We halted at the Wood Yard half an hour, and then were going ahead once more; but at a less rapid pace, for we could not be expected to travel many hours at the same speed which had been kept up since leaving the burning fleet.
We ate as we marched, munching the corn-bread and bacon as best we might, and falling out of line to get a drink of water whenever we came to a brook or spring.
At the end of the first hour we were halted for ten minutes, and then the advance was continued until it seemed to me that I could not put one foot before the other.
"I suppose I shall hold out as long as the rest of you do; but it seems as if I'd got to drop down right here," Jerry said to me as we trudged along side by side on as fatiguing and dispiriting a march as I have ever known since. "It's better for a fellow to kill himself by walkin', than be sent back to a prison on board one of the British ships."
I tried to cheer the dear lad, although I myself was needing encouragement most woefully, and perhaps I succeeded somewhat by saying:
"Our fathers would set us down as cowards and drones, if the men went in with the report that we couldn't travel twenty-five or thirty miles without knocking under."
"You're right, Amos!" and Jerry stepped out briskly. "We should be able to do more of this kind of work than Darius, who has spent all his life aboard ship, an' yet there he is, humpin' along chipper as a sparrow."
I turned to look at the old man, who was in the rear, marching in good order, and acting as if on some pleasure excursion which he hoped would not come to an end too soon. It shamed me to see him so jolly when I was feeling so sore.
From that moment, whenever I felt as if it was impossible to take another step, I looked at Darius, and forced myself to forget weariness or hunger.
It was nearly sunset when we were come to Long Old Fields, where a portion of General Winder's army had encamped the day previous, and here we were met by another messenger from the commodore.