The moving and halting process was resumed, and was kept up for many
hours. We reached the railroad. Our company was sent forward to relieve
the pickets. We were in the woods, and within a hundred yards of a
feeble rivulet which, ran from west to east almost parallel with our
skirmish-line; nothing could be seen in front but trees. Beyond the
stream vedettes were posted on a ridge. The men of the company were in
position, but at ease. The division was half a mile in our rear.

I was lying on my back at the root of a scrub-oak very like the
blackjacks of Georgia and the Carolinas. The tree caused me to think of
my many sojourns in the South. Willis was standing a few yards away; he
was in the act of lighting his pipe.

"What's that?" said he, dropping the match.

"What's what?" I asked.

"There! Don't you hear it? two--three--"

At the word "three" I heard distinctly, in the far northwest, a low
rumble. All the men were on their feet, silent, serious. Again the
distant cannon was heard.

About five o'clock in the afternoon the newspapers from Washington were
in our hands. In one of the papers a certain war correspondent had
outlined, or rather amplified, the plan of the campaign. Basing his
prediction, doubtless, upon the fact that he knew something of the
nature of the advance begun on the 16th, the public was informed that
Heintzelman's division would swing far to the left until the rear of
Beauregard's right flank was reached; at the same time Miles and Hunter