Three days and nights we waited.  Some called it a farce, some
swore, some talked of going home.  I went about quietly, my bosom
under its pad of feathers.  The third day an order came from
headquarters.  We were to break camp at one-thirty in the morning
and go down the pike after Beauregard.  In the dead of the night the
drums sounded.  I rose, half-asleep, and heard the long roll far and
near.  I shivered in the cold night air as I made ready, the boys
about me buckled on knapsacks, shouldered their rifles, and fell
into line.  Muffled in darkness there was an odd silence in the great
caravan forming rapidly and waiting for the word to move.  At each
command to move forward I could hear only the rub of leather, the
click, click of rifle rings, the stir of the stubble, the snorting of
horses.  When we had marched an hour or so I could hear the faint
rumble of wagons far in the rear.  As I came high on a hill top, in
the bending column, the moonlight fell upon a league of bayonets
shining above a cloud of dust in the valley - a splendid picture,
fading into darkness and mystery.  At dawn we passed a bridge and
halted some three minutes for a bite.  After a little march we left
the turnpike, with Hunter's column bearing westward on a
crossroad that led us into thick woods.  As the sunlight sank in the