f artillery; but none of the girls had ever told
him so, and he couldn't bear to hear Marcy praised either. He was
envious, as well as jealous, and when Rodney got that way, he was in the
right humor to do something desperate.

"That new law will fix him and Graham, too," he said to himself. "I'll
take pains to call their attention to it the minute I get back to the
academy, and if they don't take the hint and make themselves scarce
about here, I will set somebody on their track. There are a good many
traitors in and around Barrington, and I wonder that they haven't been
driven out before this time. I'll rid the school of those two, I bet
you; but before they go I'll pick a quarrel with them and whip them out
of their boots."

This confident assertion recalls to mind something that was said by the
Confederate General Rosser on the morning of the 9th of October, 1864,
just previous to the beginning of the fight known in history as
"Woodstock Races." Having formed his line of battle, Rosser sat on his
horse watching the movements of his old schoolmate, General Custer, who
was busy getting his own forces in shape to attack him. Finally Rosser
turned to his staff and said:

"You see that officer down there? That is General Custer, of whom the
Yanks are so proud, and I intend to give him the best whipping to-day he
ever got; see if I don't."

When Custer was ready to fight he made his charge; the valiant Rosser
fled before it, and never but once stopped running until he reached
Mount Jackson, twenty-six miles away. It was a trial of speed, rather
than a battle, and that is the reason the engagement is called
"Woodstock Races." The Confederates lost everything they had that was
carried on wheels, and the Union loss was but sixty killed and wounded.
Rodney Gray was not as much of a braggart as Rosser was, but if he had
tried to carry his threat into execution he might have been as badly
whipped.

CHAPTER III.

CHEERS FOR "THE STARS AND BARS."

If any boy who reads this series of books believes that secession was
the result of a sudden impulse on the part of the Southern people, he
has but to look into his history to find that he is mistaken. They had
not only been thinking about it for a long time, but, aided by some of
Buchanan's treacherous cabinet officers, they had been preparing for it.
The Secretary of the Navy ordered the best vessels in our little fleet
to