“I don’t understand why you didn’t see the guns, if you were guarding the battery; and I don’t see why the battery couldn’t do its own guard duty.”

“We wa’n’t a-guyardin’ no battery; we was a-guyardin’ a house down by the battery.”

“Oh, I see; protecting some citizen’s property.”

“That’s so; pertectin’ property an’ gittin’ hongry.”

“That’s Captain Brown’s battery, is it not?”

“No, sirree!  Hit’s Latham’s battery, though some does call it Branch’s battery; but I don’t see why.  Jest as well call Hardeman’s regiment Branch’s, too.”

“Which regiment is Hardeman’s?”

“Our’n; it’s with Branch’s brigade now, but it ain’t Branch’s regiment, by a long shot.”

“I hear that more troops are expected here,” said I, at a venture.

“Yes, and I know they’re a-comin’; some of ’em is at the Junction now—­comin’ from Fredericksburg.  I heerd Cap’n Simmons say so this mornin’.”

“We’ll have a big crowd then,” said I.

“What regiment is your’n?”

“’Eventh,” said I, without remorse cancelling the difference between the Eleventh Massachusetts and the Seventh North Carolina.

The man moved about the fire, attending to his cooking.  The talk almost ceased.  I pulled an envelope from my pocket and began tearing it into little bits, which I threw into the fire one by one, pretending mere abstraction.

The envelope had borne the address:—­

CAPTAIN GEORGE B. JOHNSTON,
Co.  G, 28th N.C.  Reg’t,
Branch’s Brigade,
Hanover C.H., Va.

I took out another envelope.  It was addressed to Lieut.  E.G.  Morrow, of the same company—­Company G of the Twenty-eighth.  A third bore the address:—­

CAPTAIN S.N.  STOWE,
Co.  B, 7th N.C.  Reg’t,
Gordonsville, Va.

More envelopes went into the fire.  They bore the names of privates, corporals, and sergeants; some were of the Eighteenth, others of the Thirty-seventh North Carolina Volunteers.  One envelope had no address.  Another gave me the name of Col.  James H. Lane, but no regiment.

“Time your friend was getting back,” said I.

“Seems to me so, too,” said he; “but I reckin he found a crowd ahead of him.”

“How many men in your regiment?” I asked.

“Dunno; there was more’n a thousand at first; not more’n seven or eight hundred, I reckin; how many in your’n?”

“About the same,” I replied; “how many in your company?”

“Eighty-two,” he said.

The other man returned from the spring.

“Know what I heerd?” he asked.

“No; what was it?” inquired his companion.

“I heard down thar at the branch that the Twelf’ No’th Ca’lina was here summers.”

“Well, maybe it is.”

“I got it mighty straight.”

“How did you hear it?” I asked.

“A man told me that one of Branch’s couriers told him so; he had jest come from ’em; said they is camped not more’n two mile from here”