backed and strengthened by a God-like sense of duty. Napoleon once ordered one of his colonels to charge a battery that was playing havoc with his lines. The officer turned pale as the order came from his commander's lips, but he went to his post promptly and led the charge and Napoleon said to his staff: "That's a brave man, he feels the danger, but is willing to face it." There are times, however, in war, when men, from some cause, real or imaginary, lose their self-control and give way to an unreasonable and unreasoning fear, when the instinct of self-preservation is uppermost and patriotism and pride alike lose their power. A few occasions of this kind I recall in my term of service. One of them occurred on the night of Oct. 26, '61, at Green Brier River. A picket from one of the outposts came in and reported the presence of a body of Federal troops near his post. Two companies from the 1st and 12th Ga. and 37th Va. each, were aroused from sleep and sent out to capture or disperse these disturbers of our dreams. Few occasions in war test a man's nerves more thoroughly than being suddenly awakened at night by an alarm. I have known men at such a time to suffer from nervous chills and on one occasion it brought on a member of the regiment an attack of cholera morbus. As this was the only instance within my observation when such a result was produced, I am not prepared, without further evidence, to recommend it to the medical profession either as an emetic or an aperient.

The six companies, including the Oglethorpes, had passed the last vidette post and crossing Green Brier River had begun the ascent of the mountain beyond. We had reached the point where the enemy had been seen and the location was an ideal one for an ambuscade. The dense forest growth overarching the road, shut out the starlight and we were unable to see six feet in our front. The head of the column had passed a sharp bend in the road and was doubling back, after the manner of mountain highways, when a soldier near the front stepped on a stick and it broke with a sharp snapping sound resembling the click of a rifle hammer. Some one in his rear, not knowing that the column had changed direction, and mistaking the sound for evidence of an ambush, said: "Look out boys," and stepped to the side of the road. The next file followed suit and the movement increased in volume and force as it came down the line, until the hurried tramp of feet sounded like a cavalry charge, as most of the men thought it was. For a few minutes everything was in confusion and panic reigned supreme. There was an undefined dread in every man's mind of a danger whose character and extent was hidden by the darkness. Several guns were fired, but fortunately there were no casualties save a few skinned noses from too sudden contact with the undergrowth that walled in the road. Order was finally restored and the command proceeded on its mission, but failed to locate an enemy, which had probably never existed except in the perverted vision of a nervous picket.

THREE LITTLE CONFEDERATES.

Thomas Nelson Page has written very charmingly of "Two Little Confederates," but an incident that occurred during our stay at Green Brier shows that "there were others." On Nov. 14, '61, three Virginia boys living in vicinity of our camp, and all under fifteen years of age, were out squirrel hunting on the Green Bank road, which led partly in the direction of the Federal camp on Cheat Mountain. Rambling through the woods in search of game, they came in sight of Yankee soldier, who was out on a similar errand, or possibly on an independent scouting expedition. As he was a "stranger" they decided to "take him in." He had laid aside his gun and cartridge box and was sitting by a tree eating his lunch. Slipping up noiselessly in his rear they captured his arms and then presenting their squirrel rifles they offered to serve as an honorary escort to our camp. He was rather loth to comply with the request of his youthful captors, but the muzzles of their guns were very persuasive, and with true Virginia pluck, they marched their mortified prisoner to Gen. Jackson's quarters. I regret that I failed to preserve the names of those three brave little Confederates.

But few other incidents worthy of record in these memories occurred during our stay on the Green Brier. On Nov. 17 there was a hotly contested snow ball fight between the 1st and 12th Ga. Regiments, resulting in a drawn battle. Two days later at 2 a. m., in response to the rattle of musketry at the picket post, we were aroused and marshalled into line in the wintry night air to repel an expected attack on our camp. It was on this occasion that the cholera morbus incident, to which allusion has been made, occurred. The alarm proved groundless, as the pickets had mistaken an old grey mare and her colt for a body of the enemy. As the animal was clothed in grey, the Confederate color, the mistake was all the less excusable.

CHAPTER II.

A CHANGE OF BASE.

For some weeks rumors, or "grape vine" bulletins, as they were called, had been afloat in camp that our regiment was to be transferred to coast service. To boys reared in the milder climate of Georgia the taste we were having of a Virginia winter rendered these rumors very palatable. And when, on Nov. 21, orders came to break camp we felt rather confident that we were bidding a long farewell to "Traveler's Repose" and Northwest Virginia, and were off for Georgia. The baggage wagons, of which the 1st Ga. had at that stage of the war, enough, in Gen. Loring's opinion, to equip a division, were loaded and went their way. All the afternoon we lay around the dismantled camp awaiting order to "follow pursuit," as a friend of mine once said, but they failed to come. Night settled down cold and cheerless, with our tents and blankets ten miles away, and we had to make the best of it. My bedfellow and I slept on an oilcloth, covered with an overcoat, and tied our four feet up together in a flannel shirt. Next day we crossed Allegheny Mountain and after three days' march, buoyed with the hope of spending the winter under a warmer sun, we reluctantly turned our faces Northward again, with the feeling in our hearts if not voiced upon our lips,