Reaching Frederick, Maryland, I found more Union flags, proportionately, in that little city, than I had ever seen elsewhere. The people were intensely loyal. Four miles beyond, in a mountain region, I saw winding, fertile valleys of clear streams, rich in broad corn-fields; and white vine-covered farm-houses, half hidden in old apple-orchards; while great hay and grain stacks surrounded—
"The gray barns, looking from their hazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales."
The roads were full of our advancing forces, with bronzed faces and muscles compacted by their long campaigning. They had just won the victory of South Mountain, where Hooker found exercise for his peculiar genius in fighting above the clouds, and driving the enemy by an impetuous charge from a dizzy and apparently inaccessible hight.
On the War-Path.
The heroic Army of the Potomac, which had suffered more, fought harder, and been defeated oftener than any other National force, was now marching cheerily under the unusual inspiration of victory. But what fearful loads the soldiers carried! Gun, canteen, knapsack, haversack, pack of blankets and clothing, often must have reached fifty pounds to the man. These modern Atlases had little chance in a race with the Rebels.
There were crowds of sorry-looking prisoners marching to the rear; long trains of ambulances filled with our wounded soldiers, some of them walking back with their arms in slings, or bloody bandages about their necks or foreheads; Rebel hospitals, where unfortunate fellows were groaning upon the straw, with arms or legs missing; eleven of our lost, resting placidly side by side, while their comrades were digging their graves hard by; the unburied dead of the enemy, lying in pairs or groups, behind rocks or in fence corners; and then a Rebel surgeon, in bluish-gray uniform, coming in with a flag of truce, to look after his wounded.
All the morning I heard the pounding of distant guns, and at 4 p. m., near the little village of Keedysville, I reached our front. On the extreme left I found an old friend whom I had not met for many years—Colonel Edward E. Cross, of the Fifth New Hampshire Infantry. Formerly a Cincinnati journalist, afterward a miner in Arizona, and then a colonel at the head of a Mexican regiment, his life had been full of interest and romance.
A Novel Kind of Duel.
While living in Arizona he incurred the displeasure of the pro-Slavery politicians, who ruled the territory. Mowry, their self-styled Delegate to Congress, challenged him—probably upon the hypothesis that, as a Northerner, he would not recognize the code; but Cross was an ugly subject for that experiment. He promptly accepted, and named Burnside rifles at ten paces! Mowry was probably ready to say with Falstaff—