eling this distance after night,
we reached them about nine o'clock. We would then build fires, get our
cooking utensils, and cook our suppers, and, by the light of the fires,
see our muddy condition and try to dry off before retiring to the
ground. We engaged in this sort of warfare for three days, when we
reached Port Republic, eighteen miles from our starting-point and about
the same distance from Staunton. Our movements, or rather Jackson's, had
entirely bewildered us as to his intentions.

While we were at Swift Run, Ewell's division, having been brought from
the army around Richmond, was encamped just across the mountain opposite
us. We remained at Port Republic several days. Our company was
convenient to a comfortable farmhouse, where hot apple turnovers were
constantly on sale. Our hopes for remaining in the Valley were again
blasted when the wagons moved out on the Brown's Gap road and we
followed across the Blue Ridge, making our exit from the pass a few
miles north of Mechum's River, which we reached about noon of the
following day.

There had been a good deal of cutting at each other among the members of
the company who hailed from different sides of the Blue
Ridge--"Tuckahoes" and "Cohees," as they are provincially called. "Lit"
Macon, formerly sheriff of Albemarle County, an incessant talker, had
given us glowing accounts of the treatment we would receive "on t'other
side." "Jam puffs, jam puffs!" Joe Shaner and I, having something of a
turn for investigating the resources of a new country, took the first
opportunity of testing Macon's promised land. We selected a
fine-looking house, and, approaching it, made known our wants to a young
lady. She left us standing outside of the yard, we supposed to cool off
while she made ready for our entertainment in the house. In this we were
mistaken; for, after a long time, she returned and handed us, through
the fence, some cold corn-bread and bacon. This and similar experiences
by others gave us ample means to tease Macon about the grand things we
were to see and enjoy "on t'other side."

We were now much puzzled as to the meaning of this "wiring in and wiring
out," as we had turned to the right on crossing the mountain and taken
the road toward Staunton. To our astonishment we recrossed the mountain,
from the top of which we again gazed on that grand old Valley, and felt
that our homes might still be ours. A mile or two from the mountain lay
the quiet little vill