Silently we moved off over the soft turf to the left. Crossing the road below the thicket we struck a gallop and quickly surrounded the space occupied by the sharp-shooters. It was the work of but a few minutes to close in upon and capture them. Two of our saddles were emptied in the operation, and five of the sharp-shooters were left unburied in the brush; the rest we took with us to headquarters, another company having replaced us on picket.
Among the prisoners was one little fellow, apparently not over fifteen or sixteen years of age. His features were clear cut and delicate and his clothing was worn as if it had belonged to somebody else.
When we had got well to the rear and the daylight was broad, Charlie Irving looked at the little fellow and said: “How old are you, my boy?”
“Twenty-two,” he replied, “but I’m a girl.”
That girl was sent back under a flag of truce. We didn’t know what else to do with her.
GRIFFITH’S CONTINUED STORY
IT was in the early summer of 1864. We were in the trenches at Spottsylvania.
It had been raining continuously all day, with now and then a heavy downpour, just to remind us that a little rain ought not to matter to old soldiers. By the use of fragments of fence rail and such other sticks as we could secure to stand upon, we managed to avoid sinking below our ankles into the soft, red, Virginian mud.
It was a little after two o’clock in the morning, but we were all awake and on duty. For it was not General Grant’s purpose at that time to allow us much of repose. We had stood in the trenches and in the rain all day, and we must stand in the trenches and in the rain all night, and as much longer as it might please the enemy to keep us there.
The night was one of the blackest I have ever known. There was no possibility of sending couriers anywhere, and all orders had, therefore, to be passed from mouth to mouth up and down the lines.