men. Some communications were
passing rapidly between the commander of our detachment and the
commander of the army. Things were not working satisfactorily to either.
Orderlies were dispatched to the front and to the rear, and the
air-blasting bugle was sounded on ahead, as if to chide the teamsters.
When we had marched up an ascent, and were on the brow of a low ridge,
we were halted, and then turned into an open field. It was decided,
apparently, that the rest of the train should pass us.

No doubt I should here have all the graces of a ready pen at my beck,
honey-dipped, or Vulcan-forged, in accordance with my humor, whether sad
or harsh, in making up the climax of my account; for at this spot the
good writer would be most impressive in his language, and set the reader
in a tremble. We waited for seventy minutes in this road-side field, the
prisoners resignedly huddling together, with the callous guards making a
circle about them. Let me enlarge upon our circumstances. The time,
about eight o'clock; the atmosphere thick and murky; the sky overcast,
promising a warm September night. I asked the Sergeant if it would rain,
and said carelessly some other trifles. I feigned an excess of
sleepiness. Our detachment lay some thirty yards from the highway,
spread into a thin line of no evenness, running parallel with the road,
which, in the gloom, our eyes could scarcely find. The exigencies of the
service had proved the ruin of the fences; and only here and there in
the vague darkness could one make out the black bunch of a shadowy tree.
Just beyond us--for my Sergeant and myself stood at the rear extremity,
the land's--end of this shoal of prisoners, outside of the ring of
guards sparely posted, on the very top of the ridge which we had
ascended--was a low clump of bushes, (perhaps neck-high,) squat and
opaque, with much the appearance of a ball of garden boxwood. The hill,
I thought, rolled away on either side,--taking some comfort to myself in
the conjecture; and the inky leaf-globe, only a little more sombre than
its background, could not be seen in a hasty glance. This clump, in its
innocent blackness, would cover my purposed guilt; and I resolved to
confide to it alone the secret crime of my attempted escape.

But there were calculations to be made, which I set about with the
eagerness which the occasion required, watching my Sergeant very closely
as my head ran over its prospectus. And, first, if he stood by my side,