y, among
them R. E. Lee, Jr., son of the General; Arthur A. Robinson, of
Baltimore, and Edward Hyde, of Alexandria. After a few nights' rest and
one or two square meals everything was as gay as ever.

An hour or two each day was spent in going through the artillery manual.
Every morning we heard the strong, clear voice of an infantry officer
drilling his men, which I learned was the voice of our cousin, James
Allen, colonel of the Second Virginia Regiment. He was at least half a
mile distant. About the fourth or fifth day after our return to camp we
were ordered out to meet the enemy, and moved a few miles in their
direction, but were relieved on learning that it was a false alarm, and
countermarched to the same camp. When we went to the wagons for our
cooking utensils, etc., my heavy double blanket, brought from home, had
been lost, which made the ground seem colder and the stalks rougher.
With me the nights, until bedtime, were pleasant enough. There were some
good voices in the company, two or three in our mess; Bedinger and his
cousin, Alec Boteler, both sang well, but Boteler stammered badly when
talking, and Bedinger kept him in a rage half the time mocking him,
frequently advising him to go back home and learn to talk. Still they
were bedfellows and devoted friends. I feel as if I could hear Bedinger
now, as he shifted around the fire, to keep out of the smoke, singing:

"Though the world may call me gay, yet my feelings I smother,
For thou art the cause of this anguish--my mother."

* * * * *

A thing that I was very slow to learn was to sit on the ground with any
comfort; and a log or a fence, for a few minutes' rest, was a thing of
joy. Then the smoke from the camp-fires almost suffocated me, and always
seemed to blow toward me, though each of the others thought himself the
favored one. But the worst part of the twenty-four hours was from
bedtime till daylight, half-awake and half-asleep and half-frozen. I
was, since Kernstown, having that battle all over and over again.

I noticed a thing in this camp (it being the first winter of the war),
in which experience and necessity afterward made a great change. The
soldiers, not being accustomed to fires out-of-doors, frequently had
either the tails of their overcoats burned off, or big holes or scorched
places in their pantaloons.

Since Jackson's late reverse, more troops being needed, the militia had
been ordered out, an