e undergraduates from the University, the youths from
classical academies, county stores, village banks, lawyers' offices, all
who led a horseback or sedentary existence, and the elderly men and the
very young,--these suffered heavily. The mounted officers were not
foot-weary, but they also had heat, thirst, and hunger, and, in
addition, responsibility, inexperience, and the glance of their
brigadier. The ten minutes were soon over. _Fall in--fall in, men!_ The
short rest made the going worse, the soldiers rose so stiff and sore.

The men had eaten before leaving the camp above Winchester--but that was
days ago. Now, as they went through Clarke County, there appeared at
cross-roads, at plantation gates, at stiles leading into green fields,
ladies young and old, bearing baskets of good things hastily snatched
from pantry and table. They had pitchers, too, of iced tea, of cold
milk, even of raspberry acid and sangaree. How good it all was! and how
impossible to go around! But, fed or hungry, refreshed or thirsty, the
men blessed the donors, and that reverently, with a purity of thought, a
chivalrousness of regard, a shade of feeling, youthful and sweet and yet
virile enough, which went with the Confederate soldier into the service
and abode to the end.

The long afternoon wore to a close. The heat decreased, but the dust
remained and the weariness grew to gigantic proportions. The First
Brigade was well ahead of Bee, Bartow, and Elzey. It had started in
advance and it had increased the distance. If there was any marching in
men, Jackson forced it out; they went a league for him where another
would have procured but a mile, but even he, even enthusiasm and the
necessity of relieving Beauregard got upon this march less than two
miles an hour. Most happily, McDowell, advancing on Beauregard and Bull
Run and fearing "masked batteries," marched much more slowly. At sunset
the First Brigade reached the Shenandoah.

The mounted officers took up one and sometimes two men beside them, and
the horses struggled bravely through the cold, rapid, breast-deep
current. Behind them, company by company, the men stripped off coat and
trousers, piled clothing and ammunition upon their heads, held high
their muskets, and so crossed. The guns and wagons followed. Before the
river was passed the night fell dark.

The heat was now gone by, the dust was washed away, the men had drunk
their fill. From the haversacks they took the remnant of the