Thirty-three years ago, or, to be quite exact, in the month of May 1862, the great civil war in the United States of America was in full swing. The Federals had discovered that their boast that they would finish the whole affair in ninety days had been an empty one; while the Confederates, brave as they were, and fighting with all the vigour of men goaded to fury by the horrors of invasion, were learning by slow degrees, and in the teeth of their successes, that one Southerner could _not_ whip five Yankees. The short remnant of summer which followed the first battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, as it was named in the South, had come to an end without startling incident; the dreary winter had dragged itself to a close, unmarked by aught but skirmishes and conflicts of minor importance; but in the spring of ’62 immense armies took the field, and campaigns were begun, compared with which all that had gone before was merely an insignificant prelude. At the first rumour that McClellan, stirring at last from his long and inglorious inactivity, was about to advance upon Richmond, the Confederate General Johnston at once evacuated Manassas, and fell back towards the threatened point; while Stonewall Jackson, who commanded the army of the Shenandoah, moved up the valley, so as to keep communication open with the defenders of the capital. In the valley lay the town of Staunton, the capital of Augusta county, Virginia, and the presumed objective of one section of the Federal advance. Here, when the war began, lived a youth named Ephraim Sykes, more commonly known as ‘Old Grizzly.’ Not that he at all resembled that ferocious animal either in person or in disposition, for his manners were mild and inoffensive; but since his Christian name happened to coincide with the sobriquet usually bestowed upon the grizzly bear—namely, ‘Ephraim’—a happy thought occurred one day to a youthful wag of Staunton. So Ephraim Sykes was promptly dubbed ‘Old Grizzly,’ and as such was known ever afterwards. Ephraim was between nineteen and twenty years of age, but looked much older, for he was tall and lank, with a thoughtful face and a sallow complexion, while an early and luxuriant crop of dark and curling hair flourished upon his thin cheeks and square, resolute chin. It was this chin, along with a pair of clear, steady, gray eyes, which conveyed to the physiognomist the impression that, shy and retiring as the lad was, beneath his unassuming exterior lurked the spirit of a lion, united to a will of iron.