Directly in advance of where we rested, a long hill sloped gently upward for perhaps a hundred yards, its crest topped with a thick growth of young oak-trees, yet seemingly devoid of underbrush. No troops were camped in our immediate front, and feeling curious to ascertain something of our formation, as well as to examine the lay of the land between us and the position occupied by the enemy, I walked slowly forward, unhindered, until I attained the crest. Numberless birds were singing amid the branches overhead, while the leaves of the low bushes I passed on my way were glistening with dew. Except for those long rows of sleeping soldiers, I seemed utterly alone within some rural solitude upon a quiet Sabbath morning. Not an unwonted sound reached me to make discord; so quiet, indeed, was all the earth that I became startled by the sudden chatter of a squirrel disturbed at my approach, and unthinkingly I stooped to pluck a delicate pink flower blooming in the grass, and placed it in a ragged buttonhole of my old gray jacket.