rural district of railroad wrecks, made a desperate leap from the car.  This was followed by another, now equally excited.  Those in the front cars, clutching to the sides of the doors, craned their necks as far as possible outward, but could see nothing but leaping men.  They fearing a catastrophe of some kind, leaped also, while those in the rear cars, as they saw along the sides of the railroad track men leaping, rolling, and tumbling on the ground, took it for granted that a desperate calamity had happened to a forward car.  No time for questions, no time for meditation.  The soldier’s only care was to watch for a soft place to make his desperate leap, and in many cases there was little choice.  Men leaped wildly in the air, some with their heels up, others falling on their heads and backs, some rolling over in a mad scramble to clear themselves from the threatening danger.  The engineer not being aware of anything wrong with the train, glided serenely along, unconscious of the pandemonium, in the rear.  But when all had about left the train, and the great driving-wheels began to spin around like mad, from the lightening of the load, the master of the throttle looked to the rear.  There lay stretched prone upon the ground, or limping on one foot, or rolling over in the dirt, some bareheaded and coatless, boxes and trunks scattered as in an awful collision, upwards of one thousand men along the railroad track.  Many of the men thinking, no doubt, the train hopelessly lost, or serious danger imminent, threw their baggage out before making the dangerous leap.  At last the train was stopped and brought back to the scene of desolation.  It terminated like the bombardment of Fort Sumter—­“no one hurt,” and all occasioned by a hot-box that could have been cooled in a very few minutes.  Much swearing and good-humored jesting were now engaged in.  Such is the result of the want of presence of mind.  A wave of the hat at the proper moment as a signal to the engineer to stop, and all would have been well.  It was told once of a young lady crossing a railroad track in front of a fast approaching train, that her shoe got fastened in the frog where the two rails join.  She began to struggle, then to scream, and then fainted.  A crowd rushed up, some grasping the lady’s body attempted to pull her loose by force; others shouted to the train to stop; some called for crow-bars to take up the iron.  At last one man pushed through the crowd, untied the lady’s shoe, and she was loose.  Presence of mind, and not force, did it.

Remaining in camp a few days, orders came to move, and cars were gotten in readiness and baggage packed preparatory to the trip to Virginia.  To many, especially those reared in the back districts, and who, before their brief army life, had never been farther from their homes than their county seat, the trip to the old “Mother of Presidents,” the grand old commonwealth, was quite a journey indeed.  The old negroes, who had been brought South during