“No, sir; anybody might have cut those letters; just as anybody might imitate print.  And I think, Captain, that there is not another J.B. in Lee’s army who would have supposed for an instant that he had any connection with that gun.”

“Suppose, then, that I call you Berwick hereafter?”

“No, I thank you, Captain.  I’d rather be to you Jones than Berwick.  Beside, if you should change now, it would cause remark.”

“I think I shall ask my brother Aleck to find out what South Carolina regiments were in the first battle of Manassas,” said he.  “You may go with me to see him to-night if you will.”

That night Captain A.C.  Haskell, the assistant adjutant-general, was able to inform me that Bee’s brigade had not been composed of troops from South Carolina, although General Bee himself was from that state.  After hearing my description of the place which I thought I had revisited, he expressed the opinion that no Confederate troops at all had reached the spot in the battle of sixty-one.  The place, he said, was more than a mile from the position of the Confederate army in the battle; still, he admitted, many scattered Federals retreated over the ground which interested me so greatly, and it was possible that some Confederates had been over it to seek plunder or for other purposes; but as for pursuit, there had been none.  I asked if it could have been possible for me to be a prisoner on that day and to be led away to the rear of the Federals.  “If so,” he replied, “you would not have been allowed to keep or to break your gun.  Moreover, the whole army lost in missing too few men to base such a theory on; the loss was just a baker’s dozen in both Beauregard’s and Johnston’s forces.  For my part, I think it more likely that, if you were there at all, you were there as a scout, or as a vedette.  General Evans—­Old Shanks, the boys call him—­began the battle with the Fourth South Carolina.  He was at Stone Bridge, and found out before nine o’clock that McDowell had turned our left and was marching down from Sudley.  You might have been sent out to watch the enemy; yet I am confident that Evans would have used his cavalry for that purpose, for he had a company of cavalry in his command.  A more plausible guess might be that you were out foraging that morning and got cut off.  I will look up the Fourth South Carolina for you, and try to learn something.  Yet the whole thing is very vague, and I should not advise you to hope for anything from it.  I am now convinced that you did not originally belong to this brigade.  You would have been recognized long ago.  By the way, I have had a thought in connection with your case.  You ought to write to the hotel in Aiken and find out who you are.”

“I wonder why I never thought of that!” I exclaimed.  “I suppose that a letter addressed to the manager would answer.”

“Certainly.”

“But—­” I began.

“But what?”

“If I write, what can I say?  Can I sign a letter asking an unknown man to tell me who I am?”