The Blue Balloon: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley

Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
REGINALD HORSLEY
AUTHOR OF ‘THE YELLOW GOD;’ ETC.
WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
W. S. STACEY
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
31 WEST-TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1896
THE BLUE BALLOON.
Thirty-three years ago, or, to be quite exact, in the month of May 1862, the great civil war in the United States of America was in full swing. The Federals had discovered that their boast that they would finish the whole affair in ninety days had been an empty one; while the Confederates, brave as they were, and fighting with all the vigour of men goaded to fury by the horrors of invasion, were learning by slow degrees, and in the teeth of their successes, that one Southerner could not whip five Yankees.