GO THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. land. we would reply: “whois to blame? Who kindled this unhappy strife ? Who fired the first, gun withou a reason or a motive?-’ They would make no answer, but their glances would wander mechanically over the black heads crowded in the doors of the negro huts. We never spoke of slavery in these interviews; to utter the -word “slave” ■would have suiliced to call up into the most amiable eyes, an expression of anxiety and of hatred. At other times we would find the white owners fled, and nobodv left but the negroes, with whom we spoke of other matters. I remember a mulatto woman who called our attention with an air of pride to her son, a fine, bright yellow child of some four years, with these significant words: “ lie is the son of a white man ; he is worth 400 dollars. I began at fifteen, and I am nineteen now. I have four already.” So from point to point we moved along the river. The gunboats went, first and explored the country before ns; then came the topographical oilicers, moving through the woods, with an escort of cavalry, reconnoitering the country, and sketching by the eye and the compass provisional maps, which were photographed at head-quarters for the use of the Generals. The next day, with the In Ip of these maps, the army would get. into motion, mingled in masses with its immense team of wagons. About one-fourth of each regiment was occupied in escorting the materiel of the corps, piled up, provisions, ammunition, tents and furniture on wagons, at the rate of ten to a battalion. But for the absence of women, we might have been taken for an armed emigration, rather than for soldiers on the march. Tin- fighting force marched by brigades, followed by their baggage, and these long files of wagons each drawn by four hor.-es or six mules, ami driven by a single postilion, made the army stretch upon these narrow forest paths over an immense space of country, Hence followed delays equally im
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