You will not wonder that I lay awake nearly the
whole night. A night attack was possible, and the confusion and
darkness would have made it fearful. As I lay awake I could not
help thinking how anxious you would feel if you had known where I
was.
"So closed the first day.
"The next dawned warm and pleasant. In the quiet of the morning
it seemed hard to believe that we were on the eve of a bloody
struggle. Discipline was not very strictly maintained. Some of
our number left the ranks and ransacked the houses, more from
curiosity than the desire to pillage.
"I went down to the bank of the river, and took a look at the
bridge which it had cost us so much trouble to throw across. It
bore frequent marks of the firing of the day previous.
"At one place I came across an old negro, whose white head and
wrinkled face indicated an advanced age. Clinging to him were two
children, of perhaps four and six years of age, who had been
crying.
" 'Don't cry, honey,' I heard him say soothingly, wiping the
tears from the cheeks of the youngest with a coarse cotton
handkerchief.
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