General McClellan still delayed to advance. want of clothing," he said.

"The troops are in

But the chief quartermaster of the army cleared the government from all blame. "You have always very promptly met all my requirements.. I foresee no time when an army of over one hundred thousand men will not call for clothing and other articles," was the telegram of Colonel Ingalls to General Meigs.

Among the wounded in the hospitals at Antietam was a young soldier of the Nineteenth Massachusetts. He was an only child of his parents. He had been kindly nurtured, and knew nothing of hardship till he enlisted in the army. He was very patient. He had no word of complaint. He trusted in Jesus, and had no fear of death. His mother came from her Massachusetts home to see him.

"Do you know that we think you cannot recover?" said the chaplain one day to him.

It did not startle him.

"I am safe. Living or dying, I am in God's hands," he calmly replied.

"Are you not sorry, my son, that you entered the army, and left home to suffer all this?" his mother asked.

"O mother, how can you ask me such a question as that? You know I am not sorry. I loved my country, and for her cause I came," he replied.

He wanted to be baptized. It was Sabbath morning. The soldier lay upon a stretcher, and the weeping mother knelt by his side, - her only child. There was some water in his canteen. The chaplain poured it upon his marble brow, where death was soon to set his seal, and baptized him in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Thus trusting in God and loving his country, he passed into a better life.'

There was another soldier who had been wounded in the leg. Mortification set in. The surgeons told him it must be amputated. He knew there was little chance for him to live, but calmly, as if lying

down to slumber, he went to the amputating table, singing cheerfully, as if he were on the threshold of heaven :

"There'll be no sorrow there!

In heaven above, where all is love,

There'll be no sorrow there."

He took the chloroform, became insensible. The limb was taken off. He never knew his loss, for after a few hours of drowsy, halfwaking slumber, his spirit passed away.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MARCH FROM HARPER'S FERRY TO WARRENTON.

HE month of October passed. Pontoons were finally laid across

TH

the Potomac. They were down several days before the enemy moved, and General Lee, through his scouts and spies, undoubtedly had information of what was going on.

The army commenced crossing on the 27th, but the divisions were not all over till the 1st of November. Lee had moved a week before, and was at Culpepper, with the exception of his rear-guard, Stuart's cavalry, and a force in the Shenandoah Valley.

Up to this period of the war there had been but few brilliant cavalry achievements on either side. At Springfield, Missouri, Zagonyi, with his fearless riders, had cut their way through the hosts which surrounded them. It was gloriously done. The cavalry with the Army of the Potomac on the Peninsula had accomplished nothing worthy of

mention.

General Stuart, commanding the Rebel cavalry, had audaciously rode round General McClellan's army at the Chickahominy and at Harper's Ferry. On the march from Berlin to Warrenton, General Pleasanton commanded the Union cavalry. He had the advance in the line of march. General Stuart covered the retreat of Lee. Day after day, from morning till night, there was an interchange of shots by the flying artillery of both armies, -Stuart holding his ground till Pleasanton's fire became too hot, then limbering up his guns, and retiring a mile to a new position.

The Rebels had not all left the Shenandoah Valley. But a force of

ten thousand men remained there prepared to pass through the gaps of the Blue Ridge, and fall on McClellan's rear, if he left it exposed. General Hancock's division of Porter's corps, which was nearest the Blue Ridge, or which held the right of the army, in its march, moved upon Snicker's Gap. Arriving at the top and looking westward, there was a beautiful panorama; the town of Winchester, its white houses and church spires gleaming in the November sun; the trees yet wearing their gorgeous livery; the numerous camp-fires of the enemy on the western bank of the Shenandoah; the blue smoke rising in columns and spirals to the clouds, the troops of the enemy moving with their long baggage trains towards the south.

Captain Pettit wheeled his Parrott guns into position on the top of the mountain, and sighted the guns. The first shell exploded in the Rebel line. In an instant, evidently without waiting for orders, the men took to their heels, disappearing in the woods. An unexpected shot sometimes unnerves old soldiers, who never think of shrinking from duty on the battle-field.

On the ridge west of the Shenandoah, two Rebel batteries were in position, with jets of white smoke bursting from the cannon in quick discharges. There was a small body of Rebels east of the river. Colonel Sargent, commanding the First Massachusetts Cavalry, was ordered to drive them across the river. His troops deployed in the open field. At the word of command, they dashed down the hill, supported by a detachment of General Sykes's infantry. The Rebel cavalry did not wait their charge, but fled across the Shenandoah.

"Advance skirmishers!" was the order of Colonel Sargent. He had no intention of moving his whole detachment to the river bank, but only his skirmishers.

The cavalry and infantry misunderstood the order. Their blood was up. Away they went with a hurrah down to the river-bank. The houses on the other side were full of Rebel infantry. Two cannon commanded the ford, and swept it with canister.

"Down! down!" shouted Colonel Sargent. He meant that the soldiers should fall upon the ground, and not expose themselves to

the terrible fire which was coming upon them. They thought that he would have them rush down the steep bank and cross the stream, and with wilder enthusiasm - that which sometimes comes to men when in the greatest danger- they went down to the water's edge; some of them into the stream. There they saw their mistake, but they faced the storm a while, and gave volley for volley, although ordered back by their commander.

Six or eight were killed, and thirty wounded, during the few moments they were there.

Among the killed was the brave Captain Pratt, of the cavalry, shot through the heart. His pulse had just ceased its beating as I stood over him. The blood, still warm, was flowing from the wound. His countenance was calm and peaceful. He had died while doing his duty, -a duty he loved to perform, for he felt that he could not do too much for his country.

"Wrap round him the banner,

It cost him his breath,

He loved it in life,

Let it shroud him in death.

Let it silently sweep in its gorgeous fold

O'er the heart asleep, and the lips that are cold."

Having secured Snicker's Gap, Pleasanton pushed on to Piedmont and Markham, pleasant places on the Manassas Gap Railroad. Markham is nestled easily at the foot of the mountain, where the railroad begins its long, steep gradient to reach the summit of the gap. At this place, Stuart planted his guns, and a spirited engagement took place.

Pleasanton dismounted his cavalry, and advanced them as infantry, and drove Stuart, who retreated a mile, made another stand, and was again driven. The last fight took place in front of a pretty farmhouse, occupied by a near relative of the Rebel General Ashby, who commanded a body of cavalry in 1861, and who was killed in Western Virginia. He was the boldest of all the Southern horsemen. He