"Parson, that's the very same horse!" A shout rose from the hill in which the preacher joined. "Dod bam it, did ye ever hear the beat o' that!" shouted a pious fellow who was inventing cuss words that would pass the charge of profanity. A distinguished citizen of Fredericksburg passed along the lines wearing a tall new silk hat. He didn't get very far before he changed his line of march. A regular fusillade poured on him from the ranks. "Say, man, is dat a hat er a bee gum?" "Come down now!" "Come down outen that hat an' help us with these Yanks!" "Come down I say--I know you're up there for I can see your legs!" When the silk hat vanished, a solemn country boy with slight knowledge of books began to discuss the great mysteries of eternity. Ned had won his unbounded faith and admiration by spelling at the first trial the name of his native village in the Valley of Virginia--McGaheysville. Tom held this fact to be a marvellous intellectual achievement. "What I want to know, Ned, is this," he drawled, "who started sin in this world, anyhow? What makes a good thing good and what makes a bad thing bad, and who said so first?" "That's what I'd like to know myself, Tom," Ned gravely answered. "An' ye don't know?" "I certainly do not." "I don't see why any man that can spell like you don't know everything." He paused, picked up a pebble and threw it at a comrade's foot and laughed to see him jump as from a Minie ball. "You know, Ned," he went on slowly, "what I think is the prettiest piece of poetry?" "No--what?" "Hit's this: "'The men of high condition That rule affairs of State; Their purpose is ambition, Their practice only hate.'" "Pretty good, Tom," was the quick reply, "but I think I can beat it with something more hopeful. I got it in Sunday School out in Missouri: "'The sword and spear, of needless worth, Shall prune the tree and plough the earth; And Peace shall smile from shore to shore And Nations learn to war no more.'" The country boy's eyes gleamed with eager approval. He had fought for nearly two years and the glory of war was beginning to lose its glamour. "Say that again, Ned," he pleaded. "Say it again! That's the prettiest thing I ever heard in my life!" He was silent a moment: "Yes, I used to think it would be glorious to hear the thunder of guns and the shriek of shells. I've changed my mind. When I hear one of 'em comin' now, I begin to sing to myself the old-fashioned tune I used to hear in the revivals: "'Hark from the tomb a doleful sound! 'My thoughts in dreadful subjects roll damnation and the dead----' "I've an idea we're going to sing some o' them old songs on this field pretty soon." Again Ned thought of John and offered a silent prayer that he might not be in those blue lines that were going to charge into the jaws which Death had opened for them in the valley below.