“You'll be obliged to do some powerful hard fighting, I reckon, for our side won't give up so long's there's anything to eat in the Confederacy. But if we're to be overcome, sure enough, I hope it will be soon--before my sons are killed. Our boys'll die game, sure's you're born.” “I hope your sons will be spared.” “I trust they will. They believe they are fighting for a just cause. They are Virginians, and they have great faith in Gen. Lee. They will follow him to the end. But it's a cruel wah. Somebody must be wrong; both sides cannot be right. I don't understand it thoroughly, but I feel that somebody has made a terrible mistake.” “Ma, the Yankees hasn't got horns, has they, ma?” exclaimed one of the children, a girl about five years old, and who was gnawing at a hard-tack one of the troopers had given her. “No, my darling.” And the Confederate soldier's widow joined in the laugh that followed this juvenile outbreak. Good-bys were said, and the foraging party hastened to rejoin the column. CHAPTER X. _Butler s Advance on the South Side--How the Massachusetts Major-General Escaped Hanging--Returning to Grant's Army--The Fight at Hawes's Shop--A Dying Confederate's Last Request--Holding Cold Harbor at all Hazards--Filling the Canteens--Running into the Enemy._ [Illustration: 9160] HERIDAN'S weary troopers appreciated the three-days' rest given them at Haxall's phrase, but it expresses the character of the flotilla. Nearly every class of vessel, from the latest improved ironclad down to the slow-going canal boat, ascended the James to Bermuda Hundred, from which base Butler moved his troops in his attack on the rebel fortifications at Drewry's Bluff. While we were recuperating in camp, the army of the James was operating against Richmond. A courier came in from Gen. Kautz's cavalry, then smashing things out beyond Petersburg, bringing encouraging news. Butler had sailed up the river with a fleet of mixed vessels--that may not be a strictly nautical Landing. An opportunity was afforded the recruits who had never been on a raid before to doctor their saddle boils, and rub horse liniment on the contusions they had sustained while being banged around on the march from the Wilderness to the James. We did not know, at the time, what Butler was trying to accomplish, except the general statement that Grant had ordered him to co-operate with the Army of the Potomac in the advance on Richmond. The intricate details of the plan were altogether too perplexing for worn-out troopers to puzzle their brains with. An outline of what had taken place on the south bank of the river was given out, and as I remember it, the day that we started on our return to Grant's army, it was generally understood that Butler had been driven back from Drewry's Bluff into his breastworks at Bermuda Hundred, although we did not hear that he had been “bottled up” till several weeks later.