who would keep the black driver crouching at the very top of the load with “ashy” face and chattering teeth, while his besieger walked growling around the wagon, occasionally jumping up upon the chance of seizing an unguarded foot.  Until the dog was securely chained nothing would induce his prisoner to venture down.  No chicken-thieves dared to put in an appearance so long as this faithful beast kept watch upon the premises.  And for his faithfulness he was doomed to destruction.  Such a state of security in any place could not long be tolerated.  The would-be thieves, exasperated by the impunity with which fine, fat turkeys, geese, ducks, and chickens walked about before their very eyes, and smoke-houses, melon-patches, and wood-piles remained undisturbed, at last poisoned faithful Beauregard, whose death left the home-place unprotected, for not one of his successors ever followed his example or proved half as watchful.

PART III.

AFTER TWENTY YEARS.[2]

    [2] These articles, originally prepared for The Southern
    Bivouac and “South Illustrated,” are here republished by special
    request.

CHAPTER I.

“MY BOYS.”

Address to the Wives and Children of Confederate Veterans.

I have been often and earnestly requested by “my comrades” to address to you a few words explanatory of the tie which binds me to them and them to me.  They tell me, among other things, that you “wonder much, and still the wonder grows,” that I should presume to call grave and dignified husbands and fathers “my boys.”  Having promised to meet their wishes, I must in advance apologize for the egoism which it is quite impossible to avoid, as my own war record is inseparable from that of my comrades.

Does it seem strange to you that I call these bronzed and bearded men “my boys?” Ah, friends, in every time-worn face there lives always for me “the light of other days.”  Memory annihilates the distance between the long-ago and the present.

I seem to see them marching, with brave, bright faces and eager feet, to meet the foe.  I hear the distant boom of cannon, growing fainter as they press the retreating enemy.  And then, alas! many come back to me mutilated, bleeding, dying, yet with ardor unquenched, repressing moans of anguish that they may listen for the shout of victory:  wrestling fiercely with the King of Terrors, not that they fear to die, but because his chill grasp palsies the arm that would fain strike another blow for the right.

I stood among the sick and wounded lying in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, while the magnificent Army of Northern Virginia was passing from the scene of their late glorious victory at Manassas to meet the invaders under McClellan, who were marching upon the Peninsula.  Around me lay many sick and wounded men, gathered under the immense roof of a tobacco factory, which covered nearly a whole square.  Its windows commanded a full view of the legions passing on both sides.