d. In the course of time these tenants, with their
customary acquisitiveness, became landowners themselves, and their farms
were readily distinguishable by the farm buildings, and particularly by
the large substantial red bank barns.

The troops moved on to a wood, skirting either side of the road, and
were thrown into line of battle. The country was gently rolling, and the
woods in front that crowned the summit of the low ridges were shelled
before advancing. Occasionally Rebel horsemen could be seen rapidly
riding from one wood to another, making observations from some
commanding point.

In line of battle by Brigade, flanked by skirmishers, the advance was
made. To the troops this, although toilsome, was unusually exciting.
Through woods, fields of corn whose tall tops concealed even the mounted
officers, and made the men, like quails in standing grain, be guided by
the direction of the sound of the command, rather than by the touch of
elbows to the centre,--over the frequent croppings out of ledges of
rock, through the little streams of this plentifully watered country,
the movement slowly progressed. They had not advanced far when a shell
screamed over their heads, uncomfortably close to the Surgeon and
Chaplain, some fifty yards in the rear, and mangled awfully a straggler
at least half a mile further back. As may be supposed, his fate was a
standing warning against straggling for the balance of the campaign.

Notwithstanding further compliments from the rebels, who appeared to
have our range, a roar of laughter greeted the dexterity with which the
Chaplain and Surgeon ducked and dismounted at the sound of the first
shell. Of about a size, and both small men, they fairly rolled from
their horses. The boys had it that the little Dutch Doctor grabbed at
his horse's ear, or rather where it ought to have been; as the horse was
formerly in the Rebel service, and was picked up by the Doctor after the
battle of Antietam, minus an ear, lost perhaps through a cut from an
awkward sabre, and missing it fell upon his hands and knees in front of
the horse's feet.

As the shells grew more frequent and direct in range, the men were
ordered to halt and lie down. The field officers dismounted, and were
joined by the Chaplain and Doctor leading their horses.

"Colonel, I no ride that horse," said the Doctor, sputtering and
brushing the dust off his clothes.

"Why not, Doctor?"

"Too high--very big--" touching the top of the