A column of troops was pushing forward over the long and winding road in Thoroughfare Gap to head off Lee after his retreat across the Potomac at the close of the Gettysburg campaign. Suddenly the signal officer who accompanied the general in command discovered that some of his men, posted on a high hill in the rear, were reporting the presence of a considerable body of Confederate troops on top of the bluffs to their right. A halt was at once sounded, and the leading brigade ordered forward to uncover the enemy’s position. The regiments were soon scrambling up the steep incline, officers and men gallantly racing to see who could reach the crest first. A young lieutenant and some half dozen men gained the advance, but at the end of what they deemed a perilous climb they were thrown into convulsions of laughter at discovering that what the signal men took for Confederate troops were only a tolerably large flock of sheep. As the leaders in this forlorn hope rolled on the grass in a paroxysm of merriment they laughed all the louder at seeing the pale but determined faces of their comrades, who, of course, came up fully expecting a desperate hand-to-hand struggle. It is perhaps needless to say the brigade supped on mutton that evening. As the army was crossing South Mountain the day before the battle of Antietam, General McClellan rode along the side of the moving column. Overtaking a favorite Zouave regiment, he exclaimed, with his natural _bonhommie_: “Well, and how is Old Fifth this evening?” “First-rate, General,” replied one of the Zouaves. “But we’d be better off if we weren’t living so much on supposition.” “Supposition?” said the General, in a puzzled tone. “What do you mean by that?” “It’s easily explained, sir. You see we expected to get our rations yesterday; but as we didn’t, we’re living on the supposition that we did.” “Ah, I understand; you shall have your rations, Zouzous, to-night,” replied the General, putting spurs to his horse to escape the cheers of his regiment. And he kept his promise. NIGHT ON THE FIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG. Many years have now passed, writes General Chamberlain, of Maine, since “Fredericksburg.” Of what then was, not much is left but memory. Faces and forms of men and things that then were have changed--perchance to dust. New life has covered some; the rest look but lingering farewells. But, whatever changes may beautify those storm-swept and barren slopes, there is one character from which they can never pass. Death gardens, haunted by glorious hosts, they must abide. No bloom can there unfold which does not wear the rich token of the inheritance of heroic blood; no breeze be wafted that does not bear the breath of the immortal life there breathed away.