Chapter 39 - Page 2

two, as we supposed, but really for quite two weeks. In the
long delay that followed, my way traversed the dead levels of
routine. When Southern sympathy had ceased to wreak its wrath
upon the railroads about Baltimore we pushed on to Washington.
There I got letters from Uncle Eb and Elizabeth Brower. The
former I have now in my box of treasures - a torn and faded
remnant of that dark period.

DEAR SIR 'pen in hand to hat you know that we are all wel. also
that we was sorry you could not come horn. They took on terribul.
Hope she wrote a letter. Said she had not herd from you. also that
somebody wrote to her you was goin to be married. You had
oughter write her a letter, Bill. Looks to me so you hain't used her
right. Shes a comm horn in July. Sowed corn to day in the gardin.
David is off byin catul. I hope God will take care uv you, boy, so
goodbye from yours truly

EBEN HOLDEN

I wrote immediately to Uncle Eb and told him of the letters I had
sent to Hope, and of my effort to see her.

Late in May, after Virginia had seceded, some thirty thousand of
us were sent over to the south side of the Potomac, where for
weeks we tore the flowery fields, lining the shore with long
entrenchments.

Meantime I wrote three letters to Mr Greeley, and had the
satisfaction of seeing them in the Tribune. I took much interest in
the camp drill, and before we crossed the river I had been raised to
the rank of first lieutenant. Every day we were looking for the big
army of Beauregard, camping below Centreville, some thirty miles
south.

Almost every night a nervous picket set the camp in uproar by
challenging a phantom of his imagination. We were all impatient
as hounds in leash. Since they would not come up and give us
battle we wanted to be off and have it out with them. And the
people were tired of delay. The cry of 'ste'boy!' was ringing all
over the north. They wanted to cut us loose and be through with
dallying.

Well, one night the order came; we were to go south in the
morning - thirty thousand of us, and put an end to the war. We did
not get away until afternoon - it was the 6th of July. When we
were off, horse and foot, so that I could see miles of the blue
column before and behind me, I felt sorry for the mistaken South.
On the evening of the 18th our camp-fires on either side of the pike
at Centreville glowed like the lights of a city. We knew the enemy
was near, and began to feel a tightening of the nerves. I wrote a
letter to the folks at home for post mortem delivery, and put it into
my trousers pocket. A friend in my company called me aside after
mess.

'Feel of that,' he said, laying his hand on a full breast.

'Feathers!' he whispered