in sight. A
hag in a nightcap reviewed us from an upper window as we tramped by.

Opposite that bald block, the Washington Monument, and opposite what was
of more importance to us, a drove of beeves putting beef on their bones
in the seedy grounds of the Smithsonian Institution, we were halted
while the New Jersey brigade--some three thousand of them--trudged by,
receiving the complimentary fire of our line as they passed. New Jersey
is not so far from New York but that the dialects of the two can
understand each other. Their respective slangs, though peculiar, are of
the same genus. By the end of this war, I trust that these distinctions
of locality will be quite annulled.

We began to feel like an army as these thousands thronged by us. This
was evidently a movement in force. We rested an hour or more by the
road. Mounted officers galloping along down the lines kept up the
excitement.

At last we had the word to fall in again and march. It is part of the
simple perfection of the machine, a regiment, that, though it drops to
pieces for a rest, it comes together instantly for a start, and nobody
is confused or delayed. We moved half a mile farther, and presently a
broad pathway of reflected moonlight shone up at us from the Potomac.

No orders, at this, came from the Colonel, "Attention, battalion! Be
sentimental!" Perhaps privates have no right to perceive the beautiful.
But the sections in my neighborhood murmured admiration. The utter
serenity of the night was most impressive. Cool and quiet and tender the
moon shone upon our ranks. She does not change her visage, whether it be
lovers or burglars or soldiers who use her as a lantern to their feet.

The Long Bridge thus far has been merely a shabby causeway with
waterways and draws. Shabby,--let me here pause to say that in Virginia
shabbiness is the grand universal law, and neatness the spasmodic
exception, attained in rare spots, an _aeon_ beyond their Old Dominion
age.

The Long Bridge has thus far been a totally unhistoric and prosaic
bridge. Roads and bridges are making themselves of importance and
shining up into sudden renown in these times. The Long Bridge has done
nothing hitherto except carry passengers on its back across the Potomac.
Hucksters, planters, dry-goods drummers, Members of Congress, _et ea
genera omnia_, have here gone and come on their several mercenary
errands, and, as it now appears, some sour little imp--the very reverse
of a "sweet