n the town,
and the Stonewall Brigade, commanded by Garnett, encamped upon its edge,
and the Valley Troopers commanded by Ashby, flashing by on their way to
reconnoitre the Federal General Banks; of Winchester, with bands playing
"Dixie," with great white-topped wagons going endlessly through the
streets, with soldiers passing and repassing, or drilling, drilling,
drilling in the fields without, or thronging the Taylor House, or coming
to supper in the hospitable brick mansions where the pretty girls could
never, never, never look aught but kindly on any man who wore the
grey--of Winchester, in short, in war time.

The sun slipped low in the heavens. Out of the purple haze to the south,
a wagon from Staunton way, drawn by oxen and piled high with forage,
came up a side street. The ancient negro who drove was singing,--

"I saw de beam in my sistah's eye,
Cyarn see de beam in mine!
Yo'd better lef' yo' sistah's doah,
An' keep yo' own doah fine!--
An' I had er mighty battle lak Jacob an' de angel--"

The wagon passed on. A picket squad swung up the middle of the street,
turned, and went marching toward the sunset. The corner house was a
warehouse fitted for a hospital. Faces showed at the windows; when, for
a moment, a sash was lifted, a racking cough made itself heard. Just
now no wounded lodged in the warehouse, but all the diseases were there
with which raw troops are scourged. There were measles and mumps, there
were fevers, typhoid and malarial, there were intestinal troubles, there
were pleurisy and pneumonia. Some of the illnesses were slight, and some
of the men would be discharged by Death. The glow of the sun made the
window glass red. It was well, for the place needed every touch of
cheer.

The door opened, and two ladies came out, the younger with an empty
basket. The oppression of the place they were leaving stayed with them
for some distance down the wider street, but at last, in the rosy light,
with a bugle sounding from the camp without the town, the spirits of the
younger, at least, revived. She drew a long breath. "Well! As long as
Will is in a more comfortable place, and is getting better, and Richard
is well and strong, and they all say he is a born soldier and his men
adore him, and there isn't a battle, and if there were, we'd win, and
this weather lasts, and a colonel and a captain and two privates are
c