now flinging itself along the road to Washington. Just a month ago, “in such a night as this,” we made our first promenade through the enemy’s country. The moon of Annapolis — why should we not have our ominous moon, as those other fellows had their sun of Austerlitz? — the moon of Annapolis shone over us. No epithets are too fine or too complimentary for such a luminary, and there was no dust under her rays.
So we pegged along to Washington and across Washington, — which at this point consists of Willard’s Hotel, few other buildings being in sight. A hag in a nightcap reviewed us from an upper window as we tramped by.
Opposite that bald block, the Washington Monument, and opposite what was of more importance to us, a drove of beeves putting beef on their bones in the seedy grounds of the Smithsonian Institution, we were halted while the New Jersey brigade — some three thousand of them — trudged by, receiving the complimentary fire of our line as they passed. New Jersey is not so far from New York, but that the dialects of the two can understand each other. Their respective slangs, though peculiar, are of the same genus. By the end of this war, I trust that these distinctions of locality will be quite annulled.
We began to feel like an army as these thousands thronged by us. This was evidently a movement in force. We rested an hour or more by the road. Mounted officers galloping along down the lines kept up the excitement.
