But suppose you are asked your regiment, and give an appropriate answer, and then are asked for your captain’s name—­what can you say?

I beat off the fearful suggestion.  Strong suspicion alone could prompt such, an inquiry.  There was no more reason for these men to suspect my being a Union soldier than there was for me to suspect that one of these men was a Union soldier.

I was approaching the encampment from the rear.  Two men overtook me, each bending under a load of many canteens.  They passed me without speaking.  I followed them—­lengthening my step to keep near them—­and went with them to their company.  I stood by in the light of the fires while they distributed the canteens, or, rather, while they put the canteens on the ground, and their respective owners came and got them.  The men did not speak to me.

I had hoped to find the Confederates in line of battle; they certainly ought to have been in line, and in every respect ready for action, but, instead, they were here in tents and without any preparation against surprise, so far as I could see, except the cavalry pickets thrown out on the roads.  If they had been in line, it would have been easy for me to estimate the number of bayonets in the line of stacked arms; I was greatly disappointed.  The tents seemed to me too few for the numbers of men who were at the camp-fires.  I saw forms already stretched out on their blankets in the open air.  Doubtless many men, in this mild weather, preferred to sleep outside of the crowded tents.

Hoping that something would be said to give me what I wanted to know, I sat down.

One of the men asked me for a chew of tobacco.

“Don’t chaw,” said I, mentally vowing that henceforth.  I should carry some tobacco.

“Why don’t you buy your own tobacco?” asked a voice.

The petitioner refused to reply.

A large man stood up; he took from his pocket a knife and a square of tobacco; he gravely approached the first speaker, cut off a very small portion, and handed it to him.  The men looked on in silence at this act, which, seemingly, was nothing new to them.  One of them winked at me.  I inferred that the large man intended a rebuke to his comrade for begging from a stranger.  The large man went back and sat down.

“Say, Doc, how long are we goin’ to be here?”

“I wish I could tell you,” said the large man.

There were seven men in the group around the fire; the eyes of all were upon the large man called Doc.  He seemed a man of character and influence, though but a private.  He turned to me.

“You are tired,” he said.

I merely nodded assent.  His remark surprised and disconcerted me, so that I could not find my voice.  In a moment my courage had returned.  The look of the man was the opposite of suspicious—­it was sympathetic.  He was not baldly curious.  His attitude toward me might shield me from the curiosity of the others, if, indeed, they were feeling interest of any sort in me.  I had been fearing that some one would ask me my regiment.