With the exception of this dismal empty canal, there were very few signs of the ravages of the armies which had lately swept through these charming valleys. A few miles from Harper's Ferry, by the side of the railroad, were great hayricks, and the barns were full to overflowing. As we approached Sandy Hook, a village of a few houses on the north side of the Potomac, about a mile from Harper's Ferry, we saw on the road, which ran close to the railroad track, thousands of the blue-bodied, white-topped army wagons. In the most crowded thoroughfare of London one would not see so many teams. From this neighborhood the great army of the Potomac drew the most of its supplies. The ninth army corps was moving this day to its camp, two or three miles northward; and part of its cannon, their brazen throats still tarnished by sulphurous smoke, added to the throng. It is surprising how large a portion of the army is composed of these baggage trains, and of the camp followers, teamsters, servants, and sutlers. A regiment of infantry, under the little shelter tents is crowded, into a small space; but the bulky baggage trains cover much ground. We spent the best part of a day, in going to and returning from the army, in the neighborhood of a small wayside tavern in this little village of Sandy Hook, with no other amusement than watching the moving of the teamsters, chatting with stray officers and soldiers, and seeing what may be called the back-stair life of the army. And we wish here to protest against the abuse which has been so abundantly heaped upon the teamsters: we found them, as a class, a respectable body of men, quite skilful in the management of their animals, comparing well with those in the same occupation in our great cities: there was certainly not so much swearing, and not so much abuse of their mules and horses, as one sees in New York. I remember their kind attention to me, some days afterward, when, in my impatience to get by a long train of teams filling up a little country road, I had imprudently urged my horse on to a ledge of rocks, where he, not being an old warhorse, hesitated, slipped, and fell flat on his side, among the mules of one of the wagons; and, as the horse, with my leg under him, was rolling to recover himself, the anxiety of the teamsters as to whether I was hurt, and then as to my horse, a fine animal, who had cut himself a little on the rocks. Their proffered assistance was very different from the oaths I should have met under similar circumstances in some Northern cities.