"Faith I don't, Lieutenant."
"I do not know the exact distance myself, but we are not over three or four miles from the road that we took when we guarded the ammunition train from Martinsburg to Charlestown."
"Oh, it's the ould First ye are spaking about, is it? Ov coorse I ricollect Martinsburg, and the markit-house where I guarded the fifty nagurs that Gineral Patterson had ordered to be arrested for having stripes on their pantaloons, Uncle Sam's buttons on their caps, and belts with these big brass U. S. plates on. Oh, but it was a swate crowd. The poor divils were crowded like cattle on cars, and it was one of the hot smothering nights. I couldn't help thinkin', that by and by, if our armies didn't move faster, the nagurs would have little trouble gettin' into uniforms. They have a nat'ral concate about such things. One poor fellow rolled the whites of his eyes awfully, and almost cried when I ordered him out of his red breeches."
"The day has not come yet, and need not," rejoined the Lieutenant, "if our generals do their duty. Don't you recollect how we were hurried from Frederick, and after marching seven miles out of the way, made good time for all to Williamsport—how bayonets appeared to glisten upon every road leading into the town; and then our crossing the river, the band all the while playing 'The Star-spangled Banner,' and the march we made to Martinsburg, passing over the ground where the battle of Falling Waters had but a
few days before been fought? If that battle had been followed up as it should have been, Johnson would never have reached Bull Run."
"Be jabers! do you know, Lieutenant, that that fight was all a mistake upon our part? Shure, our ginerals niver intended it."
A laugh, with the inquiry "how he knew that?" followed.
"Didn't I hear a Big Gineral, that I was acting as orderly for while in Martinsburg—for they made orderlies of corporals thim days—tell a richly-dressed old lady, 'That it was our policy to teach our misguided Southern brethren, by an imposing show of strength, how hopeless it would be to fight against the Government.' The lady said, 'That would save much bloodshed, would become a Christian nation, and would return them as friends to their old way of thinking. 'Yes, madam!' said the Gineral, 'there is no bitter feeling in our breasts,' clasping his breast. 'The masses south will soon see their country surrounded by volunteers in great numbers, and that the war, if protracted, must involve them all in ruin. When the war is over, madam, fanatics on both sides can be hung.'
"'That was a dreadful affair at Falling Waters, General,' said the lady, with a strange twinkle in her eyes.
"'Yes, madam,' replied the General, coloring up to his ears, 'a blunder of some of our volunteer officers. Ordinary military prudence made us send forward some force to reconnoitre before crossing the main army. These troops were to fall back if the enemy appeared in force. Not understanding their orders, or carried away by the excitement of the moment, they engaged the enemy with the unfortunate results to which you allude.'