There was hurrying to and fro on the plantation after this. The horses and mules were driven to a remote field in which there was a large swamp. Joe carried Butterfly and tethered him in the very middle of the swamp, where he could get plenty of water to drink and young cane to eat. During the next ten hours the plantation, just as Harbert predicted, fairly swarmed with foraging parties of Federals. Guided by some of the negroes, they found the horses and mules and other stock and drove them off; and, when Joe heard of it, he felt like crying over the loss of Butterfly. The horse did not belong to him, but he had trained it from a colt, and it was his whenever he wanted to use it, day or night. Yet Butterfly was soon forgotten in the excitement and confusion created by the foragers, who swept through the plantations, levying in the name of war on the live-stock, and ransacking the not too well-filled smoke-houses and barns in search of supplies.
Joe Maxwell saw a good deal of these foragers, and he found them all, with one exception, to be good-humored. The exception was a German, who could scarcely speak English enough to make himself understood. This German, when he came to the store-room where the hats were kept, wanted to take off as many as his horse could carry, and he became very angry when Joe protested. He grew so angry, in fact, that he would have fired the building. He lit a match, drew together a lot of old papers and other rubbish, and was in the act of firing it, when an officer ran in and gave him a tremendous paddling with the flat of his sword. It was an exhibition as funny as a scene in the circus, and Joe enjoyed it as thoroughly as he could under the circumstances. By night, all the foragers had disappeared.
The army had gone into camp at Denham’s Mill, and Joe supposed that it would march on to Hillsborough, but in this he was mistaken. It turned sharply to the left the next morning and marched toward Milledgeville. Joe had aimlessly wandered along this road, as he had done a hundred times before, and finally seated himself on the fence near an old school-house, and began to whittle on a rail. Before he knew it the troops were upon him. He kept his seat, and the Twentieth Army Corps, commanded by General Slocum, passed in review before him. It was an imposing array as to numbers, but not as to appearance! For once and for all, so far as Joe was concerned, the glamour and romance of war were dispelled. The skies were heavy with clouds, and a fine, irritating mist sifted down. The road was more than ankle-deep in mud, and even the fields were boggy. There was nothing gay about this vast procession, with its tramping soldiers, its clattering horsemen, and its lumbering wagons, except the temper of the men. They splashed through the mud, cracking their jokes and singing snatches of songs.
Joe Maxwell, sitting on the fence, was the subject of many a jest, as the good-humored men marched by.
“Hello, Johnny! Where’s your parasol?”
“Jump down, Johnny, and let me kiss you good-by!”
“Johnny, if you are tired, get up behind and ride!”