The Valley pike, in the region of Middletown, proved a cumbered path. From stone fence to stone fence, in the middle trough of dust, and on the bordering of what had been, that morning, dew-gemmed grass and flower, War the maniac had left marks. Overturned wagons formed barriers around which the column must wind. Some were afire; the smoke of burning straw and clothing and foodstuffs mingling with the yet low-lying powder smoke and with the pall of Valley dust. Horses lay stark across the way, or, dying, stared with piteous eyes. The sky was like a bowl of brass, and in the concave buzzards were sailing. All along there was underfoot much of soldiers' impedimenta--knapsacks, belts, accoutrements of all kinds, rolled blankets and oilcloths, canteens. Dead men did not lack. They lay in strange postures, and on all the dust was thick. There were many wounded; the greater number of these had somehow reached the foul grass and trampled flowers of the wayside. Prisoners were met; squads brought in from the road, from fields and woods. There was one group, men and horses covered with the dust of all time, disarmed, hatless, breathless, several bleeding from sabre cuts. One among them--a small man on a tall horse--indulged in bravado. "What are you going to do with us now you've got us? You've nowhere to take us to! Your damned capital's fallen--fell this morning! Yes, it did! News certain. Rebellion's over and Jack Ketch's waiting for you--waiting for every last dirty ragamuffin and slave-driver that calls himself general or president, and for the rest of you, too! Pity you didn't have just one neck so's he could do the whole damn thirteen millions of you at once!--Jeff Davis and Lee and Johnston were hanged at noon. This very moment Little Mac's in Richmond, marching down whatever your damned Pennsylvania Avenue's called--" A negro body servant marching in the rear of one of the contemptuous companies broke ranks and rushed over to the reviling soldier. "You damn po' white trash, shet yo' mouf or I'll mek you! Callin' Main Street 'Pennsylvania Avenue,' and talkin' 'bout hangin' gent'men what you ain't got 'bility in you ter mek angry enuff ter swear at you! 'N Richmon' fallen! Richmon' ain' half as much fallen as you is! Richmon' ain' never gwine ter fall. I done wait on Marse Robert Lee once't at Shirley, an he ain't er gwine ter let it! '_Pennsylvania_ Avenue!'" Half a mile from Middletown they came up with a forlorn little company. On a high bank above the road, huddled beneath three cedars, appeared the theatrical troupe which had amused General Banks's army in Strasburg. Men and women there were, a dozen actors, and they had with them a cart bearing their canvas booth and the poor finery of their wardrobe. One of the women nursed a baby; they all looked down like wraiths upon the passing soldiers.