Observing a shanty on the summit of a small hill, with the words, ’Meals at all hours,’ over the door, I wended my way over sundry cow-paths and through by-lanes towards it, until at last, fatigued, and with hands torn and bleeding from catching hold of roots and bushes to keep myself from falling, I arrived at the summit of the hill.  A young woman stood in the door-way of the shanty, and I asked her if I could obtain a dinner.

‘Yes,’ she said.  ‘Walk in and take a cheer.’  She shoved a three-legged stool towards me, and I took it.

She was about eighteen years of age, and had a very pretty face,—­though it was thickly covered with a coating of the sacred soil,—­a musical voice, and a small hand.  Her eyes sparkled like fire-flies on a June night, and her hair hung in wavy ringlets over what would have been an ‘alabaster brow,’ had it not been for the superabundance of dirt above mentioned.  She was the only good-looking woman I saw in Western Virginia.

I took a seat at the table, and from a broken cup drank a few swallows of tolerable coffee.  As for the edibles, ’twas the same old story,—­corn bread and maple molasses, fried pork and onions.  I staid there perhaps fifteen minutes, and learned from my hostess that Webster was, previous to the war ‘a right smart village,’ but that the male inhabitants had mostly joined the rebel army, then at Phillippi.  She, different from most women I met in Virginia, expressed sympathy for the Union cause.  It seemed so strange to find a Union woman in that part of the country, I was induced to ask if Webster had the honor of being her birth-place.

‘Oh no,’ she said; ’I was born in ‘Hio.’

That solved the whole mystery.  I willingly paid the ‘four bits’ for my dinner; and, as a storm was coming on, made all haste back to the railroad, where we were getting ready to march on Phillippi, distance thirteen Virginian, or about twenty American, miles.

‘Fall in, Company Q!’ shouted the orderly.  ’Numbers one, two, three, and four, do so and so; five, six, seven, and eight, do this, that, and the other!’ So at it we went; and never in my life did I perform a harder afternoon’s work than on Sunday, the 2d of June, 1861.  It was a warm, sultry day, and our morning’s ride in the cars had been dusty and fatiguing; and when, about dusk, a heavy rain-storm set in and drenched us to the skin, we were sorry-looking objects indeed.

Although we had been in service six weeks, we had but just received our uniforms that morning.  My pants, when I put them on, were about six inches too long, and the sleeves of my blouse ditto.  After marching all night in the rain, my trowsers only came down as far as my knees; they shrank two feet in twelve hours.  Many of the men threw away their shoddy uniforms after wearing them one day, as they were totally unfit for use.  They tore as easily as so much paper, and were no protection whatever from the weather.  Somebody, I don’t pretend to say who, made a good thing when he furnished them to the government.  No doubt they were supplied by some loyal and respectable citizen, who would not knowingly cheat his country out of a penny!  We have reaped a bountiful harvest of such patriots during the past year.  May the Lord love them!