ility of humanity to conceive "a naked
Duke of Windlestraw addressing a naked House of Lords"? Cautioning my
adherent, however, as to the proprieties suitable for such occasions
thenceforward, I left him watching the river with renewed vigilance, and
awaiting the next merman who should report himself.

Finding my way to the building, I hunted up a sergeant and a blanket,
got a fire kindled in the dismantled chimney, and sat before it in my
single garment, like a moist but undismayed Choctaw, until horse and
clothing could be brought round from the causeway. It seemed strange
that the morning had not yet dawned, after the uncounted periods that
must have elapsed; but when the wardrobe arrived I looked at my watch
and found that my night in the water had lasted precisely one hour.

Galloping home, I turned in with alacrity, and without a drop of
whiskey, and waked a few hours after in excellent condition. The rapid
changes of which that Department has seen so many--and, perhaps, to so
little purpose--soon transferred us to a different scene. I have been on
other scouts since then, and by various processes, but never with a zest
so novel as was afforded by that night's experience. The thing soon got
wind in the regiment, and led to only one ill consequence, so far as I
know. It rather suppressed a way I had of lecturing the officers on the
importance of reducing their personal baggage to a minimum. They got a
trick of congratulating me, very respectfully, on the thoroughness with
which I had once conformed my practice to my precepts.

Chapter 7. Up the Edisto

In reading military history, one finds the main interest to lie,
undoubtedly, in the great campaigns, where a man, a regiment, a brigade,
is but a pawn in the game. But there is a charm also in the more free
and adventurous life of partisan warfare, where, if the total sphere be
humbler, yet the individual has more relative importance, and the sense
of action is more personal and keen. This is the reason given by the
eccentric Revolutionary biographer, Weems, for writing the Life of
Washington first, and then that of Marion. And there were, certainly,
hi the early adventures of the colored troops in the Department of the
South, some of the same elements of picturesqueness that belonged to
Marion's band, on the same soil, with the added feature that the blacks
were fighting for their personal liberties, of which Marion had helped
to deprive them.

It is s