re," Merry cried, as the tents
stretched for miles, as far as she could see.

"No; not quite a million, I reckon," the orderly said, proudly; "but we
shall have a million when we march on Washington."

"March on Washington!" Merry gasped, as though it was an official order
she had just heard promulgated. "But--but we aren't ready yet. We--"
Then she halted in dismay. Was she giving information to the enemy?
Would they instantly make use of it? Ah! she must, at any cost, undo
this fatal treason, big with disaster to the republic. "I mean we are
not ready yet to put our many million men on the march."

The orderly laughed. "I reckon your many million will be ready as soon
as our one million. You know we have a big country to cover with them.
You folks have only Washington to guard and Richmond to take. We have
the Mississippi and fifteen hundred miles of coast to guard. Now, this
corner is Newmarket, where Johnston waited for his troops on Sunday and
led them right along the road we are on--to the pine wood yonder--just
north of us. We won't go through there, because we ain't making a flank
movement," and he laughed pleasantly. They drove on at a rapid rate as
they came upon the southern shelf of the Manassas plateau.

"This," the orderly said, pointing to a small stone building in a bare
and ragged waste of trees, shrubs, and ruined implements of war, "is the
Henry House--what is left of it--the key of our position when Jackson
formed his stone wall facing toward the northwest, over there where your
folks very cleverly flanked us and waited an hour or two, Heaven only
knows what for, unless it was to give us time to bring up our
re-enforcements. Your officers lay the blame on Burnside and Hunter,
who, they declare, just sat still half the day, while Sherman got in
behind us and would have captured every man Jack of our fellows, if
Johnston hadn't come up, where I showed you, in the very nick of time."

The women were looking eagerly at the field of death. It was still as on
the day of the battle, save that instead of the thousands of beating
hearts, the flaunting flags, and roaring guns, there were countless
ridges torn in the sod, as if a plow had run through at random, limbs
and trees torn down and whirled across each other, broken wheels, musket
stocks and barrels, twisted and sticking, gaunt and eloquent, in the
tough, grassy fiber of the earth.

"In this circle of a mile and a half fifty thousand men pelted eac