Chapter 2 - Page 2

organ badly out of
tune; something like this:

One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three.
Four.

Then, as the bugle sounded "Right forward! fours right!" we moved off at
a walk through the melancholy mist that soaked through the very fiber of
man and horse, and reduced the minds of both to a condition of limp
indifference as to things past, present and future.

Whither we were going we knew not, nor cared. Such matters had long
since ceased to excite any interest. A cavalryman soon recognizes as the
least astonishing thing in his existence the signal to "Fall in!" and
start somewhere. He feels that he is the "Poor Joe" of the Army--under
perpetual orders to "move on."

Down we wound over the road that zig-tagged through the forts, batteries
and rifle-pits covering the eastern ascent to the Flap-past the wonderful
Murrell Spring--so-called because the robber chief had killed, as he
stooped to drink of its crystal waters, a rich drover, whom he was
pretending to pilot through the mountains--down to where the "Virginia
road" turned off sharply to the left and entered Powell's Valley. The
mist had become a chill, dreary rain, through, which we plodded silently,
until night closed in around us some ten miles from the Gap. As we
halted to go into camp, an indignant Virginian resented the invasion of
the sacred soil by firing at one of the guards moving out to his place.
The guard looked at the fellow contemptuously, as if he hated to waste
powder on a man who had no better sense than to stay out in such a rain,
when he could go in-doors, and the bushwhacker escaped, without even a
return shot.

Fires were built, coffee made, horses rubbed, and we laid down with feet
to the fire to get what sleep we could.

Before morning we were awakened by the bitter cold. It had cleared off
during the night and turned so cold that everything was frozen stiff.
This was better than the rain, at all events. A good fire and a hot cup
of coffee would make the cold quite endurable.

At daylight the bugle sounded "Right forward! fours right!" again, and
the 300 of us resumed our onward plod over the rocky, cedar-crowned
hills.

In the meantime, other things were taking place elsewhere. Our esteemed
friends of the Sixty-fourth Virginia, who were in camp at the little town
of Jonesville, about 40 miles from the Gap, had learned of our starting
up the Valley to drive them out, and they showed that warm reciprocity
characteristic of the Southern soldier, by mounting and starting down the
Valley to drive us out. Nothing could be more harmonious, it will be
perceived. Barring the trifling divergence of yews as to who was