cavalry or not; but a pair of spurs, at any rate, may not come amiss to you, — and I can have no use for mine for some time yet. They don’t allow us, I believe, to kick one another in Libby?”

I took my long spurs from my boots, like fringe from my heart-strings, (of which the officer had directed my sergeant to allow no one to deprive me, — the boots, not the heart-strings, they being inaccessible: I would, possibly, not lose those till I arrived in Richmond,) and handed them over to him.

“I’m of the Thirteenth Virginia Infantry,” he said, “but do right smart duty on horseback” (he liked the steel). “I’m detailed to the provost marshal. They do treat a fellow rather hard down there.”

I augured ever so much good from the Sergeant’s “do,” upon which there was an emphasis.

“Were you ever a prisoner, Sergeant?” I asked, always careful to bestow his title.

“Once,” he said, laconically.

“Well! it’s all one in the end,” I said, carelessly turning from him, to show that I had no desire for the conversation, if he did not relish it. “You have a chance now to give me the devil of a time, in revenge for your treatment among my friends. ’T is an ill wind that blows nobody good.”

My sang-froid had the savor of a good pickle. It was a very peculiar turn to give the affair, I must own; but I saw that the Sergeant was struck by it. Possibly, that one was my best stroke of the day. I have, at any rate, ever since deemed it so.

I walked along as before, speculating, not lightly, upon the dejected beings about me, who marched, spectre-fashion, in the dust, like the unhappy (would-be) crew on the shores of the Styx, trying to appease Charon. They never would be at rest till he ferried them over to the shades of the world of death, — or (what to them seemed impossible) till they were remanded back to life among the loved ones of their race. I remember particularly one trifle of this momentous march, that threatened towards night to gnaw into my very brain-tissues. Soldiers, it is known, are not over-careful in their dress, when in daily action in the field, nor have they time to grow fastidious during the fighting summer months. They then, perforce, disregard tapes with a loftier indifference to appearances than that which distinguishes the noble cynic of the world. But officers generally use tapes about their ankles (perhaps to keep some garment in place immediately upon the stocking); and I have known them myself, for prudence’ sake, to tie them in hard knots. A poor limping lieutenant, a little to the left, and some ten feet in advance of me, had not adopted this precaution, and now, consequently, more as a punishment to me than to him, one of his nursery ties had come undone, and was trailing after his foot in shadow-like persistency. I had here a world of torture in a nut-shell. When, unluckily, my eyes fastened upon this appendage, I could not keep them from it. It fascinated me with more than the juggler’s success upon the serpent. I fell to conjecturing how long the affair might be, — if four inches or five; and pondered the allowance to be made in the calculation by reason of the man’s distance; merging this view of the matter in another, as I watched his heel touch the ground, and noted the time which elapsed between that and the jumping forward of the foot, with the string, ever faithful, behind it. I conjectured how much dust the tape took up at each step, and wondered, if, in a long march, merely by accretion thereof, the end of it would not be a sort of dirt-coil, perhaps a tenth of an inch in diameter, — soaring higher, too, in my delirium of nervousness, till I could imagine the incalculable increase in size which would be insured, should the lieutenant step into a puddle, and get the thing all wet: he would wear a sand rope for ankle-fetter, upon entering Richmond.

But the most provoking of all the phases to which my humor was reduced, and which my dilapidated body had to submit to, by means of this tape, was the almost irresistible desire to spring lightly forward, and to catch the thing beneath my toe. It invoked me to all sorts of gymnastic efforts. The impulse racked my breast, and set up an argument against every reason in favor of a jog-trotting march for the balance of the daylight. I surveyed the poor lieutenant from head to foot, and pictured to myself his surprise, should he find. himself hitched to the ground. He would turn, I thought, with open, questioning eyes, and perhaps look flushed by the accident. He might only hop a step farther on, and trust to my not again overreaching him. He might, impelled by the influence that tormented me, fall behind me. I had an unwavering conviction that that tape would never be removed, — and that, consequently, in some way, the lieutenant, who played guide to it, would be my haunting demon all the weary hours of my march.

Soon after I had conferred my tart speech upon the Sergeant, and had so sealed my failure to gain, his grace in behalf of my friend and myself, the Adjutant was at my side. A hale, hearty, well-made man, unperturbed usually, he was now almost another person than himself. I thought I knew what causes produced the pallor on his face and the quiver about the loose-hanging under-lip. The good fellow had had in his jacket (before it was stolen) the leave-of-absence which was to have carried him home to be married, and he was to have availed himself of it in a week. Perhaps the thought of his lady gave him the woebegone expression. All sorts of sweet dreams, that had illumined his life for months, and filled up the wide chinks of camp monotony, were now quite bitterly ended, — capped by the reality worse than the dream which is called nightmare. His smiling eyes were hooded only a little sooner than were those milder ones at home, no doubt under traced eyebrows and with far finer lashes. The marriage, perforce, was put off. The view of home was put off. Perhaps the Adjutant’s solemn quietus, like an extinguisher of the light of his and his sweetheart’s hopes, would drop upon him in loathsome Libby, and cancel the leave forever. This, being the weightier thought, was evidently bearing upon his mind.

I had resolved, in a business way, upon two points, — perchance brought to my decision through some such tender passage as the above: first, that, as we could not escape from the lines together, he must take the earlier, because, as in mortgages, the better risk; and second, that if he did not answer in a satisfactory manner the one question that I had kept for some time uppermost in my brain to propound to him, he must pocket my North Star.

“Have you a compass?” I muttered, as he edged by me.

“No,” he replied.

My second resolution, then, was, that he should carry my compass.

“I’ve been robbed of everything,” he said.

“Take—my—compass—quick!” I returned, and pressed it into his hand.

He was not as good an astronomer as I. He looked a hurried remonstrance at me; but was obliged to hide it at once, and could not, I knew, waste any eloquence now. Although, moreover, he was a lover, Nature had never endowed him with the art of speaking through the eye. There were stronger reasons in favor of his escape than of mine, — worldly, if not spiritual, — and he suffered from a dangerous nervousness, in dwelling upon the magnitude of the issue before him, which was not in my way.

“It is now five,” I said; “at seven, if in such woods as this, you must watch your chance and double.”

“Which way?” he asked.

“Travel north-northeast, seven miles,” I whispered.

Then, as if anxious to burst into a flood of eager words, he began, —

“But you” —

I looked at him fixedly, and moved off towards my Sergeant. That cursed tape before me now again made a twist in my brain.

I was astonished at my Sergeant’s opening a conversation.

We were travelling (wearily enough) through a piece of woods, overarching and autumn-tinted, the road being cut down, and, consequently, either side of it walled in by upheaving embankments, green-covered and yellow-fringed, over which the declining sun could not dart its rays upon us. The heavy trains of the entire army were making the march along with us, disturbing the modest influences of the spot, — some trundling forward in the van, others toiling after in our rear, the tending angels of all being drowsy, in the shape of the lazy teamsters astride their beasts. Only that peculiar music, made up of the ponderous thud (the birds had all grown still) or tramp of the men for a bass, — of the clink and clatter of the canteens for a treble, — and of a little broken conversation, in the whining, drawling tones of the guard, on their own side of the lines, and so with no quieting weight upon their tongues, for a viva-voce accompaniment, — broke the, sweet summer stillness. The shafts of sunlight bridging the road above our heads, making a golden ether-plank for the air-insects to cross upon, and lighting up the veins in the trembling leaves as the breeze put them to confusion, set me to thinking of the eyebrows that the Adjutant was engaged to, and, no doubt, of eyebrows in general. A cool air, smelling of mould and fallen leaves, perhaps a little damp, fell upon us here. The charms of Nature may have loosened the Sergeant’s tongue.

“I was captured in Mar’land,” he began, looking straight before him, but of course honoring me with his address.

I was grateful to him, a little for companionship’s sake, but chiefly for here giving me a chance that I had hoped for, as I deemed it of considerable value, — I mean, a chance to dig down to the mine of good feeling, to the heart of this gray-covered, slumbering crater, that, an hour since, had thrust out that “do”; and also, I was beholden to him for taking my thoughts from the tape.

“How did our boys treat you?” I asked.

“Very fair,” he said quickly, with a faint Judas-start, as if it were a matter of conscience, and he had now twitched it out. “They done well by me.”

Here was good fortune, indeed! The mine, with all its riches, mine without any digging.

“I am glad of it,” I said, briefly; for I saw that laconics were his jewels, perhaps from a sense of expediency as well as of beauty. “We always try to treat you well, whenever we are not firing our guns at you.”

This he acknowledged with a nod, but without turning from his look directly front.

“I lay two months in hosp’t’l,” he began again, — “in Fred’r’k, in Mar’land. I was wounded in the hip.”

“In ’62, I suppose?” said I.

“Yes, — at Boonsboro.”

Here the conversation ended as suddenly as it had opened. It was very clear that the Sergeant had said his last word for some time. But I was convinced in my own mind that at length more good would fall to my lot.

He pondered the matter some ten minutes, and then quite overwhelmed me with his story.

“One of your boys,” he began, “lay wounded by me on the field, — of a ball in the lungs, — and wanted some water. Whenever he spoke, he threw out blood, and was n’t likely to live, nohow. I said, —

“‘Yank, will you take my tin?’ — for there was a drop in it yet, and I rolled on my side and gave it him.

“‘I am goin’ to die,’ he said.

“‘Yes,’ says I.

“‘They’ll treat you well,’ he said; ‘they’ll carry you to the hosp’t’l, and I hope you’ll live to git home.’

“‘Thank you,’ says I.

“He gave me some ’baccy and a roll of money.

“‘The paymaster’s been about, and he gave me more’n I want now. You’ll want ’baccy in hosp’t’l, — you’ll want it all,’ he said.

“And he run over in blood and died. He gave me right smart of money. I rolled away from him when he died, and they took me to hosp’t’l.”

The Sergeant paused for my comment.

Under my peculiar circumstances, I was very much touched by this story.

“Poor fellow! many such a one has gone to his account,” I said, sadly.

“And I want to give back some of the money to you,” said the Sergeant.

I looked at him in astonishment.

“You’ll want it down there, as much as you can git. I have no need of it. It a’n’t mine. It’s his’n.”

The Sergeant had evidently taken it in trust.

“What claim have I to it?” I asked.

“Any poor fellow’s got a claim to it. It’s meant to help poor fellows, that money is. It’s a dead man’s work.”

I was more than ever touched now, in the presence of the wealth of this mine which I had tapped.

“I will take some of it, Sergeant,” I replied; “and I shall do my best to use it as well as you have.”

(This incident, strange to say, in its display of human purity, almost tempted me to abandon my scheme of escape, and to go with the Sergeant down to Richmond. But he was no measure of his fellows.)

After that we chatted easily off and on, and had a feeling of confidence in each other which a two or three days’ march could not alone have created.

At about half after six that night, (I had made the Sergeant take my watch, which otherwise I should surely be robbed of, I told him; and he gave me the time,) — at about half after six, two officers came riding furiously up to our mild officer and kept along with him for a while, making three dim figures above our heads (they only were mounted) in the forest shades, in place of the one that, unlike the erl-king, had continued on his way harmlessly from our outset. Their consultation over, the two strangers dashed over snapping weeds and underbrush to the command on ahead, and our mild officer ordered our column (of prisoners) to halt. We were in the woods still, but we had emerged from between those sun-spanned embankments some time since. The ground was ill chosen by our gentle ruler, but he may have depended much upon his men, whose vigilance, no doubt, he had before tried in the fall of day. They seemed to me but a handful, and only a sieve for their charge to dribble through, the latter aided by the time and place in their work of dropping off. I drew closer to the Adjutant.

“Say what you have to say for home, in case we miss,” I said, — and in the confusion of the halt I could talk rather freely. “Your time has come now.”

“You will write, if I’m not heard from, — and — my love to my” — he gurgled.

“Yes, yes,” I said, cheerily. “All right, old fellow, — we’ll both laugh over this, some day.”

I gave him a moment.

“You’ll do me the same favor, if I don’t happen to turn up,” I said; “and we seized each other’s hands. You have the compass, — you know the way. There is nothing more, I believe, Ned?” I said, hastily, and looked into his eyes.

“I shall watch my chance as the wagons pass; there is nothing more,” he replied; and we parted immediately.

It was as if we had agreed to toss pennies for the guillotine. I had no time to think further of him, for my own plans were maturing.

It was soon whispered about that we were to let the trains get ahead of us, since it was necessary that they should move faster; and the Rebel authorities, I presume, had decided to save their transportation, at the risk even of their captives. One or other, then, it seemed likely, would be taken. The Yankees were driving us before them, having reversed the fortunes of the day, and, perhaps, might liberate the prisoners who so impeded this retreat. We stood, I presume, for half an hour, drawn up in a compressed mass upon the skirt of the highway, whilst, startled by fear, a powerful task-master over teamsters, the late drowsy drivers urged forward their toil-worn trains. It was seasonable, but I believed that my time had not yet come. The deep shades encouraged me, but I awaited the hour that I had hit upon. I thought for a moment of the Adjutant, perhaps then ducking his head beneath the bushes, and watching, with his heart beating time, the heavy mass by degrees moving on. I trusted that the wheel of Fortune, whilst these other wheels were moving Rebelward, had turned in his favor.

At a little after seven we again fell into line, not having allowed all the teams to pass us; and as the same Fortune would have it, we left the woods behind us, and marched between open meadows. It had now grown quite dark. My face wore a look of anxiety as I noted the wide stretch of open field beyond me.

But there were as anxious faces as mine among the groups of Rebel officers who rode slowly along the lines. This was the chill season of perturbation to the hot-blooded gentlemen. Some communications were passing rapidly between the commander of our detachment and the commander of the army. Things were not working satisfactorily to either. Orderlies were dispatched to the front and to the rear, and the air-blasting bugle was sounded on ahead, as if to chide the teamsters. When we had marched up an ascent, and were on the brow of a low ridge, we were halted, and then turned into an open field. It was decided, apparently, that the rest of the train should pass us.

No doubt I should here have all the graces of a ready pen at my beck, honey-dipped, or Vulcan-forged, in accordance with my humor, whether sad or harsh, in making up the climax of my account; for at this spot the good writer would be most impressive in his language, and set the reader in a tremble. We waited for seventy minutes in this road-side field, the prisoners resignedly huddling together, with the callous guards making a circle about them. Let me enlarge upon our circumstances. The time, about eight o’clock; the atmosphere thick and murky; the sky overcast, promising a warm September night. I asked the Sergeant if it would rain, and said carelessly some other trifles. I feigned an excess of sleepiness. Our detachment lay some thirty yards from the highway, spread into a thin line of no evenness, running parallel with the road, which, in the gloom, our eyes could scarcely find. The exigencies of the service had proved the ruin of the fences; and only here and there in the vague darkness could one make out the black bunch of a shadowy tree. Just beyond us—for my Sergeant and myself stood at the rear extremity, the land’s-end of this shoal of prisoners, outside of the ring of guards sparely posted, on the very top of the ridge which we had ascended—was a low clump of bushes, (perhaps neck-high,) squat and opaque, with much the appearance of a ball of garden boxwood. The hill, I thought, rolled away on either side, — taking some comfort to myself in the conjecture; and the inky leaf-globe, only a little more sombre than its background, could not be seen in a hasty glance. This clump, in its innocent blackness, would cover my purposed guilt; and I resolved to confide to it alone the secret crime of my attempted escape.

But there were calculations to be made, which I set about with the eagerness which the occasion required, watching my Sergeant very closely as my head ran over its prospectus. And, first, if he stood by my side, I revolved, I could not by any chance whisper my tale to the silent bushes; although, if, at the favorable moment, when the squad was ordered to march, he but stepped a feather’s-throw in advance of me, the confession could be readily made. His presence would frustrate my plans. There was one expedient at my beck, but quite hazardous, by the adoption of which against odds I might compass his death and my freedom, — a thought which I dismissed on the instant, as it savored of murder and ingratitude. I must trust that he would give me his back, in spite of his sense of responsibility, for a breathing-space ere we fell in. With his fellow watch-dogs my ruminations had nothing to do. The nearest of them, owing to their scarcity, (and they had grown trebly valuable this campaign, as they had grown rarer,) was not within twenty yards of me. My new world was scarce that distance in the rear. The moment of all moments, the crisis, the vision of a life-time, eddying through the brain in the flash of a powder-pan, and stamping red-hot impressions there, (which in some cases bleach men’s hair-roots,) was finally upon me. My Sergeant turned from me, and I glided with tiger-tread to the bushes, and laid myself down.

I was, of course, between him and my new friends, and I pretended to sleep, so that, if he found me, he could scarce suppose that I meditated leaving him in so loose a manner; and, moreover, my being asleep would follow naturally upon my reiterated statement that I was sleepy. It would have been madness to have taken the other side, since, if there found, the case against me would have been clear. I depended, as is ever man’s wont, upon mere shadows to do much for me where I was.

I have thought often since, however, (then other than the deliberate thought which every man in trying circumstances has experienced, and which centres upon one subject, being so severe a tension of all the faculties as to seem no thought at all, was impossible,) that it would be unwise, and perhaps a stumbling-block to future Union captives in the custody of that horrid host, to ascribe my unbroken rest under those dry, dusty bush-branches simply to the heavy darkness of the evening, excluding all other causes from participation in my affairs. It was unusually cloudy, the sky resting overhead like a hanging pall, and threatening rain with thunder every moment, as is almost always the case after a hotly contested engagement. The fight that morning had been a grand one, (quite a Horace Vernet picture,) and hence the clouds that night. But I must own that I give my Sergeant a place in my memory now with a feeling of gratitude, induced thereto by the strong supposition that he did not allow himself to see me as I glided under cover. I count much upon his heart, as shown in his little proffered narrative. The other guards on the line might readily have failed to notice me, the more so as I had a special attendant to see to my wants; and I should have been very sorry, indeed, had one of them disturbed my rest. But my Sergeant was not three body-lengths from me when I slipped away from his protection; and although he had his back turned, I am inclined to think that he had only fewer eyes than Argus. His general reputation, to be read in his bearing, pronounced him vigilant, and his every act betokened circumspection. Far be it from me, however, to bespatter his character by avowing him negligent in performing his duty in this case, whilst lauding him for his honest devotion to his masters. Perhaps it may have been a part of his care to see the squad “fall in,” and he could not abandon that line of his duty to search for a stray officer, smooth-spoken and amiable, to whom he had just shown a kindness. The bustle and unnatural darkness of the moment could not inspire one who was not a demon with a demoniacal desire to set a screeching and rash body of troopers upon my track. The detachment of melancholy mutes was moving off when I tried my fate; and he could have had but little time to think ere the miserable men were in the distance. The farther my Sergeant journeyed, the more likely he was to keep quiet upon my subject.

I experienced very peculiar emotions as I lay there and found myself alone. I even seemed to hear the whine of the soldiery, the ringing of canteens and sabres, and the peculiar sound of the tramping feet, long after they had passed away, — chanting, in my soul’s depths, my fluttering song of triumph to that imagined accompaniment. I had an almost accurate idea of where I was, having observed our course quite closely during the day, and proposed going over very nearly the same ground in the next twenty-four hours. I had already decided in my own mind that the Rebel general was making a retreat before the gallant General Sheridan, whose outposts I hoped soon to come upon. But dangers many, and some hidden, lay thick-strewn upon my path, which had not run over roses hither; and I deemed it best to encumber the cold earth for an hour, ere I sallied from my Moses-harbor.

The highway lay within a hundred feet of me; and as I intended taking up my lost stitches of the morning in a peculiar (and, I hoped, original) manner, having no knowledge of the country beyond the line of our late march, I was obliged to count upon keeping within sound of the troops and wagons travelling there, if I desired at all to gain my end. The Adjutant T—— had my compass, and was, I trusted, quite free from danger as I remained supinely within hail of men who would be delighted to shoot me. His image, as I fancied him, cumbersome and crouching, as he hurried along, dodging from tree to tree, reminded me of the hunts which the chivalry indulge in farther south, (near that very horrible Andersonville slaughter-house,) where the bay of the blood-hound rings over the marshes, and the pack is let loose in the clear morning air, crystal-bright and all aglow, to lap up the dew with overhanging tongues, and to run down escaped prisoners. There is no poetical charm attaching to that pack, although Pan never played his reeds in a more poetical country; and its existence and employment are solemnly sober truths. They made me very grave, suggesting, as they did, some other dangers to which I was then liable. After working myself into a nervous state of body, I began pulling off my coat, leaving my shoulder-straps therewith, to play the part of asterisks, and explain who was within. My pantaloons the soil would soon make as white as a gray-backs; and my cap was to stay with the uniform, to grace some indigent discoverer of the other side.

When I had secreted my money in my waistband, (not deeming my orderly’s suggestion feasible,) and had strapped my suspenders tightly about my body, I worked my way round the bushes to the other side of the clump. As I had expected, I found an even sweep downwards of meadow-land, stretching parallel with the road, and as far before me as I could see through the darkness.

I got myself flat upon the ground, with my feet, as in Christian burial, pointing towards the east, — for there the highway ran, — and with my handkerchief bound about my head. I then commenced rolling as gently as possible down the grassy declivity.

I should be unable to give any account of my thoughts during the first ten minutes of my novel evolutions. I moved at one time slowly, at another rapidly, as the ideas of prudence and danger by turns reigned in my bosom. I risked much in being obliged to keep in line with the current of life flowing so noisily the other way, the thought of which spurred me onward; and I had far to go, and not very great endurance to fall back upon, — a reflection which counselled a cautious expenditure of effort. I was anon anxious to fly over the hard lumps of earth and pricking straw-blades, — anon, eager to move gently, with deliberate hand upon the brake. I suffered much at my elbows, which were crushed as my body passed over them, (a pulverizing process,) and which, as I had clasped my arms across my breast, were most palpably in the way. It seemed as if they would be unhinged. My feet, too, demonstrated to me the causes of the circular motion of a pen-holder or a ruler when started down a desk-lid, and had the same influence upon my course as the pin-point has upon the whole pin when in motion. My head and upper members inclined to swing in a circle about my feet. I spent much labor upon this defaulting portion of Æsop’s body of sovereign independencies, which threatened the greatest difficulties. My neck, also, in the narrow space between the band of my low woollen shirt and my hair-roots, was harassed at every turn by the needle-bed of short grass that I passed over; and the loose stones, stubble, and gravel, that had irritated the skin, worked their way beneath the garment. I was quite a child’s rattle, full of pebbles. I could have endured all this for a long while, however, the spirit then actuating me being one of those unreflecting forces which would (as a last resort) have carried me down the same slope in a Regulus-cask. But after travelling quite a distance, I began to revolve, not any complete remedy for these manifold ills, but some amelioration of the exaggerated violence of their sway. I tore one sleeve from my undershirt and wound that around my neck. I held my arms straight down my side and flat against my body. Nothing short of amputation could have crushed the rebellion in my lower members, and so (with the power to amputate not abandoned) I nursed them into insolence with a compromise.

A psychological history of the uneven progress of that billowy retreat would be as far beyond my reach as of the ten minutes of outset trial. I thought only vaguely of my home, of my regiment, of my moments of danger in past life. I listened during that night till my sense of hearing changed from a passive to an active sense. I got my neck sadly cramped in lifting my head from the ground every time my body rolled face upward to gain some knowledge of the enemy. My imagination started up all sorts of shapes about me. The damp, heavy atmosphere sent a chill through my veins. I apprehended rain. I soon, also, began to think of daylight, (before which I had many hours,) and to wonder how I should secrete myself after sunrise. I did not feel hungry; but I had not gone far before I felt the faint longings of thirst.

The ground, too, over which I travelled, was not all meadow land, and had worse features than grass-swords and gravel bullets. I did not find many fences, but I crossed innumerable small streams and one heavy hedge.

I noticed that by degrees, judging from the sound, the Rebel troops were getting by, only dropping along finally in dish-water driblets, — and that, at last, but scattering bodies of infantry, and at intervals some wagons, occupied the road, moving like dark lobsters in the midnight mists. I could not take to it myself because of them; and I knew too well how full it would be of stragglers, those worthless gleanings of an army, even after the rear-guard had swept onwards. But I did not hesitate to erect my body from its voluntary abasement and to make walking a branch of my exercise, when convinced that only vagrants could chance to see me. They never capture prisoners on either side. Thus was I enabled for two hours before sun-rise to accomplish more than twice as much as my five hours’ rolling labors had attained.

The long-expected rain began to fall in a heavy mist at about dawn, and shortly grew in importance, till the windows of heaven were wide open and it became a settled pour. Most fortunately, by that time I had entered some of the first woods we had passed through in the journey of the previous day, and had fair shelter (from Aurora, not Pluvius) within my reach. It was a colossal pepper-box lid, that could keep men from seeing through it, but not the rain from dropping in. My first impulse was to make a fire, so chilled to the very marrow was I in the early morning air, that chilliest of all atmospheres, and so wet was I also in my light summer garments. But of course Prudence had no word in that matter, nor any countenance for a suggestion so reckless, and my soberer senses got to casting about for a fitting retreat ere broad day lay before me. I must reconnoitre, I thought, dripping at every point, like a convict in the marshes, before I continued a tramp here that might expose me to a scouting-party at any moment. That hunger, too, which had not troubled me in the night-hours, came upon me now and urged very suggestive hints. I had made a cup of my hands more than once, and slaked my thirst from the streams in my way, Narcissus-fashion; but nothing solid had passed my lips for seventeen hours. First, logs and leaves for a cover, then food, then a critical examination of my position, were my objects, as I hastily settled my plans. The thought of the intelligent contraband, so beyond ordinary human excellence in the richness of his heart, who might minister to all my wants, (as without question many such had done to my distressed brethren flying from Libby,) and whose homely traits become to us golden virtues in moments of suffering, crossed my brain as the depression of hunger increased. Very dim visions of clean and savory cooking haunted me as I took off my boots and shook the water from them. I could not imagine anything to equal in value a good steak or a hot hash; nor could I check my feeling of discontent, a hopeless feeling, at having many a time and oft partaken of like viands, perhaps, unappreciatively. The slimy dirt of my uppers soiled my hands, as I endeavored to make myself less uncomfortable, and I took the shirt-sleeve from my neck as the driest article about me upon which to wipe them. Near by lay the trunk of a large walnut-tree, water-logged and growing sponge-moss; and small bushes, like coral reefs in this sea of troubles, were on all sides of me. I had not accomplished much when I heard distinctly the sound of a bugle.

It was, I supposed, about half a mile distant; but there was no knowing how near the wet horsemen whom it signalled might be to my proposed hiding-place; and, accordingly, I got hastily down by the walnut, a good squirrel-cover, without shelter or head-piece. I lay along that side of it which was farthest from the road, and durst not move for fear of capture. The woods were quite thick at that place, and from the hidden pathway (now become scarce a highway) a body of the enemy might emerge at any moment. The unwelcome music of their bugle broke the Sabbath stillness of the morning, and interrupted the harmony of the falling rain-drops as they pattered through the great cathedral branches overhead. I spent, I presume, two hours in this lazy manner, without thought of any food, and scarce daring to look about me. During the first half of that period I heard the bugle thrice send its clear, ringing notes for it is sometimes lark-throated through the tree-aisles and under the half-arches above me, the tones lingering in waves on the air, and not failing to startle me. At the first commanding blast I got to watching for the troops that did not come forth at all. Being quite three grasshopper’s flights from the road, I could reconnoitre the few rods of it passing near me with comparative ease and safety, and the intentness of my look-out drove thoughts of discomfort from my head. The silence grew oppressive to one who had been perforce so long alone. The thought that at times man has to avoid his fellow-beings in his misery, lest his misery be augmented, was productive of a tender feeling of self-pity in my bosom, which, perhaps, (strange to say,) was a source of some comfort to me. I had, I found, awakened a present sympathy in my case, the passive part of my nature having enlisted its kindly feelings in behalf of the bespattered, dripping gentleman who lay there before it, a sad mass of ooze, soaking on wet leaves. I was growing reflective over my woes, when the second blast broke upon my ear, and I started much as young ladies do at the sudden gun which, on the boards, sends the unholy Caspar to his account.

In a word, I was worn out, wet, and hungry; and had become so unstrung, in the accumulated discomforts of the roll from Rebeldom, and the rain of the last stages of my journey, that I could not control my growing nervousness. Having waited a full hour from the third signal-call of the bugle, I jumped desperately to my feet, with a mind made up to hazard everything. Many unlucky fellows, escaping from their captors, have toiled with a wonderful energy, and have failed, when worthy of immediate success, if we rate them by (the war standard) their bravery and coolness. They succumb to fever, and despair finally, but a few moments ere the object of their toils would drop before them. It is ill-advised ever to cast one’s hopes adrift as long as life is in us, — an imprudence of which I myself was guilty, and which might have carried me back to thraldom. The dragging anchor may fasten, spell-bound by some fluke-enamored reef, as the vessel seems on the point of striking. I jumped to my feet in desperation, and walked hastily a few rods nearer home. I allowed no after-thought in the premises, but decided to dodge from tree to tree, like the hunting Indian, as long as my present humor impelled me.

I know not how far I advanced thus, through the most desperate (but to the reader, whom I commiserate, least interesting) stage of my adventure, — nor anything of my thoughts or emotions, after the hot resolve had taken hold of me. I was in a fever, a mad fever, the evidence of cold, and the handiwork of the past night’s rolling-mill, and, I doubt not, was entirely unfitted to evade the enemy with presence of mind or skill. I did not pause till I heard the sound of axes, and the confused noises of a body of men.

I then again took the serpent’s position upon the earth, after he, like myself, had lost his Eden, and summoned my oft-trusted counsellors, my ears, to their familiar duty of serving for all my senses in one. The sounds were very distinct indeed; I could even hear the men’s voices, chopped up by their active tools; and I knew, by the noise of their labors, that they were driving stakes into the ground. It could scarce be the Rebels, I thought, in camp this distance in the rear: it might be our men, I hoped, pushing our advance up the Valley. I drew carefully forward on hands and knees.

In a little while I saw a bending figure, with its back to me, holding something that I could not see over a smoking bundle of fagots. There was a poncho about the neck, that covered it down to the ground, and in the morning gray, the figure, the colonnade of tree-trunks, the lazy smoke, a cabinet picture, wore an India-rubber look.

Presently another came up to my first discovery, as if emerging from the bustle elsewhere, and stood erect before him, seeming almost as wet as myself. There was a tasselled bugle in his hand, covered with a corner of his poncho, under which he had a cavalry sabre. He wore, also, a dripping cavalry cord round his hat. After a few words, the two sat upon their heels before the fire, which they bent over, paternally, to protect, watching the thing that was cooking.

Having drawn myself cautiously nearer, I waited a long while for one of the men to display his colors.

The bugler was burnishing his instrument upon his blouse beneath his rubber, hazarding some chance notes under shelter, as he laughed and chatted with his friend. He would, apparently, consult with him of his performance; and he finally lifted himself upon his feet, with the instrument tight to his lips. He then blew a rasping, grating blast upon the air, ear-splitting and dissonant, that was his own rendition of a few bars of Yankee Doodle.

The blouse, being dark, had given me much hope; the air gave me certainty; and before the bugler could wind his final note, I became one of the group.

My pantaloons showed that I was an officer, but in all other respects I appeared less than a highwayman. Accustomed to roughnesses, however, the men before me would not have divined that I was miserable, had not my appearance been by a few degrees more wretched than that of the most dilapidated of warriors. They gave over, the one his mess, the other his music, for a second, to inquire into my circumstances, and then conducted me to the Major who had command of the detachment some quarter of a mile in the rear.

The eight days’ leave-of-absence that was given me after a full report at headquarters, garnished with less ornament than the present record, afforded me an opportunity to reach my physician in time to have it extended by ten more; and in that period I learned from a letter, written in a thin, peaked hand, that the Adjutant T—— had escaped, but had been shot in the thigh. The compass, that had been his cloud by day and pillar of fire by night during his sad exodus, was returned to me, with his old lady-mother’s thanks. Many simple, yet touching, speeches welled up from her rich heart, and shone on the thin white paper; and, no doubt, her great, manly son was tended by another, whilst, at her escritoire, the kindly epistle was made for me. In the subsequent hurry of camp-life, I received a second, that contained all those mournful expressions of resignation, and dependence upon the Higher Power, which broken-hearted Christians so sweetly utter. The Adjutant T——, indeed, had received his solemn quietus in running from the Libby Prison, and the extinguisher of his life was down.