ong with the train, glided
serenely along, unconscious of the pandemonium, in the rear. But when
all had about left the train, and the great driving-wheels began to
spin around like mad, from the lightening of the load, the master of
the throttle looked to the rear. There lay stretched prone upon the
ground, or limping on one foot, or rolling over in the dirt, some
bareheaded and coatless, boxes and trunks scattered as in an awful
collision, upwards of one thousand men along the railroad track. Many
of the men thinking, no doubt, the train hopelessly lost, or serious
danger imminent, threw their baggage out before making the dangerous
leap. At last the train was stopped and brought back to the scene of
desolation. It terminated like the bombardment of Fort Sumter--"no one
hurt," and all occasioned by a hot-box that could have been cooled in
a very few minutes. Much swearing and good-humored jesting were now
engaged in. Such is the result of the want of presence of mind. A wave
of the hat at the proper moment as a signal to the engineer to
stop, and all would have been well. It was told once of a young lady
crossing a railroad track in front of a fast approaching train, that
her shoe got fastened in the frog where the two rails join. She began
to struggle, then to scream, and then fainted. A crowd rushed up, some
grasping the lady's body attempted to pull her loose by force; others
shouted to the train to stop; some called for crow-bars to take up
the iron. At last one man pushed through the crowd, untied the lady's
shoe, and she was loose. Presence of mind, and not force, did it.

Remaining in camp a few days, orders came to move, and cars were
gotten in readiness and baggage packed preparatory to the trip to
Virginia. To many, especially those reared in the back districts, and
who, before their brief army life, had never been farther from
their homes than their county seat, the trip to the old "Mother of
Presidents," the grand old commonwealth, was quite a journey indeed.
The old negroes, who had been brought South during the early days of
the century, called the old State "Virginy" and mixing it with local
dialect, in some parts had got the name so changed that it was called
"Ferginey." The circus troops and negro comedians, in their annual
trips through the Southern States, had songs already so catchy to our
people, on account of their pathos and melody, of Old Virginia,
that now it almost appeared as though we were