The road is but a bridle-path through woods. The path is narrow, and the men must ride "by file." Perhaps you do not know that "by file," means one behind the other; "by twos," two side by side; and "by fours," four side by side. The next formation is "by platoon," or a quarter of a company; and the next "by squadron," or an entire company. We emerge on a small farm, waste and desolate. Straggling soldiers have broken into the house, and scattered about what few effects the rebel owner left. It is the first deserted house I have seen, and the sight is rather sad. Our road leads us again into the woods, and then brings us into the valley of the Tennessee, and follows the windings of the river. We pass several farms, small and poorly cultivated, with rude timber houses, by which I mean houses of squared logs. The chimneys are always built entirely on the outside, and are generally of sticks and mud, instead of brinks and mortar. Occasionally we halt to ask questions. The people are not surly, but they do not smile. This is the worst part of Tennessee, and it is plain they have sons and brothers among the prisoners of Fort Donelson. But at one house the man comes eagerly forward and his face lights; his wife, too, comes out, and says she almost hopes to see some face she knows. They have lived long here, but the man is from Eastern Tennessee, and the woman from Northern Alabama--those two remnants of the South that hung to the Union till the last. He tells us that the country produces little besides pigs and corn. "It is pork and corn dodger," he says, "at breakfast, dinner and tea all the year round." I ask where they grind the corn, and he mentions a large mill now despoiled by its owner, who took himself off to Memphis, and a little mill some three miles distant, owned by the "Widow Williams." It is an object to have some corn meal, so I determine to visit the Widow Williams' mill. The road to the mill turns abruptly from the river, and goes up a brook. We pass a few houses, scattered at intervals in the woods. The road is so much better than the other, that the men ride "by twos;" and so it should be, for it is the road from _Dover_ to _Paris_. We pass one or two houses, whose owners are suspiciously young widows; in other words, we suspect that their deceased husbands are fighting with the rebels. At last we come to the Widow Williams, whom we do not suspect; for she is a grey-haired matron, who has seen sorrow, and she sits on the rude piazza with a family around her. The girls look nervously at us, for we are the first troop of soldiers they have had halt. The widow rises as I ride up, and says, with a good deal of dignity, "Please to alight, gentlemen;" and I take her at her word, and order, "dismount." I ask her if she can grind us some meal, and she rises in our good opinion by saying, "Not to-day, this is Sunday." It is indeed; but very little like one to us; we had almost forgotten the day. I then buy a bushel of meal