tion; but her heart could not hold resentment just then. She must relieve her burdened soul by talking of "poor Johnny," even though it were to deaf ears. She must tell what a good boy he had been, — how kind to her and considerate of her, how manly, how generous, how self-forgetful. And then she must tell how hard he had worked, and how saving he had been in order to give his children a better chance in the world than he had had; and how, if he had lived another year, he would have paid off the mortgage, and been able to hold up his head amongst men. shall never want you to do anything more for me. Cold water! give me some cold water! If I don't have it, my senses will surely fly out of my head!' 'Yes, Johnny,' says 1,- and I went and brought a tin bucketful, right out of the well, and set it on the table in his sight; for I thought it would do him good to see even more than he could drink; and then I brought a cup and dipped it up full. It was all dripping over, and he had raised himself on one elbow, and was leaning toward me, when the young doctor came in, and, stepping between us, took the cup out of my hand. All his strength seemed to go from poor Johnny at that, and he fell back on his pillow and never lifted his head any more. Still he kept begging in a feeble voice for the water. Just two or three drops, — just one drop!' he said. I could n't bear it, and the doctor said I had better go out of the room, and so I did,—and the good At Lord forgive me ; for when I went back, after half an hour, he was clean crazy. He did n't know me, and he never knowed me any more." After all the ploughing and sowing, - after all the preparation for the gathering in of the harvest,—it seemed very hard, she said, that Johnny must be called away, just as the shining ears began to appear. The circumstances of his death, too, seemed to her peculiarly afflictive. "We had all the doctors in the neighborhood," she said, "but none of them understood his case. first they thought he had small-pox, and doctored him for that; and then they thought it was liver-complaint, and doctored him for that; and then it was bilious fever, and then it was typhus fever; and so it went on, and I really can't believe any of them understood anything about it. Their way seemed to be to do just what he did n't want done. In the first place, he was bled; and then he was blistered; and then he was bled again and blistered again, the fever all the time getting higher and higher; and when he wanted water, they said it would kill him, and gave him hot drinks till it seemed to me they would drive him mad; and sure enough, they did! The last word he ever said, to know what he was saying, was to ask me for a cup of cold water. I only wish I had given it to him; all the doctors in the world would n't prevent me now, if I only had him back. The fever seemed to be just devouring him: his tongue was as dry as sand, and his head as hot as fire. 'O mother!' says he, and there was such a look of beseeching in his eyes as I can never forget, 'may be I "It's purty hard, Miss Walker," answered Mr. Bowen, "to accuse the doctors with the murder of your son. A purty hard charge, that, I call it! So John's dead! Well, I hope he is better off. Where are you goin' to bury him?" And then Mrs. Walker said she did n't charge anybody with the murder of poor Johnny, - nobody meant to do him any harm, she knew that; but, after all, she wished she could only have had her own way with him from the first. And so she rode away, her little bare-legged grandson, behind her, aggravating her distress by telling her that, when he got to be a man, he meant to do nothing all the days of his life but dig wells, and give water to whoever wanted it. It is not worth while to dwell at length on the humiliations and privations to which Jenny was subjected, — the mention of one or two will indicate the nature of all. In the first place, the white heifer she had always called hers was sold, and the money tied up in a tow bag. Jenny would not want a cow for years to come. The piece of land that had always been known as "Jenny's Corner" was not thus denominated any more, and she was given to understand that it was only to be hers conditionally. There were obstacles put in the way of her going to meeting of a Sunday, first one thing, then another; and, finally, the bureau was locked, and the best dress and brightest ribbon inside the drawers. The new side-saddle she had been promised was refused to her, unless she in turn would make a promise; and the long day's work was made to drag on into the night, lest she might find time to visit some neighbor, and lest that neighbor might be the Widow Walker. But what device of the enemy ever proved successful when matched against the simple sincerity of true love? It came about, in spite of all restraint and prohibition, that Jenny and Hobert met in their own times and ways; and so a year went by. • One night, late in the summer, when the katydids began to sing, Jenny waited longer than usual under the vinecovered beech that drooped its boughs low to the ground all round her, now listening for the expected footstep, and now singing, very low, some little song to her heart, such as many a loving and trusting maiden had sung before ber. What could keep Hobert? She knew it was not his will that kept him; and though her heart began to be heavy, she harbored therein no thought of reproach. By the movement of the shadow on the grass, she guessed that an hoar beyond the one of appointment must have passed, when the far-away footfall set her so lately hushed pulses fluttering with delight. He was commg.—he was coming! And, no matter what had been wrong, all would be right now. She was holding wide the curtaining boughs long before he came Bear; and when they dropped, and her arms closed, it is not improbable that he was within them. It was the delight of meeting her that kept him still so long, Jenny thought; and she prattled lightly and gayly of this and of that, and, seeing that she won no answer, fell to tenderer tones, and imparted the little vexing secrets of her daily life, and the sweet hopes of her nightly dreams. They were seated on a grassy knoll, the moonlight creeping tenderly about their feet, and the leaves of the drooping vines touching their heads like hands of pity, or of blessing. The water running over the pebbly bottom of the brook just made the silence sweet, and the evening dews shining on the red globes of the clover made the darkness lovely; but with all these enchantments of sight and sound about him, nay, more, with the hand of Jenny, his own true-love, Jenny, folded in his, Hobert was not happy. "And so you think you love me!” he said at last, speaking so sadly, and clasping the hand he held with so faint a pressure, that Jenny would have been offended if she had not been the dear, trustful little creature she was. There was, indeed, a slight reproach in her accent as she answered, “Think I love you, Hobert? No, I don't think anything about it,—I know." "And I know I love you, Jenny," he replied. "I love you so well that I am going to leave you without asking you to marry me! - For one moment Jenny was silent,— for one moment the world seemed unsteady beneath her, then she stood up, and, taking the hand of her lover between her palms, gazed into his face with one long, earnest, steadfast gaze. "You have asked me already, Hobert," she said, "a thousand times, and I have consented as often. You may go away, but you will not leave me; for Whither thou goest I will go, where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried.' ” He drew her close to his bosom now, and kissed her with most passionate, but still saddest tenderness. "You know not, my darling," he said, “what you would sacrifice." Then he laid before her all her present advantages, all her bright prospects for the future, WITH Izzer. — 50TEST TERM = no to usIS EGET TII LIE is t WA ESCUAL SE De w m. # tus Ar: Jowen one maring weet te sun is was 15 som a ater corak and let sur ma im izny ts nga ime vin I mnutes ang earse mi de wing frur any reret ne tal via seated mur: LISI İn Lime Jm come ri A via the su Site tit aut me: an ive minutes ture ang passed he manned the ware wind a quick sure step, to kw what was the rest. He came tows faster. É posstie, man he went Mother, mocher. he cried. wing toward Mrs. Boven who stood at the table sing meal his gray hair streaming widly back, and his cheek bianched with amazement, -any's run away-run away, as sure as you 're a livin' woman. Her piller has n't been touched last night, and her chamber's desarted!" And this was the secret that took wing and flew over the neighborhood. 1866.] The Retreat from Lenoir's and the Siege of Knoxville. 21 THE RETREAT FROM LENOIR'S AND THE SIEGE OF KNOXVILLE. LATE in October, 1863, the Ninth of a mile east of the village. The camp was laid out with unusual care. In order to secure uniformity throughout the regiment, the size of the log-housesthey were to be ten feet by six-was announced in orders from regimental head-quarters. The work of construction was at once commenced. Unfortunately, we were so far from our base of supplies - Camp Nelson, Kentucky Army Corps went into camp at Lenoir's Station, twenty-five miles southwest of Knoxville, East Tennessee. Since April, the corps had campaigned in Kentucky, had participated in the siege of Vicksburg, had accompanied Sherman into the interior of Mississippi in his pursuit of Johnston, had returned to Kentucky, and then, in conjunction with the Twenty-third Ar--that nearly all our transportation was my Corps, marching over the mountains into East Tennessee, in a brief but brilliant campaign under its old leader and favorite, Burnside, had delivered the loyal people of that region from the miseries of Rebel rule, and had placed them once more under the protection of the old flag. But all this had not been done without loss. Many of our brave comrades, who, through a storm of leaden hail, had crossed the bridge at Antietam, and had faced death in a hundred forms on the heights of Fredericksburg, had fallen on these widely separated battle-fields in the valley of the Mississippi. Many, overborne by fatigue and exposure, had laid down their wasted bodies by the roadside and in hospitals, and had gently breathed their young lives away. Many more, from time to time, had been rendered unfit for active service; and the corps, now a mere skeleton, numbered less than three thousand men present for duty. Never did men need rest more than they; and never was an order more welcome than that which now declared the campaign ended, and authorized the construction of winter quarters. The Thirty-sixth Massachusetts Volunteers-then in the First Brigade, First Division, Ninth Corps - was under the command of Major Draper, — Lieutenant-Colonel Goodell having been severely wounded at the battle of Blue Springs, October 10. The place selected for the winter quarters of the regiment was a young oak grove, nearly a quarter required by the Commissary Department for the conveyance of its stores. Consequently, the Quartermaster's Department was poorly supplied; and the only axes which could be obtained were those which our pioneers and company cooks had brought with them for their own use. These, however, were pressed into the service; and their merry ringing, as the men cheerfully engaged in the work, could be heard from early morning till evening. Small oaks, four and five inches in diameter, were chiefly used in building these houses. The logs were laid one above another, to the height of four feet, intersecting at the corners of the houses like the rails of a Virginia fence. The interstices were filled with mud. Shelter-tents, buttoned together to the size required, formed the roof, and afforded ample protection from the weather, except in very heavy rains. Each house had its fireplace, table, and bunk. On the 13th of November the houses were nearly completed; and as we sat by our cheerful fires that evening, and looked forward to the leisure and quiet of the winter before us, we thought ourselves the happiest of soldiers. Writing home at that time, I said that, unless something unforeseen should happen, we expected to remain at Lenoir's during the winter. That something unforeseen was at hand; and our pleasant dreams were destined to fade away like an unsubstantial pageant, leaving not a rack be hind. At four o'clock on the morning of the 14th I was roused from sleep by loud knocks on the new-made door. In the order which followed, "Be ready to march at daybreak," I recognized the familiar, but unwelcome voice of the Sergeant-Major. Throwing aside my blankets, and leaving the Captain dreamily wondering what could be the occasion of so unexpected an order, I hurried to the quarters of the men of Company D, and repeated to the Orderly Sergeant the instructions just received. The camp was soon astir. Lights flashed here and there through the trees. "Pack up! pack up!" passed from lip to lip. "Shall we take everything?" Yes, everything. The shelter-tents were stripped from the houses, knapsacks and trunks were packed. The wagon for the officers' baggage came, was hurriedly loaded, and driven away. A hasty breakfast followed. Then, forming our line, we stacked arms, and awaited further orders. The mystery was soon solved. Longstreet, having cut loose from Bragg's army, which still remained in the vicinity of Chattanooga, had, by a forced march, struck the Tennessee River at Hough's Ferry, a few miles below Loudon. Already he had thrown a pontoon across the river, and was crossing with his entire command, except the cavalry under Wheeler, which he had sent by way of Marysville, with orders to seize the heights on the south bank of the Holston, opposite Knoxville. The whole movement was the 'commencement of a series of blunders on the part of the Rebel commanders in this department, which resulted at length in the utter overthrow of the Rebel army of the Tennessee. General Grant saw at once the mistake which the enemy had made, and ordered General Burnside to fall back to Knoxville and intrench, promising reinforcements speedily. Knoxville was Longstreet's objective. It was the key of East Tennessee. Should it again fall into the enemy's hands, we would be obliged to tire to Cumberland Gap. Lenoir's did lie in Longstreet's path. If we re mained there, he would push his columns past our right, and get between us and Knoxville. It was evident that the place must be abandoned; and there was need of haste. The mills and factories in the village were accordingly destroyed, and the wagon-train started north. The morning had opened heavily with clouds, and, as the day advanced, the rain came down in torrents. A little before noon, our division, then under the command of General Ferrero, moved out of the woods; but, instead of taking the road to Knoxville, as we had anticipated, the column marched down the Loudon road. We were to watch the enemy, and, by holding him in check, secure the safety of our trains and material, then on the way to Knoxville. A few miles from Lenoir's, while we were halting for rest, General Burnside passed us on his way to the front. Under his slouched hat there was a sterner face than there was wont to be. There is trouble ahead, said the men; but the cheers which rose from regiment after regiment, as with his staff and battleflag he swept past us, told the confidence which all felt in "Old Burnie." Chapin's brigade of White's command (Twenty-third Army Corps) was in the advance; and about four o'clock his skirmishers met those of the enemy, and drove them back a mile and a half. We followed through mud and rain. The country became hilly as we advanced, and our artillery was moved with difficulty. At dark we were in front of the enemy's position, having marched nearly fourteen miles. The rain had now ceased. Halting, we formed our lines in thick woods, and stacked our arms, weary and wet, and not in the happiest of moods. During the evening a circular was received, notifying us of an intended attack on the enemy's lines at nine o'clock, P. M., by the troops of White's. command; but, with the exception of an occasional shot, the night was a quiet one. The next morning, the usual reveille was omitted; and, at daybreak, noise |