"Never seen such woods," said Ephraim, "scrub oak and pine and cedars and young stuff springin' up until you couldn't see the length of a company, and the Rebs jumpin' and hollerin' around and shoutin' every which way. After a while a lot of them saplings was mowed off clean by the bullets, and then the woods caught afire, and that was hell."
"Were you wounded?" asked the President, quickly.
"I was hurt some, in the hip," answered Ephraim.
"Some!" exclaimed Cynthia, "why, you have walked lame ever since." She knew the story by heart, but the recital of it never failed to stir her blood! They carried him out just as he was going to be burned up, in a blanket hung from rifles, and he was in the hospital nine months, and had to come home for a while."
"Cynthy," said Ephraim in gentle reproof, "I callate the General don't want to hear that."
Cynthia flushed, but the President looked at her with an added interest.
"My dear young lady," he said, "that seems to me the vital part of the story. If I remember rightly," he added, turning again to Ephraim, the Fifth Corps was on the Orange turnpike. What brigade were you in?"
"The third brigade of the First Division," answered Ephraim.
"Griffin's," said the President. "There were several splendid New England regiments in that brigade. I sent them with Griffin to help Sheridan at Five Forks."
"I was thar too," cried Ephraim.