week he would be "dead on the field of honor!" Nor was he the only one
of our little military household above whom gloomed the shadow of the
death angel, and who might almost have heard "the beating of his wings."
On that bleak December morning a few days later, when from an hour
before dawn until ten o'clock we sat on horseback on those icy hills,
waiting for General Smith to open the battle miles away to the right,
there were eight of us. At the close of the fighting there were three.
There is now one. Bear with him yet a little while, oh, thrifty
generation; he is but one of the horrors of war strayed from his era
into yours. He is only the harmless skeleton at your feast and
peace-dance, responding to your laughter and your footing it featly,
with rattling fingers and bobbing skull--albeit upon suitable occasion,
with a partner of his choosing, he might do his little dance with the
best of you.

As we entered the adjutant-general's office we observed that the entire
staff was there. The adjutant-general himself was exceedingly busy at
his desk. The commissary of subsistence played cards with the surgeon in
a bay window. The rest were in several parts of the room, reading or
conversing in low tones. On a sofa in a half lighted nook of the room,
at some distance from any of the groups, sat the "lady," closely veiled,
her eyes modestly fixed upon her toes.

"Madam," I said, advancing with Haberton, "this officer will be pleased
to serve you if it is in his power. I trust that it is."

With a bow I retired to the farther corner of the room and took part in
a conversation going on there, though I had not the faintest notion what
it was about, and my remarks had no relevancy to anything under the
heavens. A close observer would have noticed that we were all intently