Lean, sun-scorched,
half-clothed, dropping its stragglers like leaves upon the roadside,
marching in borrowed rags, and fighting with the weapons of its enemies,
dirty, fevered, choking with the hot dust of the turnpike--it still pressed
onward, bending like a blade beneath Lee's hand. For this army of the sick,
fighting slow agues, old wounds, and the sharp diseases that follow on
green food, was becoming suddenly an army of invasion. The road led into
Maryland, and the brigades swept into it, jesting like schoolboys on a
frolic.
Dan, stretched exhausted beside the road, ate his ear of corn, and idly
watched the regiment that was marching by--marching, not with the even
tread of regular troops, but with scattered ranks and broken column, each
man limping in worn-out shoes, at his own pace. They were not fancy
soldiers, these men, he felt as he looked after them. They were not
imposing upon the road, but when their chance came to fight, they would be
very sure to take it. Here and there a man still carried his old squirrel
musket, with a rusted skillet handle stuck into the barrel, but when before
many days the skillet would be withdrawn, the load might be relied upon to
wing straight home a little later. On wet nights those muskets would stand
upright upon their bayonets, with muzzles in the earth, while the rain
dripped off, and on dry days they would carry aloft the full property of
the mess, which had dwindled to a frying pan and an old quart cup; though
seldom cleaned, they were always fit for service--or if they went foul what
was easier than to pick up a less trusty one upon the field.
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