ing them
ran off--and soon there came riding up a dashing young quartermaster
on a fine grey horse, groomed to perfection, and horse and rider
redolent of the sybaritism of the department, claimed the horses as
belonging to _his department_, with a most insolent air, looking
daggers and court martials, and swelling as only overfed subsistence
agents on home duty could do. While he was talking I saw Captain D.
walking round him looking at the gallant grey, and then at our colonel
inquiringly. A nod from the colonel and Captain D's hand was on the
grey's bridle, and a quiet but firm request, that sounded very much
like an order, for him to get down, as his horse was wanted for
cavalry service. The man of the subsistence and transportation
department was so dumbfounded that he would have let pass the best
operation possible of making money out of the necessities of the
people for which his tribe was famous; but just then a bugle rang out
the call for "boot and saddle;" the bugles of the other regiments took
it up; the momentary diversion of the horse pressing and the
quartermaster was forgotten; work was at hand; the rumbling of the
artillery and wagons crossing the bridge, with columns of infantry
between, could be heard down in the town at the foot of the hill, and
the cavalry were wanted on the other side of the town, by the Randolph
House, to hold the enemy in check and cover the crossing of the river.

The brigade was soon in the saddle, and moving at a swinging trot down
the long street that constitutes mainly the town of Farmville. As the
regiment passed a large building on the right, which was shown to be a
boarding school for young ladies, from the number gathered on the
piazza in front, we were greeted by their waving handkerchiefs and
moist eyes, while cheer after cheer rose from our men in response to
their kindness and sympathy. They did not know, as we did, that their
friends and defenders were to pass by, leaving them so soon in the
hands most dreaded by them. They saw us going to the front; our men
were excited by the circumstances and the prospect of a fight, and the
light of that wild glory that belongs to war shone over it all. The
rough, grey soldier, the tramping column, and the groups of tender
girls, mixed with it like flowers on a battle field, incongruous in
detail, but blending with the picture, like discords in music, making
it complete.

So on through the town, across the little stream, and up