and who knows how much more rubbish of the same nature! Ah! well. Perhaps "they" couldn't help it, after all. Who is it that invents all the formulas we use every day, to half conceal things we cannot hide; those formulas that nobody ever thinks of believing, that we know nobody ever thinks of believing, and that everybody knows we know they never think of believing? "Nolo Episcopari," says the newly-appointed bishop, trying on his episcopal robes and practising his episcopal signature. Mrs. Brown ain't at home," says Biddy to Jones, who has just seen her whisk away from the parlor window. "I don't want any office," smirks the professional office-seeker, licking his daily boot in the antechamber, in company with a dozen brother-adventurers, each of whom sees through the others, and knows he is seen through. "Forward!" cry the flaming General Orders, and the army incontinently-marks time! Now, a lie may be a very good thing in itself; far be it from me to underrate the value of so useful a member of society; but a lie, for the sake of lying, a lie unbelieved, and the inventor knowing as much- Go to! No, my dear General, A or B, or C, Canute's facile aides-de-camp might as well have tried to fawn back the North Sea, as you to attempt to deceive your soldiers by an address. One morning we come back from building a corduroy road to find the crest of the hill beyond our camp adorned by a jagged line of fresh dirt. The men salute the discovery with many a half-laughing, half-derisive cry of "How are you, gravediggers?" "Spades is trumps," "More ditches," and the like. And so for a month we divide our time pretty evenly between digging trenches, making corduroy, standing picket, and idling away the off-days, with the usual amount of getting under arms in the middle of the night to repel imaginary sorties, of getting ready to assault at daylight, of "stampedes," and mud and rain. I sometimes wonder which is the worst-to build a corduroy road, or to travel over it. Such a tramping through mud, knee-deep, with the detestably-cooked rations, under a guide who don't know the way, to a place where some young engineer officer was to have met you, and therefore has not; such a standing around, soaking into the mire until the young engineer finally arrives, several hours late, cursing the "d-d volunteers" for not being at some other place they have never heard of, at a time not mentioned in their orders; such a jabbering and confusion of orders, in regard to the work and the manner of doing it; such a sulking of rejected suggestions! Finally, towards noon, when everybody is worn out with sheer waiting, we at last begin: such a hacking down of trees much too large to move; such a lopping off of saplings much too small to be used; such a felling, and chopping, and lifting, and pulling, and hauling of big logs; such a splashing into the loose mire, making believe to dig ditches; such a gathering of pine-brush; such a piling on of heavy dirt; and all the while such a cursing, and shouting, and grumbling, and getting in one another's way, and stumbling out again; such a fault-finding by the young engineer at the paltry result of the day's work; such a going home wet, and fagged, and muddy, to stretch out supperless and try to sleep! all this, with how much more I cannot tell, rises before my eyes at the very mention of the word corduroy. And so I say it is hard to decide whether it is pleasanter work to build or to travel on one, lurching to and fro, forward and back, hardly two miles an hour, at the risk of your horse's knees and your own neck, scrambling from log to log, getting your poor brute's legs jammed between them, slipping and floundering wearily to your journey's end; with all the while such a smell-nay, such a diabolish stench !-chiefly compounded of dead horse, decayed leaves, and water-rotting roots, as serves to make your misery complete and spherical. We are still speculating, in our mess, whether we are engaged in a siege or not, when there comes a little cocked hat from brigade head-quarters, which upon being opened is found to contain the following pithy words: "HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, "CAMP WINFIELD SCOTT, BEFORE YORKTOWN, "April 17, 1862. "ORDERS. "Detail for To-morrow "By command of MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN: "Colonel Johnson Heavysterne, 3d D. C. Vols. (Signed) "OFFICIAL COPY. "By order of Acting Brigadier-General FURSE: "VERUEL HICK, Capt. and A. A.-G.” And in a few days followed another cocked hat, from division head-quarters, to this effect: "ORDERS. "HEAD-QUARTERS SECOND DIVISION, "TWENTY-SIXTH ARMY CORPS, "BEFORE YORKTOWN, April 19, 1862. "Detail for To-night "GUARDS OF TRENCHES, "3d Regt. Dist. Col. Vols.-Col. J. Heaveystearns. "Report at 7 P. M. to Brigadier-General Sturgeon, Gen. of Trenches. "By order Brigadier-General PIKE, Com. Division. "WASHINGTON SMITH, Assistant Adjutant-General. "OFFICIAL COPY. "VERUEL HICK, Capt. and A. A.-G.” "By order Act. Brigadier-General FURSE: I print as they wrote, remember. Guards of the trenches! welcome detail! welcome any thing for a change. The muttered growls change to a hum of cheerful chattering; men slough off their moody sullenness, and begin to look alive once more. Officers pass the customary banters, and the inevitable "How are you?resounds throughout the camp. The night comes at last. Full of joy and supper, we march out with a lively step, we mount the hill, descend its farther slope, cross the pontoon-bridge-then a new plaything with us, though now stale enough!-and so to the old mill where we are to report to the engineer officer, who again, as a matter of course, is not to be found there, having somehow gathered an impression that he is to look for us somewhere else. As Smallweed philosophizes, "some pork will bile so," though indeed it strikes us as a little hard that after squatting for an hour in the mud and darkness, and exhausting all possible means of discovering the juvenile lieutenant, fresh from the shell (Fassin, I believe his name is), he should suddenly make his diminutive appearance from nowhere in particular, on a gigantic horse, and incontinently begin double-dashing the Colonel and the "dashed volunteers," after the authentic fashion for the case made and provided. I suppose some pork will bile so, also; and now we are off for the trenches at last. Here we are. "File right," and we pass along the reverse of a big ditch in which a number of other soldiers are working with that slow and steady dig that soldiers use, and presently we halt and, sitting or lying on the ground, begin our important functions as guards of the trenches, while the old guards, with many an expression of mock sympathy, and many a "Good-by, boys," after the courteous manner of the time, trudge rather gladly rearward by the way we have just come. How quiet it seems! A death-like silence prevails, broken only by men speaking in a half-whisper, by the crack of the sharpshooter's rifle as he sends his occasional greeting to his vis-à-vis, or by the metallic click of the pick as it strikes some stray stone that has found its way into this vast bed of sand by mistake. Those of us who are conscious of possessing the faculty of being able to sleep without detection under adverse circumstances, take naps; the others "gas," or think in silence of home and distant scenes, and bygone days that seem, oh! so far away! Suddenly, the dark silence is rent by a shriek and a roar, and more shrieks and more roars, and the thunder of many guns; the enemy are shelling the working parties! On the instant the sleepers wake up, and the most of us drop flat on the ground, by an irresistible impulse, but presently sit up once more and peer round half-laughing, half-ashamed, each pleased to think he has done no worse than his neighbors. From a score of guns the horrid belching goes on for a half hour, and the shells shriek harmlessly over our heads, or, bursting in the air, make the scene ghastly with their glare for one instant, and the next hurtle their fragments with a hum-m-m-m among us. All quiet again. Anybody hurt? Nobody hurt! Good! Young Fippany jumps to his feet at my side, whirls his cap over his head, and pretends to give three cheers. Just as he gets to the inevitable "tiger," I am blinded by a streak of light, deafened by a terrible noise, and stunned by what seems an earthquake. When I come to myself my face is full of sand, and somebody is trying to make me drink out of a canteen which tastes weakly of bad whiskey. What has happened? Shell. Any one hurt? Am I? I'm all right, I find. What have they done with my blanket? Ah, well! They have taken it to carry off poor Fippany to the surgeon; a needless task, for Harry is already far beyond the leech's skill, having had the top of his skull blown off by the explosion. The first man killed in our regiment. No, For five minutes, it may be, or perhaps not so long, everybody is solemn, and then every thing goes on as before. A ripple, and the surface is smooth again! As for Lieutenant William Jenkins, his nerves are so completely unstrung by the shock, that young Dr. Cutts thinks it necessary to muddle him with brandy, so that he knows nothing more till daylight. SHERMAN'S GEORGIA CAMPAIGN-FROM ATLANTA TO THE as 66 SEA. BY COLONEL S. M. BOWMAN. THE capture of Atlanta was a terrible blow to the Confederacy; it was as unexpected to the rebel leaders at Richmond, a clap of thunder from a cloudless sky." The failure of Johnston to arrest the victorious advance of Sherman had caused universal alarm, and much dissatisfaction, and now Hood also had failed disastrously. It seemed impossible to stay Sherman's victorious progress. President Davis immediately left Richmond, and proceeded with all possible haste to Georgia. At every stage of his journey he was met by a dejected and suffering people, who, now truly alarmed, plied him with anxious inquiries. At Columbia, South Carolina, and other places on his journey, he addressed the people, but in attempting to allay their apprehensions, he only disclosed his own. He seemed only to labor to get rid of his own fears, as if struggling with destiny; the war was getting beyond his control; he saw that in relieving Johnston and appointing Hood, he had only made matters worse, and that his cause was well-nigh lost; and, losing his accustomed equanimity, he launched forth torrents of invective against the Yankees, and hurled defiance at Sherman, as if he thought to accomplish by the force of his rhetoric what Johnston and Hood could not |