II
The Indian summer, with its infinite beauty and tenderness, came like a
reproach that year to Virginia. The foliage, touched here and there with
prismatic tints, drooped motionless in the golden haze. The delicate
Virginia creeper was almost minded to put forth its scarlet buds again.
No wonder the lovely phantom--this dusky Southern sister of the pale
Northern June--lingered not long with us, but, filling the once peaceful
glens and valleys with her pathos, stole away rebukefully before the
savage enginery of man.
The preparations that had been going on for months in arsenals and
foundries at the North were nearly completed. For weeks past the air had
been filled with rumors of an advance; but the rumor of to-day refuted
the rumor of yesterday, and the Grand Army did not move. Heintzelman's
corps was constantly folding its tents, like the Arabs, and as silently
stealing away; but somehow it was always in the same place the next
morning. One day, at length, orders came down for our brigade to move.
"We're going to Richmond, boys!" shouted Strong, thrusting his head in
at the tent; and we all cheered and waved our caps like mad. You see,
Big Bethel and Bull Run and Ball's Bluff (the Bloody B's, as we used to
call them,) hadn't taught us any better sense.
Rising abruptly from the plateau, to the left of our encampment, was a
tall hill covered with a stunted growth of red-oak, persimmon, and
chestnut. The night before we struck tents I climbed up to the crest to
take a parting look at a spectacle which custom had not been able to rob
of its enchantment.
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