"I think he's honest in what he says, Harry. His gun might have gone off by accident. There's no telling, though; he'll need a little watching, I guess."
But Johnny paces his beat harmlessly enough for the remainder of the hour, singing catches of song, and whistling the airs of Dixie, while we pace ours as leisurely as he, but, with a wholesome regard for guns that go off so easily of themselves, we have a decided preference for the dark shadows, and are cautious lest we linger too long on those parts of our several beats where the bright moonbeams lie.
It must not be supposed that the sentries of the two armies were forever picking one another off whenever opportunity offered; for what good did it do to murder each other in cold blood? It only wasted powder, and did not forward the issue of the great conflict at all. Except at times immediately before or after a battle, or when there was some specially exciting reason for mutual defiance, the pickets were generally on friendly terms, conversed freely about the news of the day, exchanged newspapers, coffee, and tobacco, swapped knives, and occasionally had a friendly game of cards together. Sometimes, however, picket duty was but another name for sharpshooting and bushwhacking of the most dangerous and deadly sort.
When we had been relieved, and got back to our little bivouac under the elms on the lawn, and sat down there to discuss the episode of the night, I asked Andy,—
"What was that piece of poetry you read to me the other day, about a picket being shot? It was something about 'All quiet along the Potomac to-night.' Do you remember the words well enough to repeat it?"
"Yes, I committed it to memory, Harry; and if you wish, I'll recite it for your benefit. We'll just imagine ourselves back in the dear old Academy again, and that it is 'declamation-day,' and my name is called, and I step up and declaim:—
ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC
TO-NIGHT.
"All quiet along the Potomac, they say,
Except, now and then, a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat to and fro,