nd
realized fully how complete the destruction of that famous fighting
division must have been as an organization, that we should find a
regimental commander who did not know where to look for its standard.
There seemed to be no particular hurry in getting off in the morning.
We were waiting for orders by our fire, and filled up the time
pressing horses in the town, from a kind consideration of the feelings
of the owners, that they should not fall into the hands of the
Yankees, much to the disgust of the said owners, who seemed much to
prefer (good men and true as they were) the possible chance of the
Yankee to the certainty of the Confederate abstraction.

One or two amusing incidents occurred in that connection. One of our
young lieutenants had heard of a very fine bay stallion, belonging to
a gentleman in town, and as the rumor had spread that pressing horse
flesh was going on, he went off promptly with a man or two, reached
the house, and was met at the door by a young and pretty woman, who,
with all the elegant kindness of a Virginia lady, asked him to come
in. He felt doubtful, but could not resist; ordering his men to hold
on a minute or two, while he talked horse with the lady, wishing, in
the innocent kindness of his heart, to break it to her gently. After a
few minutes' general conversation he touched on the horse question.
"Oh! yes, sir," she said, getting up and looking through a window that
overlooked the back yard. "Yes, sir; I am sorry to disappoint you, but
as you came in at the front door my husband was saddling the bay, and
while you were talking to me I saw him riding out of the back gate. I
am so sorry; _indeed I am_." With a hasty good morning our lieutenant
rode back to camp upon a horse some degrees below the standard of a
"Red Eye" or any other race horse. The laugh was with the lady.

Another case was against a class who met with but little sympathy from
a soldier in the field--a local or collecting quartermaster, _when of
a particular class_--some able bodied young man, every way fit for the
soldier, except in spirit, getting the position to screen himself from
field duty and make money out of a suffering people. The order had
been given through the brigade to take the horses wherever they could
be found. A wagon with two good horses drove between our fire and that
of the squadron lying next. A captain stepped out, stopped the wagon,
and the horses were taken out and appropriated--the boy driv