"I can't take pay; it is pay enough to see your countenances," she said.
Turning from Fairfax road the troops moved toward Germantown, north of Fairfax,—a place of six miserable huts, over one of which the Confederate flag was flying. Bonham's brigade of South Carolinians was there. Ayer's battery galloped into position. A shell was sent among them. They were about leaving, having been ordered to retreat by Beauregard. The shell accelerated their movements. Camp equipage, barrels of flour, clothing, entrenching tools, were left behind, and we made ourselves merry over their running.
Those were the days of romance. War was a pastime, a picnic, an agreeable diversion.
A gray-haired old negro came out from his cabin, rolling his eyes and gazing at the Yankees.
"Have you seen any Rebels this morning?" we asked.
"Gosh a'mighty, massa! Dey was here as thick as bees, ges 'fore you cum; but when dat ar bumshell cum screaming among 'em, dey ran as if de Ole Harry was after 'em."
All of this, the flight of the Rebels, the negro's story, was exhilarating to the troops, who more than ever felt that the march to Richmond was going to be a nice affair.
On the morning of the 18th the head of the column entered Centreville, once a thrifty place, where travellers from the western counties found convenient rest on their journeys to Washington and Alexandria. Its vitality was gone. The houses were old and poor. Although occupying one of the most picturesque situations in the world, it was in the last stages of decay.
A German met us with a welcome. Negro women peeped at us through the chinks of the walls where the clay had fallen out. At a large two-story house, which in former days reflected the glory of the Old Dominion, sat a man far gone with consumption. He had a pitiful story to tell of his losses by the Rebels.
Here we saw the women of Centreville, so accomplished in the practice of snuff-dipping, filling their teeth and gums with snuff, and passing round the cup with one swab for the company!