and a good meal, and would surely be equal to the eighteen miles' ride. But within a few hundred yards of the east end of the village, I found myself stopped on the highway not only by immense trains of loaded army wagons in the road, but by camps of teamsters and soldiers on both sides of it. I was obliged to dismount and find my way in the dark with the greatest difficulty through and around these impediments. It was nearly one in the morning when I at last was able to go ahead again at a fast trot on a clear road. Still, even for the rest of the way, I frequently passed squads of runaways from the front that must have left the field early in the afternoon and made the best use of their legs ever since. Some were wearily worrying on, others resting on the roadside or cooking meals at campfires. Some of those who were halting, being hidden from view by the darkness, amused themselves by sending forth rebel yells so as to frighten the passers-by into the belief that they had fallen upon a rebel ambuscade, and into a dead run for life or rather from imprisonment. The first attempt of the kind deceived me, too, so that I spurred my beast to his greatest possible speed.
About daybreak I passed the camp of a regiment of Pennsylvania three months' men, whose term of service had expired the day before, and who had insisted on marching away from the front to the very sound of the battle. So little martial spirit had been developed in a good portion of the army! A little while later I heard the clatter of hoofs behind me, and, looking back, perceived a mounted officer approaching at full speed. As he came nearer, I saw he wore nothing on his head and was very bald. I soon recognized in him Colonel Ambrose E. Burnside, of the First Regiment of Rhode Island Volunteers, who had commanded a brigade under Heintzelman in the battle. There he was, hatless, swordless, and all alone, making the best of time on his fine black charger. I had made his acquaintance in his camp at Washington, and hence spoke to him as he hastened by. He did not
