The officer in command, it was impossible to tell his rank from his dress, but as he assumed more airs than a Brigadier-General, it is safe to say he was not above a Sergeant, ordered the men around as if he were reconstructing an entire train.
His obstinancy was soon apparent to my very alert observation. No matter what one of the men began to do, he stopped him and set him to work in another manner.
This amiable trait of his character I turned to my own advantage. When things were righted and he called out that one man must go back with a message and the rest follow him, I said audibly that I would "go on," and had my expectations realized by his ordering me to go back to meet Captain Shuman.
Not being deeply impressed with the necessity of encountering that individual, I followed the road no longer than was necessary to take me beyond sight and hearing of the men who, with the wagon, had started in the opposite direction. Entering the woods, I returned to my horse, mounted and hurried on.
As I neared the place where the firing had occurred, I kept a sharp lookout for a dead Confederate in decent clothes, intending to appropriate them. It is proverbially slow work waiting for dead men's shoes, and I found it considerably more tedious still trying to acquire a more extended outfit. In all the four miles to Petterbridge's there were no signs of a skirmish visible, saving a dead horse and a discarded musket or two. I wanted at the first opportunity to discard my blue trousers for a pair of the Rebel colors. Many of the men in the Confederate army at that time wore such parts of Union soldiers' clothes as they had been able to get to replace their own ragged and filthy garments. I knew the blue trousers I wore would not be likely to excite any suspicion, still I preferred to use every precaution.
CHAPTER IV.
Petterbridge's house stood in a small sheltered valley into which the sun had not yet made its way, when I drew rein at the rail fence at the side of his house. As I was not known by the family, and might have had trouble getting what I wanted from any of them, I was particularly glad when the old man himself appeared at the back door. In reply to his "What ere' want, stranger?" I dismounted and convinced him who I was. As there was only the family at home, it was safe for me to stop.
Here I got breakfast, a pocketfull of bread and meat to carry with me, a fresh horse, a pair of butternut trousers, and the news that several houses supposed to belong to Unionists had been burnt by Rebels during the night. Petterbridge also said that quite a body of Confederate troops had passed down the valley a mile back the day before, and gave me the agreeable bit of information that the country ahead was worse, if possible, than what I had just come through, being alive with raiders and bushwhackers as well as overrun with stragglers anxious to get to the front.