"General Grant can't have any of this Water!"
"'You go back and tell General Grant, for me,' said the corporal of the guard, who came up at the moment, 'that neither he nor any other general in the Army of the Potomac can get water at this spring till my orders are changed.'
"Now, you see," continued Harter, as he gave me a tin cup on a stick to hold over the fire for coffee, while he cut down a slice of pork, "there's something mighty fine in the idea of a man standing to his post though the heavens fall, and obeying the orders given him when he is put on guard, so that even though the greatest generals in the army send down contrary orders to him, he'll die before he'll give in. A man is mighty strong when he is on guard and obeys orders. Though he's only a corporal, or even a private, he can command the general commanding the army. But I don't believe General Grant sent that darky for water a second time."
Supper was soon ready, and soon disposed of. Then, without further delay, while the shadows deepened into thick night in the forest, we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and stretched ourselves out with our feet to the fire. Dreamily watching the blazing light of our little camp fire, and thinking each his own thoughts of things which had been and things which might be, we both soon fell sound asleep.
CHAPTER XIX.
"WENT DOWN TO JERICHO AND FELL AMONG
THIEVES."
On the morning of May 23d, 1864, after a good and refreshing sleep, we took up the line of march and moved rapidly all day in a southerly direction, "straight for Richmond," according to our somewhat bewildered conception of the geography of those parts. With the exception of an occasional skirmish and some heavy cannonading away along the horizon, we had seen and heard but little of the enemy for several days. Where he was we did not know. We only hoped that, after the terrible fighting of the last two weeks, commencing at the Wilderness on the 5th, he had had enough of it and had taken to his heels and run away—
"Away down South in Dixie's land,