and fruit. The days were hot, but the mornings and evenings
delightful; and as the troops always halted in the shade of a wood
for three or four hours in the middle of the day, the marches
although long were not fatiguing. At Harper's Ferry General
Johnston had just superseded Colonel Jackson in command. The
force there consisted of 11 battalions of infantry, 16 guns, and
after Ashley's force arrived, 300 cavalry. Among the regiments
there Vincent found many friends, and learned what was going on.

He learned that Colonel Jackson had been keeping them hard at
work. Some of Vincent's friends had been at the Virginia Military
Institute at Lexington, where Jackson was professor of natural
philosophy and instructor of artillery.

"He was the greatest fun," one of the young men said; "the stiffest
and most awkward-looking fellow in the institute. He used to
walk about as if he never saw anything or anybody. He was
always known as Old Tom, and nobody ever saw him laugh. He
was awfully earnest in all he did, and strict, I can tell you, about
everything. There was no humbugging him. The fellows liked him
because he was really so earnest about everything, and always just
and fair. But he didn't look a bit like a soldier except as to his
stiffness, and when the fellows who had been at Lexington heard
that he was in command here they did not think he would have
made much hand at it; but I tell you, he did. You never saw such a
fellow to work.

"Everything had to be done, you know. There were the guns, but
no horses and no harness. The horses had to be got somehow, and
the harness manufactured out of ropes; and you can imagine the