ly to overtake his company. His
brother looked after him with troubled eyes, then with a sigh picked up
the reins and followed Stafford toward the darkening east.

The two going one way, the haggard regiments another, the line that
seemed interminable came at last toward its end. The 65th held the rear.
There were greetings from many throats, and from Company A a cheer.
Hairston Breckinridge, now its captain, came across. "_Judge Allen's
Resolutions_--hey, Richard! The world has moved since then! I wish
Fincastle could see us now--or rather I don't wish it! Oh, we're holding
out all right! The men are trumps." Mathew Coffin, too, came up. "It
doesn't look much, Major Cleave, like the day we marched away! All the
serenading and the flowers--we never thought war could be ugly." He
glanced disconsolately down at a torn cuff and a great smear of frozen
mire adorning his coat. "I'm rather glad the ladies can't see us."

The Stonewall Brigade went by. There was again a stretch of horribly cut
road, empty save for here and there poor stragglers, sitting dismally
huddled together beneath a cedar, or limping on painful feet, hoping
somewhere to overtake "the boys." A horse had fallen dead and had been
dragged out of the road and through a gap in the fencing into a narrow
field. Beyond this, on the farther boundary of grey rails, three
buzzards were sitting, seen like hobgoblins through the veiling snow.
The afternoon was closing in; it could only be said that the world was a
dreary one.

The Army of the Kanawha, Loring's three brigades, with the batteries
attached, came into view a long way off, grey streaks upon the road.
Before the two horsemen reached it it had halted for the night, broken
ranks, and flowed into the desolate fields. There was yet an hour of
daylight, but discontent had grown marked, the murmuring loud, and the
halt was made. A few of the wagons were up, and a dark and heavy wood
filling a ravine gave fagots for the gathering. The two aides found
Loring himself, middle-aged and imposing, old Indian fighter, hero of
Contreras, Churubusco, Chapultepec, and Garita de Belen, commander,
since the transference of General Robert E. Lee to South Carolina, of
the Army of the Kanawha, gallant and dashing, with an arm left in
Mexico, with a gift for picturesque phrases, with a past full of variety
and a future of a like composition, with a genuine tenderness and care
for his men, and an entire conviction that both he a