ns, left and right.

"Colonel," I called to the officer in command, as the line of bayonets
edged me in, "may I pass out? I am a civilian!"

"No!" said the Colonel, wrathfully. "This is no place for a civilian."

"That's why I want to get away."

"Pass out!"

I followed the winding of the woods to Woodbury's Bridge,--the next
above Grapevine Bridge. The approaches were clogged with wagons and
field-pieces, and I understood that some panic-stricken people had
pulled up some of the timbers to prevent a fancied pursuit. Along the
sides of the bridge many of the wounded were washing their wounds in the
water, and the cries of the teamsters echoed weirdly through the trees
that grew in the river. At nine o'clock, we got under way,--horsemen,
batteries, ambulances, ammunition teams, infantry, and finally some
great siege 32s. that had been hauled from Gaines's House. One of these
pieces broke down the timbers again, and my impression is that it was
cast into the current. When we emerged from the swamp timber, the hills
before us were found brilliantly illuminated with burning camps. I made
toward head-quarters, in one of Trent's fields; but all the tents save
one had been taken down, and lines of white-covered wagons stretched
southward until they were lost in the shadows. The tent of General
McClellan alone remained, and beneath an arbor of pine boughs, close at
hand, he sat, with his Corps Commanders and Aides, holding a council of
war. A ruddy fire lit up the historical group, and I thought at the
time, as I have said a hundred times since, that the consultation might
be selected for a grand national painting. The crisis, the hour, the
adjuncts, the renowned participants, peculiarly fit it for pictorial
commemoration.

The young commander sat in a chair, in full uniform, uncovered.
Heintzelman was kneeling upon a fagot, earnestly speaking. De Joinville
sat apart, by the fire, examining a map. Fitz John Porter was standing
back of McClellan, leaning upon his chair. Keyes, Franklin, and Sumner,
were listening attentively. Some sentries paced to and fro, to keep out
vulgar curiosity. Suddenly, there was a nodding of heads, as of some
policy decided; they threw themselves upon their steeds, and galloped
off toward Michie's.

As I reined at Michie's porch, at ten o'clock, the bridges behind me
were blown up, with a flare that seemed a blazing of the Northern
Lights. The family were sitting upon the porch, and Mrs. Michi