wo hundred had fallen out of the ranks from mere
exhaustion. To leave any of these soldiers behind would be giving them
up as prisoners, and affording the enemy the opportunity of obtaining
information which it was of the utmost importance for the safety of the
expedition to keep back. The troopers had therefore to drive them on
with their swords--not a pleasant duty, when the poor fellows were faint
and used up by fatigue--still it must be done. This service creates
quite a dislike between the two arms. The infantry man hates the
horseman, and the cavalry man despises the foot soldier. At this time
straggling was quite prevalent: we saw on byroads many who had left the
ranks, almost invariably having thrown away their arms, and subsisting
on plunder. The cavalry were scouring the roads for them, and were
bringing them in as prisoners for punishment. This sixth cavalry, like
all the old regiments which had been through the Peninsular campaign and
the disastrous retreat under Pope, was frightfully reduced in numbers:
only three hundred and seventy were around the standards out of the
eleven hundred who first took the field. Many had fallen on picket or
been cut off singly, more by disease, but alike doing their duty,
unmentioned and unnoticed. A larger number were yet suffering from
overwork and sickness; and the regiment would in time recruit to seven
hundred, from men now disabled, if there should be no more casualties.

A few days in camp, in a good-sized tent--none of the two-feet-high
shelter affairs--in pleasant summer weather, is, on the whole, something
new and exhilarating. The ground, to be sure, is rather hard,
particularly when you have no straw; and a soldier's table is not always
the most luxurious in the world. Now that we are safe, dry, and warm, at
home, we can venture to declare that we were very unfortunate in losing
the sensation of going without food, of sleeping in the mud and in the
rain--our arms girded on--any moment to be aroused by the whistle of
the bullet or the roll of the drum calling us to the deadly strife.

To us, however, it was all _couleur de rose_. In the early morn, at
break of day, it was not the crow of the cock, or the jarring rattle of
the wheels of the city baker or milkman, but the reveille that waked us
from our martial dreams. The drum of the infantry, the bugles of the
cavalry and artillery would begin; some early riser would rouse up his
regiment; then another would take i