Twenty-seven miles, first through stifling dust and then through pelting rain, past Hawkinstown, Woodstock, Edenburg, Mount Jackson, brought us to New Market. On the march Colonel Brinton of a Pennsylvania regiment, a new arrival, planned with me an escape. He had campaigned through the valley, was familiar with the lay of the land, and said he had friends among the inhabitants. Our plan was to run past the guards in the darkness. As a preliminary step I cut off my shoulder-straps which were very bright. Within half an hour Sergeant Reed came up to me and asked, "Colonel, where's your shoulder-straps?" I replied, "I don't wear shoulder-straps now I'm a prisoner." "But, Colonel," he answered, "I've been lookin' at them shoulder-straps since we left Tom's Brook. I wanted to buy 'em of you for a present to one of my girls. I'll be hanged if I don't believe you're goin' to try to escape, and so you've cut off your bright shoulder-straps. But, Colonel, it's impossible. I'll be hanged if I hadn't rather lose any six of the others than to lose you." The fellow stuck closer to me than a brother all the rest of that night; so close that he lost sight of Colonel Brinton, who actually escaped about midnight at a place called Edenburg! Almost immediately Sergeant Reed came to me and asked, "Colonel, where's that other Colonel?" I answered: "You ought to know; _I_ don't!"--"I'll be hanged," said he, "if I haven't lost him, a-watchin' you!" At New Market they put us into a dilapidated church building. "The wicked flea, when no man pursueth but the righteous, is bold as a lion," was repeatedly misquoted from the _Book of Proverbs_, and not without reason. We concluded if that interpretation was correct, we had reason enough for obeying the injunction in _Ecclesiastes_, "Be not righteous overmuch"; for the little jumpers were fearless and countless. They were reinforced by a Confederate deacon, who recommended two things: Confederate paper and "gospel piety"; the one would carry us safely through this world; the other through the next. He would be only too happy to furnish us the currency in exchange for our greenbacks. "Confederate treasury bills and true religion" was the burden of his song, till one of our literary officers, it was said, squelched him: "Deacon, your recipe of happiness, rebel paper and godliness--Confederate money and a Christian spirit!--reminds me of what Byron says in one of his wicked poems: 'Beyond all doubt there's nought the spirit cheers Like rum and true religion!'" He subsided.