“Because of the narrow, little, muddy little, ugly little, mean little trench we’ve left behind us!  O, woe is me that I’ve left such a trench, where one could sit in mud to the knees and touch the mud wall on either side of him, for this open, insecure world, where there is nothing but fresh air to breathe, nothing but water to drink, nothing but food to eat, and no world but blue skies, hills, valleys, forests, fields, rivers, creeks and brooks!”

“O, woe is me!” the three chanted together.  “We sigh for our narrow trench, and its muddy bottom and muddy sides and foul air and lack of space, and for the shells bursting over our heads, and for the hostile riflemen ready to put a bullet through us at the first peep!  Now, do we sigh for all those blessings we’ve left behind us?”

“Never a sigh!” said Dick.

“Not a tear from me,” said Pennington.

“The top of the earth for me,” said Warner.

Their high spirits spread to the whole column.  So thoroughly inured were they to war that their losses of the night before were forgotten, and they lifted up their voices and sang.  Youth and the open air would have their way and the three colonels did not object.  They preferred men who sang to men who groaned.

“Do you know just where we’re going, and where we expect to find this Little Phil of yours?” asked Warner.

“I’ve heard that we’re to report to him at Halltown, a place south of the Potomac, and about four miles from Harper’s Ferry,” replied Dick.

“As that’s a long distance, we’ll have a long ride to reach it,” said Warner, “and I’m glad of it.  I’m enjoying this great trail, and I hope we won’t meet again those fire-eating friends of yours, Dick, who gave us so much trouble last night.”

“I hope so too,” said Dick, “for their sake as well as ours.  I don’t like fighting with such close kin.  They must be well along on the southwestern road now to join Early.”

“There’s no further danger of meeting them, at least before this campaign opens,” said Warner.  “Shepard has just come back from a long gallop and he reports that they are now at least twenty miles away, with the distance increasing all the time.”

Dick felt great relief.  He was softening wonderfully in these days, and while he had the most intense desire for the South to yield he had no wish for the South to suffer more.  He felt that the republic had been saved and he was anxious for the war to be over soon.  His heart swelled with pride at the way in which the Union states had stood fast, how they had suffered cruel defeats, but had come again, and yet again, how mistakes and disaster had been overcome by courage and tenacity.

“A Confederate dollar for your thoughts,” said Warner.

“You can have ’em without the dollar,” replied Dick.  “I was thinking about the end of the war and after.  What are all the soldiers going to do then?”