between the guard and ourselves.  They helped us cut brush and cover it nicely, and after tattoo all were to return and divide up.  We did not know the guards personally, but knew their command.  And so we returned to the camp to await the return of our pickets and night.  It was soon noised in camp that there was a fine fat porker to be distributed after tattoo, and no little eagerness and inquisitiveness were manifested, as all wished a piece.  Armed with a crocus-sack, we returned to the house; all was dark and still.  We whistled the signal, but no answer.  It was repeated, but still no reply.  The guard had not come.  Sitting down on the door step, we began our long wait.  Moments passed into minutes, minutes into hours, until at last we began to have some forebodings and misgivings.  Had we been betrayed?  Would we be reported and our tents searched next day?  Hardly; a soldier could not be so treacherous.  We entered the cellar and began to fumble around without results, a match was struck, and to our unspeakable dismay not a vestige of hog remained.  Stuck against the side of the wall was a piece of paper, on which was written:  “No mercy for the hog rogue.”  Such swearing, such stamping and beating the air with our fists, in imitation of the punishment that would be given the treacherous rascals if present; the atmosphere was perfectly sulphurous with the venom spit out against the foul party.  Here was a true verification of the old adage, “Set a rogue to catch a rogue.”  Dejected and crestfallen, we returned to camp, but dared not tell of our misfortune, for fear of the jeers of our comrades.

Measles and jaundice began to scourge the camp; the green corn, it was said, did the army more damage than the enemy did in battle.  Wagons and ambulances went out daily loaded with the sick; the hospitals were being crowded in Richmond and other cities; hotels, colleges, and churches were appropriated for hospital service, and the good people of Virginia can never be forgotten, nor amply rewarded for the self-sacrifices and aid rendered to the sick soldiers.  Private houses were thrown open to the sick when their homes were far distant, or where they could not reach it.  The soldier was never too dirty or ragged to be received into palatial homes; all found a ready welcome and the best attention.

Generals Johnston and Beauregard had now concentrated all their forces in supporting distance around Fairfax Court House, and were preparing for a movement across the Potomac.  Bonham’s Brigade was at Flint Hill, Cox’s at Centerville, Jones’s at Germantown, Hampton and Early on the Occoquon, the Louisiana Brigade at Bull Run, and Longstreet at Fairfax Court House.  The troops were all in easy distance, and a gigantic plan of General Beauregard, with the doubtful approval of General Johnston and others, was for a formidable invasion of the North.  General Johnston evinced that same disposition in military tactics that he followed during the war, “a