It is a pleasant Spring morning, and I am ordered to take my company and "scout to and beyond Conyersville, with two days' rations." There is a stir and bustle through our tents, and great delight at the thought of going out. Some are bringing up horses from the picket ropes; others are rolling blankets, and strapping them behind the saddles; others are packing away coffee, pork and hard biscuit in a pair of rude saddle-bags, which we have made from an old tent, and now carry on a led horse. Soon Bischoff leads his horse and mine up to the tent, and soon after the first sergeant reports all ready. The men are drawn up in line; they "count off by fours;" the order is given, "by two's to the right," and we are marching slowly over the high hills and through the tall oaks which belt the Tennessee. Though it is a March morning, the air is as soft and balmy as it will be in New York next May; and in the distance, the opening buds throw a mist-like haze over the forests. Here and there a crow starts from some tall tree, and caws familiarly as he flies away; and high over head, the chicken hawk sails round and round as we have often seen him do at home. When first we came here last February, there were robins in these woods and many Northern birds, who seemed sad and songless, and behaved like invalids passing the winter at the South. The meadow lark spread her wings languidly, and the robins sat listless on the apple trees, as though they were home-sick, and, like us, longed to fly back to their Northern nests. The blackbirds alone kept up their spirits, flying around and across such fields as they could find in rapid, veering, fitful flight-- "And here in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago." If you had been riding with us for the last five miles, you would think we were travelling through an unbroken forest. The bridle-road, worn smooth by cavalry horses, runs down in deep hollows and climbs up high hills--but always in the woods. Fallen trees lie across it, frequently compelling us to zig-zag round them; and when we look out from the openings on the brow of the higher hills, we see nothing but woods--unending woods. One or two melancholy figures have met us; clad in their sombre dress, and mounted on their ambling mules, they have silently nodded and passed on. Once or twice the settler's axe has rung out from some distant dale, as if to tell how far these solitudes extend. The wild turkey has called to us not far from the road; the quails have sat still, and looked curiously at us; and the brown turkey buzzard has soared near by, as though he neither knew nor cared whether we were there or not. Yet, nestled in these wilds, are many farms and houses, whose owners love seclusion, and hide themselves from each other by a veil of intervening forest.