.

* * * * *

"Let the hawk stoop, the bird has flown,"

said a boyish-faced officer who was known in the Regiment as the
Poetical Lieutenant, to the Adjutant, as he pushed aside the canvas door
of the Office Tent on one of those wintry evenings. The caller had left
the studies of the Sophomoric year,--or rather his Scott, Byron, Burns,
and the popular novelists of the day,--for the recruiting service in his
native county. The day-dreams of the boy as to the gilded glory of the
soldier had been roughly broken in upon by severe practical lessons, in
tedious out-post duty and wearisome marches. He could remember, as could
many others, how he had admired the noble and commanding air with which
Washington stands in the bow of the well loaded boat as represented on
the historic canvas, and the stern determination depicted upon the
countenances of the rest of his Roman-nosed comrades--(why is it that
our historic artists make all our Revolutionary Fathers Roman-nosed? If
their pictures are faithful, where in the world do our swarms of pugs
and aquilines come from worn by those claiming Revolutionary descent? Is
it beyond their skill to make a pug or an aquiline an index to nobility
of soul or heroic resolve?)--as they keep the frozen masses borne by
that angry tide at safe distance from the frail bark--but he then felt
nothing of the ice grating the sides of the vessel in which he hoped to
make the voyage of life, nor shuddered at the wintry midnight blast that
swept down the valley of the Delaware. His dreams had departed; but
poetical quotations remained for use at every opportunity.

"What's the matter now?" says the Adjutant.

"One of the Aids just told me," rejoined the Lieutenant, "that the
Rebels were in force in our front, and would contest the Rappahannock,
while the possession of the Gap we have just left lets them in upon our
rear."

"The old game played out again," says the Adjutant. "Another string
loose in the bag. Strategy in one respect resembles mesmerism--the
object operated upon must remain perfectly quiet. Are we never to
suppose that the Rebels have plans, and that their vigilance increases,
and will increase, in proportion to the extremity of their case? Our
theorists and routine men move armies as a student practises at chess,
as if the whole field was under their control, and both armies at their
disposal. With our immense resources, vigorous fighting and