work in Virginia, and, eighteen months before, they had come there to live. Everything went well at first; but soon the imminence of war threw all in disorder throughout the South. The sawmill did little work; then the workmen were no longer paid. The Vermonter wished to return North with his family; nevertheless, the hope of receiving what was due him kept him from week to week. When, at last, he saw that he must lose his money, it was too late. His savings were exhausted, and the authorities were opposed to his departure. He was forced to remain at the moment when, after long privations and trouble of every kind, the approach of our troops promised to give them a chance to return home; the rebels had enrolled him in their ranks by force.

This tale, related with tears, had all the air of truth, and was confirmed, besides, by the evidence of the other forsaken ones.

All of these did not belong to the little colony. A part of them had come there to take refuge from their lonely houses, where they did not dare to remain on our approach. With minds terrified by the absurd tales designedly spread by the rebels against us, they had fled with their children, leaving everything they had, rather than fall into the hands of men who were depicted to them as bandits without faith or law, ready to commit violence, murder, or pillage. The women at the sawmill had shared their beds and their provisions with them, and they were all together, trembling, fearful, and not daring to believe they would receive the protection they implored.

One only, more resolute, did not give way to these exaggerated terrors. She was a Virginian. Misery had changed, but not destroyed, her beauty, the character of which was shown in her large black eyes, her

regular features, and in her abundant hair, to which the want of care gave naturally that negligent appearance which has since become a work of art on the heads of our ladies à la mode. Her spareness was draped with a certain air, in the folds of a dress of plain wool.

"I do not suppose," she said to me, "that you have come to make war on women and children. However, some of your men came here a few hours ago, when the cannon were firing on the other side of Warwick. They penetrated everywhere, and carried off whatever suited them. We have nothing left to keep soul and body together, except a few chickens, a little flour, and a little corn; to take that away from us is to condemn us and our children to die of hunger. Is that what you wish to do?"

No," I said, "we wish simply to punish the guilty and protect the innocent."

"I do not know," replied she, "whom you call the guilty; my husband went away with our army.”

The other women looked with some uneasiness upon the turn the conversation had taken. At the last words of the Virginian, one of them pulled her dress quietly, and whispered some words in her ear, which I did not hear, but the sense of which it was not difficult to guess.

'Why not!" replied the one speaking to me, looking firmly at me. "My husband has done his duty, as this one has done his own. If he is a gentleman, he will understand that."

She was silent, appearing to wait a reply.

I am not here," I told her, "to enter into the question whether your husband did his duty, or was a traitor in abandoning you, but to alleviate as much as I can the evils which those whom he has followed have brought upon your heads."

"The

'Yes, yes," cried the others, with eagerness. colonel is right. He will protect us. Will you not, sir, prevent your soldiers from taking the bread out of our mouths?"

"Certainly," I replied. "But you must understand that it is not the soldiers who are disposed to injure you. On the contrary, they will protect you against the rascals whose depredations are forbidden and punished in our army."

I rejoined the reserve company posted on the other side of the ravine and ordered the captain to send two men as guard to keep off marauders from those unhappy women, who were, at least, able to sleep peacefully the following night. The next morning the regiment departed to relieve the Second Rhode Island on the banks of the Warwick River.

CHAPTER IX.

APPRENTICESHIP OF THE WAR.

Siege of Yorktown - Attack on Lee's mill-The Harwood farmAmongst the sharpshooters - The man hunt - Visit of the generalin-chief Faults of administration A black snake mayonnaise Marching-out of the Confederate troops-The enemy abandons his positions - Evacuation of Yorktown.

THE Virginian peninsula, as is well known, is formed by the course, nearly parallel, of the James and York rivers, which both empty into the Chesapeake. Ten miles above the mouth of the York, upon the right hand, is situated the small fortified town of Yorktown, which owes its first celebrity to the capitulation of Lord Cornwallis, in 1781, after a siege in which Marquis Lafayette took a brilliant part. In the month of April, 1862, the Confederates had extended and completed the defences so as to command with their artillery the ground between the town and the small river called the Warwick. The latter rises about a mile and a half from Yorktown towards the south, emptying into the James, thus crossing the peninsula, whose breadth at that point is only ten or twelve miles. This was a natural obstacle, which the enemy had already improved by raising the water at the fords, by means of dams, and covering the more exposed positions by protected batteries. At the time of our arrival, Magruder's Corps, which opposed us, had, at the most, ten thousand men.

If a vigorous attack had been made at the time of our first approach, nothing could have prevented our forcing a passage at some point. Broken anywhere, the line could not have been held an instant, and York

town, pressed on all sides, would have been ours in a few days. Unhappily, only a too long delayed, feeble, and isolated attack was made. Too long delayed, because it was not made till the 16th, eleven days after our arrival; isolated, because only a few companies of Vermont troops were used; unskilful, because the point chosen for assault was precisely the one most strongly fortified, the one which offered the most difficulties, and consequently the least chances of success. The result was that our force fought bravely, but uselessly, for more than an hour, in the rifle-pits captured from the enemy, and that it ended in being driven back to the river with considerable loss.

The companies sacrificed in that unfortunate affair belonged to the division of General W. F. Smith, who acted on direct orders from General McClellan. General Keyes disclaimed any responsibility for it, saying openly that he had not even been informed of it beforehand, although the troops engaged belonged to his corps.

From the very first, the majority of the generals had advised forcing the Warwick lines without delay. The commander-in-chief, engineer officer in all his instincts, preferred digging ditches, opening parallels, and placing batteries around Yorktown. The former asked simply to beat the enemy by the power of an irresistible superiority; the latter wished to reduce the place by the scientific method, so dear to special schools. Such being the fact, is it far out of the way to suspect that he ordered the attack of Lee's mill less with the resolution to make it successful than with the thought of demonstrating, by its want of success, the superiority of his other plans? Quod erat demonstrandum.

However that might have been, the siege was resolved upon; the army sat down accordingly, and Magru