The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84,
October, 1864, by Various

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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864
A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics

Author: Various

Release Date: June 18, 2005 [EBook #16087]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to end of text.]

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. XIV.--OCTOBER, 1864.--NO. LXXXIV.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

* * * * *

A NIGHT IN THE WATER.

That was a pleasant life on picquet, in the delicious early summer of
the South, and among the endless flowery forests of that blossoming
isle. In the retrospect, I seem to see myself adrift upon a horse's back
amid a sea of roses. The various outposts were within a five-mile
radius, and it was one long, delightful gallop, day and night. I have a
faint impression that the moon shone steadily every night for two
months; and yet I remember certain periods of such dense darkness that
in riding through the wood-paths it was really unsafe to go beyond a
walk, for fear of branches above and roots below; and one of my officers
was once shot at by a Rebel scout who stood unperceived at his horse's
bridle.

We lived in a dilapidated plantation-house, the walls scrawled with
capital charcoal-sketches by R., of the New Hampshire Fourth, with a
good map of the island and its paths by C. of the First Massachusetts
Cavalry; there was a tangled garden, full of neglected roses and
camellias, and we filled the great fireplace with magnolias by day and
with logs by night; I slept on a sort of shelf in the corner, bequeathed
to me by Major F., my jovial predecessor,--and if I waked up at any
time, I could put my head through the broken window, a