We found the sergeant fast asleep.  It was more difficult to get him awake than to get him into the ambulance.  Reed and I picked him up bodily and laid him down on a mattress in the bottom of the vehicle.

And now, with my load of personal duty gone, I also sank back and slumbered through a troubled night, and when I fully awoke it was six in the morning and we were crossing Long Bridge in the midst of a driving rain.  There were two seats in the ambulance, besides a double-deck, that is to say, two floors for wounded to lie upon.  I scrambled to the rear seat.

We were making but slow progress.  The bridge ahead of us was crowded.  There were frequent stoppages.  Many civilians, on horseback or in carriages, were before and behind us.  Soldiers single and in groups swelled the procession, some of them with their arms in slings; how they had achieved the long night march I cannot yet comprehend.

Willis was yet lying on the mattress; his eyes were not open, but he was awake, I thought, for his motions were restless.

Reed appeared to be exhausted; he said nothing and nodded sleepily, although holding the lines.  The Doctor, on the contrary, looked fresh and vigorous; indeed, as I closely studied his face, I could almost have believed that he had become younger than he had been when I parted with him in Charleston, more than three years before.  He knew that I was observing him, for he said, without turning his face toward me, “You have not slept well, Jones; but you did not know when we stopped at Fairfax; we rested the horses there for an hour.”

“Yes,” I said, “I feel stupid, and my spirits are wofully down.”

“Why so?” he asked, with a smile.

“Oh, the bitter disappointment!” I cried; “what will become of the country?”

“What do you mean by the country?” asked the Doctor.

I did not reply at once.

“Do you mean,” he repeated, “the material soil?  Do you mean the people of the United States, including those of the seceded States?  Do you mean the idea symbolized by everything that constitutes American civilization?  However, let us not speak of these difficult matters now.  We must get your friend Willis to the hospital and then arrange for your comfort.”

“I thank you, Doctor; but first be so good as to relieve my devouring curiosity:  tell me by what marvellous chance you were on the battlefield.”

“No chance at all, Jones; you know that I have always told you there is no such thing as chance, I went to the field deliberately, as an agent of the United States Sanitary Commission.”

“I thought that you were far from this country, and that you felt no interest in us,” said I.  “My father and I were in Charleston in ‘fifty-eight,’ and were told that you were in Europe.  And then, too, how could you know that I was on such a part of the battlefield, and that Willie was hurt and that I was with him?”