he injunction in _Ecclesiastes_, "Be not righteous
overmuch"; for the little jumpers were fearless and countless. They were
reinforced by a Confederate deacon, who recommended two things:
Confederate paper and "gospel piety"; the one would carry us safely
through this world; the other through the next. He would be only too
happy to furnish us the currency in exchange for our greenbacks.
"Confederate treasury bills and true religion" was the burden of his
song, till one of our literary officers, it was said, squelched him:
"Deacon, your recipe of happiness, rebel paper and godliness--Confederate
money and a Christian spirit!--reminds me of what Byron says in one of
his wicked poems:

'Beyond all doubt there's nought the spirit cheers
Like rum and true religion!'"

He subsided.

We left New Market at noon, Saturday, September 24th, and marched all
the afternoon and all night, past Harrisonburg, Mount Crawford, Mount
Sidney, and Willow Springs, reaching Staunton, Va., about nine in the
morning. On the march, forty-three miles in twenty-one hours, we were
hungry; for the morning ration at New Market was scanty, and they gave
us nothing more, except a small loaf of wheat bread. Some of the guard
were kind to us. One of them, private John Crew, Co. E, 11th Alabama
Regiment, unsolicited by us, and, so far as I am aware, without hope of
any reward, would endeavor to bring us apples or other food, whenever we
halted. I was careful to write his name in my diary.

As we trudged along, a lively discussion of slavery ensued. Lieutenant
Howard of the provost guard was a learned champion of the "peculiar
institution," and I was a pronounced abolitionist. He was an ardent
"fire-eater," to use the term then in vogue, and I, who had lost my
position as principal of the Worcester High School by my defense of John
Brown, was equally intense. Both were pretty well "posted" on the
subject. He seemed to be familiar with the Bible and the proslavery
arguments, including drunken Noah's "Cursed Canaan!" Moses Stuart's
_Conscience and the Constitution_, Nehemiah Adams's _Southside View of
Slavery_, and Rev. Dr. ---- (the name is gone from me) of Baltimore's
Sermons. I was fresh from reading the arguments of George B. Cheever,
Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, Garrison, Phillips, and the rest.
He proved that slavery among the Hebrews was a divine institution. I
answered they were commanded to "undo the heavy burdens, let the
oppres