aggard for news of the
armies--some looking South, some North, yearning for the Peace that
had so long ago been the boon of the Nation.

Now the regiment was upon the red clay of the dead fight, and brought
to halt in open columns. After a little they moved off again in fours,
and, dropping into single file, surrounded some thousands of disarmed
men, the remnant of the desperate brigades that Lee had flung through
the night across three lines of breastworks at the great fort they had
so nearly stormed. Poor drenched, shivering Johnnies! there they
stood, not a few of them in blue overcoats, but mostly in butternut,
generally tattered; some barefoot, some with feet bound in ragged
sections of blanket, many with toes and skin showing through crazy
boots lashed on with strips of cotton or with cord; many stoutly on
foot, streaming blood from head wounds.

Some lay groaning in the mud, while their comrades helped Union
surgeons to bind or amputate. Here and there groups huddled together
in earnest talk, or listened to comrades gesticulating and storming as
they recounted incidents of the long charge. But far the greater
number faced outward, at gaze upon the cavalry guard, and, silently
munching thick flat cakes of corn-bread, stared into the faces of the
horsemen. Harry Wallbridge, brought to the halt, faced half-round in
the saddle, and looked with quick beatings of pity far and wide over
the disorderly crowd of weather-worn men.

"It's a Louisiana brigade," said Bader.

"Fifty-three, P. V. V. C.," spoke a prisoner, as if in reply, reading
the letters about the little crossed brass sabres on the Union hats.
"Say, you men from Pennsylvany?"

"Yes, Johnny; we come down to wake up Dixie."

"I reckon we got the start at wakin' you this mornin'," drawled the
Southerner. "But say,--there's one of our boys lyin' dyin' over
yonder; his folks lives in Pennsylvany. Mebbe some of you 'ud know
'em."

"What's his name?" asked Bader.

"Wallbridge--Johnny Wallbridge."

"Why, Harry--hold on!--you ain't the only Wallbridges there is. What's
up?" cried Bader, as the boy half reeled, half clambered from his
saddle.

"Hold on, Harry!" cried Corporal Kennedy.

"Halt there, Wallbridge!" shouted Sergeant Gravely.

"Stop that man!" roared Lieutenant Bradley.

But, calling, "He's my brother!" Harry, catching up his sabre as he
ran, followed the Southerner, who had instantly divined the situation.
The forlorn prisoners made ready