Early in the afternoon we rode up to a farm-house, at the gate of which a middle-aged woman was standing, crying bitterly.  The General stopped, and the woman at once assailed him vehemently.  She told him the soldiers had that day taken her husband and his team away with them.  She said that there was no one left to take care of her old blind mother,—­at which allusion, the blind mother tottered down the walk and took a position in the rear of the attacking party,—­that they had two orphan girls, the children of a deceased sister, and the orphans had lost their second father.  The assailants were here reinforced by the two orphan girls.  She protested that her husband was loyal,—­“Truly, Sir, he was a Union man and voted for the Union, and always told his neighbors Disunion would do nothing except bring trouble upon innocent people, as indeed it has,” said she, with a fresh flood of tears.  The General was moved by her distress, and ordered Colonel E. to have the man, whose name is Rutherford, sent back at once.

A few rods farther on we came to another house, in front of which was another weeping woman afflicted in the same way.  Several little flaxen-haired children surrounded her, and a white-bearded man, trembling with age, stood behind, leaning upon a staff.  Her earnestness far surpassed that of Mrs. Rutherford.  She wrung her hands, and could hardly speak for her tears.  She seized the General’s hand and entreated him to return her husband, with an expression of distress which the hardest heart could not resist.  The General comforted the poor woman with a few kind words, and promised to grant what she asked.

It is very difficult to refuse such requests, and yet, in point of fact, no great hardship or sacrifice is required of these men.  They profess to be Union men, but they are not in arms for the Union, and a Federal general now asks of them that they shall help the army for a day with their teams.  To those who come here from all parts of the nation to defend these homes this does not appear to be a harsh demand.

We arrived at camp about five o’clock.  Our day’s march was twenty-two miles, and the wagons were far behind.  A neighboring farm-house afforded the General and a few of his officers a dinner, but it was late in the evening before the tents were pitched.

Warsaw, October 17th. Yesterday we made our longest march, making twenty-five miles, and encamped three miles north of this place.

It is a problem, why riding in a column should be so much more wearisome than riding alone, but so it undeniably is.  Men who would think little of a sixty-mile ride were quite broken down by to-day’s march.