34 Southern Historical Spciety Papers.
culiar circumstances of that day, but I was left in undisturbed pos- sesion of my property.
But to return to the retreat. My ambulance was burned with all of my clothes, indeed, they were no great shakes, except a very fine new cloak of Confederate cloth, elaborately finished, the gift of a friend and made somewhere abroid. Its estimated value in the cur- rency of the day was fifteen hundred dollars. It was too fine to wear, except by a major-general, but I regretted its loss exceedingly. A greater loss was my diary, that dated back to the days of the Charleston convention of 1860, which was the real inauguration of the Revolution, in which the South staked its all for constitutional liberty. This I regretted more than cloak. Our lives were spared, however, and some commissary stores were left, and our little party trudged along with the wagon train, until the day following, when we took the vote amongst ourselves, whether we would continue with it, constantly menaced as it was by marauding parties of the enemy's cavalry, which seemed always to be hovering on our right, and against which we had little or no protection, or whether we would follow the fighting men, at a respectful and professional dis- tance, in tha rear. We had not found out then thit the rear was simply the left of the line, whilst the front was the right, and that there was just as much and just as hard fighting in the rear as in the front. We had only changed our route a few hours when we were told that the enemy had scooped down on the wagon train again, so we thought we were lucky. But shortly after, we came upon some of Mahone's men, not apparently retreating, but seeming lounging
around. I remember seeing Mr. A. A. A and Mr. W. J. B
sitting down on a pile of rails with thein shoes off, and not very far from the same place, I saw General Mahone lying down in the cor- ner of a fence near the road, with one or two orderlies. I did not recognize any of the staff. I thought he was trying to get a nap, perhaps, and I did not salute or disturb him, but went leisurely on a short way towards the front, when we saw General Longstreet and several of his staff, apparently lounging around, and still suspecting nothing, we went on, nobody halting us, until, a few minutes after, we came into an elevated and open plain, where a thin line of men were strung out diagonally across our road for some distance on either side, and a little stir of some sort going on. Presently an ambulance drove up from a sort of cross country road, and went rapidly for- ward through the line, and I heard a lady cry out from within it, " Don't take me right into the battle; don't take me right into the
