of a battle, the first
intimation we should have had of it would have been the distant roar of
artillery. And this we heard about noon--doubtless the attack of
General Kilpatrick's cavalry upon the enemy's rear-guard at Falling
Waters, which resulted in the fall of the rebel general Pettigrew, who
was in command of the rear-guard, and the capture of two pieces of
artillery and fifteen hundred prisoners.

About this time we were ordered under arms again. By slow, short stages
we crept across the fields to the Boonesboro' and Hagerstown pike,
which we followed toward the latter city two miles. We passed a spot
where there had lately been a great camp--the fences all gone, the
fields one vast common and trampled foul, and the air loaded with
stench from putrid carcasses. There were some troops still remaining,
also a park of army wagons, hundreds in number, and a large drove of
fat cattle. When we thought of our starved commissariat, this sight
made us inclined to envy the lot of the soldiers of the Grand Army.

We halted in a field, through which runs a considerable stream called
Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Antietam, within thirty rods of where
there had been a cavalry fight a few days before. It was stated that
our men buried some bodies of rebel soldiers that afternoon. Toward
evening news came that put an entirely new face upon affairs.

IV.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

By late Baltimore papers we learned of the great riot in New York; that
Chief of Police Kennedy had been killed; that the militia, called out
in defence of the city, had been disarmed by the mob; that the office
of the _Tribune_ had been torn down; besides a great many other things
to match. This created somewhat of a stir in camp as may be imagined.
It was not pleasant to think of our firesides and our property and
those of our fellow-citizens exposed to the mercies of mob law, and we,
to whom the city was accustomed to look for protection against such
violence, unable to defend them. Under purely patriotic impulses we had
rushed to the rescue of an invaded sister state to do the little we
could toward destroying the great enemy of our country; and now to be
assailed by this dastardly fire in the rear made us turn with even a
sharper vengeance against the insurgents at home than we felt towards
the armed hosts which confronted us. Nor had home-sickness anything to
do with this feeling. It is true, the idea which was involved, of going
home, mo