The Sixty-fifth had had an easy march, and was going to have another one. The Sixty-fifth knew this country like a book, having fought over most steps of it. It had a pleasant feeling of familiarity with this very wood and the shining stretch of road narrowing toward a dark wood and the Rappahannock. The Sixty-fifth had every confidence in Marse Robert, commanding all; in Old Dick, commanding the Second Corps, in Alleghany Johnson, commanding the division; in Walker, commanding the Stonewall; in Colonel Erskine, commanding the Sixty-fifth. Its confidence in the Sixty-fifth itself was considerable. Dinner done, it fell, lying beneath the trees, now to jokes and now to easy speculation. “What is Marse Robert moving us for?” “Meade’s walking again. Stalking up and down north side of Rappahannock. Same as Burnside last year. Marse Robert’s bringing us and the ——th and ——th, over from Orange, to lay the ghost.—Oh, and I forgot the horse artillery!” “Horse artillery’s all right, down there by that sumach patch, eating parched corn.... This is what you might call golden weather. Listen to the crows. _Caw! caw! caw!_ Just like old Botetourt.” “If I were Allan Gold, I’d let that shoe alone. He can’t mend it.” “Whose shoe is it? Allan’s?” “No. It’s Lieutenant Coffin’s. He’s had a pale blue letter, and it said that the young lady was visiting in Fredericksburg—and ain’t we on the road to Fredericksburg?” “I see—I see!” “And of course lieutenant would like to have a whole shoe. You’d like it yourself under the circumstances. Allan’s mighty handy, and he told him he thought he could do it—” “If I had a knife—Allan! Here’s a scrap of good leather. Catch!—Ain’t no pale blue letter in mine. Wish there was.” Sergeant Billy Maydew, at the head of a small reconnoitring party, appeared and reported to the colonel. “We went to the river, sir, and two miles up and two miles down. As far as could be seen, things air all quiet. We thought we saw a smoke across the river—back agin’ the sky. We met a foraging party—cavalry. It said General Lee was at Kelly’s Ford, and that it was understood the enemy meant to cross. That air all I have to report, sir.” The column took again the road. Of the three regiments, the Sixty-fifth came last. Behind it rumbled a small wagon train, and in rear of these the battery from the horse artillery. The battery was an acquisition of the morning. It had come out of the yellow and red woods in the direction of Culpeper, and had proceeded to “keep company.” The Sixty-fifth liked the artillery very well, and now it fraternized as jovially as discipline would allow. “An old battery of Pelham’s? Pelham was a fighter! Saw him at Second Manassas with his arm up, commanding! Looked like one of those people in the old mythology book.—Glad to see you, old battery of Pelham’s!”