ent "whirling up the valley."

We prisoners thoroughly enjoyed the changed aspect of affairs. At first
they marched us directly back a short distance up the slope towards the
advancing Yankees; but they seemed suddenly to discover their mistake;
they halted, faced about, and marched down. Hilarious and saucy, our
boys struck up the song and three hundred voices swelled the chorus:

Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom--
The Union forever! hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitor! up with the star! etc.

till Captain Haslett of the provost guard came riding into the midst
with savage oaths shouting, "_Silence!_ SILENCE! SILENCE!"

Twenty-seven miles, first through stifling dust and then through pelting
rain, past Hawkinstown, Woodstock, Edenburg, Mount Jackson, brought us
to New Market. On the march Colonel Brinton of a Pennsylvania regiment,
a new arrival, planned with me an escape. He had campaigned through the
valley, was familiar with the lay of the land, and said he had friends
among the inhabitants. Our plan was to run past the guards in the
darkness. As a preliminary step I cut off my shoulder-straps which were
very bright. Within half an hour Sergeant Reed came up to me and asked,
"Colonel, where's your shoulder-straps?" I replied, "I don't wear
shoulder-straps now I'm a prisoner." "But, Colonel," he answered, "I've
been lookin' at them shoulder-straps since we left Tom's Brook. I wanted
to buy 'em of you for a present to one of my girls. I'll be hanged if I
don't believe you're goin' to try to escape, and so you've cut off your
bright shoulder-straps. But, Colonel, it's impossible. I'll be hanged if
I hadn't rather lose any six of the others than to lose you." The fellow
stuck closer to me than a brother all the rest of that night; so close
that he lost sight of Colonel Brinton, who actually escaped about
midnight at a place called Edenburg! Almost immediately Sergeant Reed
came to me and asked, "Colonel, where's that other Colonel?" I answered:
"You ought to know; _I_ don't!"--"I'll be hanged," said he, "if I
haven't lost him, a-watchin' you!"

At New Market they put us into a dilapidated church building. "The
wicked flea, when no man pursueth but the righteous, is bold as a lion,"
was repeatedly misquoted from the _Book of Proverbs_, and not without
reason. We concluded if that interpretation was correct, we had reason
enough for obeying t