Never was railway more completely destroyed. The morning after we had reached the scene of operations, in the drizzling rain and falling sleet, the whole command was set to work. As far as the eye could see down the road were men in blue, divested of weapons and accoutrements, prying and wrenching and tearing away at iron rails and wooden ties. It was a well-built road, and hard to tear up. The rails were what are known as "T" rails, and each being securely fastened to its neighbor at either end by a stout bar of iron or steel, which had been forced into the groove of the T, the track was virtually two long unbroken rails throughout its whole length.

"No use tryin' to tear up them rails from the ties, Major," said an old railroader, with a touch of his cap. "The plagued things are all spliced together at the j'ints, and the only way to get them off is to pry up the whole thing, rails, ties, and all, and then split the ties off from the rails when you've got her upside down."

So, with fence-rails for levers, the men fell to work, prying and heave-I-ho-ing, until one side of the road, ties, track, and all, pulled and wrenched by thousands of strong arms, began to loosen and move, and was raised gradually higher and higher. Forced at last to a perpendicular, it was pushed over and laid upside down, with a mighty cheer from the long line of wreckers!

Once the thing was started it was easy enough to roll miles and miles of it over without a break. And so brigade after brigade rolled it along; tearing and splitting off the ties, and wrenching away the rails.

It was not enough, however, merely to destroy the track. The rails must be made forever useless as rails. Accordingly, the ties were piled in heaps, or built up as children build corn-cob houses, and then the heaps were fired. The rails were laid across the top of the burning pile, where they soon became red-hot in the middle, and bent themselves double by the weight of their ends, which hung out beyond the reach of the fire. In some cases, however, a grim and humorous conceit led to a more artistic use of the heated rails, for many of them were taken and carried to some tree hard by, and twisted two or three times around the trunk, while not a few of the men hit on the happy device of bending the rails, some into the shape of a U, and others into the shape of an S, and setting them up by pairs against the fences along the line, in order that, in this oft-repeated iron U S, it might be seen that Uncle Sam had been looking around in those parts.

When darkness came, the scene presented by that long line of burning ties was wild and weird. Rain and sleet had been falling all day, and there was frost as well, and we lay down at night with stiff limbs, aching bones, and chattering teeth. Everything was covered with a coating of ice; so that Andy and I crept under a wagon for shelter and a dry spot to lie down in. But the horses, tied to the wheels, gave us little sleep. Scarcely would we fall into a doze, when one of the horses would poke his nose between the wheels, or through the spokes, and whinny pitifully in our ears. And no wonder, either, we thought, when, crawling out at daybreak, we found the poor creatures covered with a coating of ice, and their tails turned to great icicles. The trees looked very beautiful in their magnificent frost-work; but we were too cold and wet to admire anything, as our drums hoarsely beat the "assembly," and we set out for a two days' wet and weary march back to camp in front of Petersburg.

Both on the way down and on the retreat, we passed many fine farms or plantations. It was a new country to us, and no other Northern troops had passed through it. One consequence of this was that we were everywhere looked upon with wonder by the white inhabitants, and by the colored population as deliverers sent for their express benefit.

All along the line of march, both down and back, the overjoyed darkies flocked to us by hundreds, old and young, sick and well, men, women, and children. Whenever we came to a road or lane leading to a plantation, a crowd of darkies would be seen hurrying pell-mell down the lane toward us. And then they would take their places in the colored column that already tramped along the road in awe and wonderment beside "de sodjers." There were stout young darkies with bundles slung over their backs, old men hobbling along with canes, women in best bib and tucker with immense bundles on their heads, mothers with babes in their arms, and a barefooted brood trotting along at their heels; and now and then one would call out anxiously to some venturesome boy:

"Now, you Sam! Whar you goin' dar? You done gone git run ober by de sodjers yit, you will."

"Auntie, you've got a good many little folks to look after, haven't you?" some kindly soldier would say to one of the mothers.

"Ya-as, Cunnel, right smart o' chilluns I'se got yere; but I'se a-gwine up Norf, an' can't leabe enny on 'em behind, sah."

Fully persuaded that the year of jubilee had come at last, the poor things joined us, from every plantation along the road, many of them mayhap leaving good masters for bad, and comfortable homes for no homes at all. Occasionally, however, we met some who would not leave. I remember one old, gray-headed, stoop-shouldered uncle who stood leaning over a gate, looking wide-eyed at the blue-coats and the great exodus of his people.

"Come along, uncle," shouted one of the men. "Come along,—the year of jubilee is come!"

"No, sah. Dis yere chile's too ole. Reckon I better stay wid ole Mars'r."

When we halted at nightfall in a cotton-field, around us was gathered a great throng of colored people, houseless, homeless, well-nigh dead with fatigue, and with nothing to eat. Near where we pitched our tent, for instance, was a poor negro woman with six little children, of whom the oldest was apparently not more than eight or nine years of age. The whole forlorn family crouched shivering together in the rain and sleet. Andy and I thought, as we were driving in our tent-pins:

"That's pretty hard now, isn't it? Couldn't we somehow get a shelter and something to eat for the poor souls?"

It was not long before we had set up a rude but serviceable shelter, and thrown in a blanket and built a fire in front for them, and set Dinah to cooking coffee and frying bacon for her famishing brood.

Never shall I forget how comical those little darkies looked as they sat cross-legged about the fire, watching the frying-pan and coffee-pot with great eager eyes!

Dinah, as she cooked, and poked the fire betimes, told Andy and me how she had deserted the old home at the plantation,—a home which no doubt she afterward wished she had never left.

"When we heerd dat de Yankees was a-comin'," said she, "de folks all git ready fer to leabe. Ole Mars' John, he ride out de road dis way, an' young Mars' Harry, he ride out de road dat way, fer to watch if dey was a-comin'; and den ebbery now an' den one or udder on 'em'd come a-ridin' up to de house an' say, 'Did ye see anyt'ing on 'em yit? Did ye hear whar dey is now?' An' den one mawning, down come young Mars' Harry a-ridin' his hoss at a gallop,—'Git out o' dis! Git out o' dis! De Yankees is a-comin'! De Yankees is a-comin'!' and den all de folks done gone cl'ar out an' leabe us all 'lone, an' so when we see de sodjers comin' we done cl'ar out too,—ki-yi!"

CHAPTER XXVI.
"JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME."

We had just come out of what is known as the "Second Hatcher's Run" fight, somewhere about the middle of February, 1865. The company, which was now reduced to a mere handful of men, was standing about a smoking fire in the woods, discussing the engagement and relating adventures, when some one came in from brigade headquarters, shouting the following message: "Say, boys, good news! They told me over at headquarters that we are to be sent North to relieve the 'regulars' somewhere."

Ha! ha! ha! That was an old story,—too old to be good, and too good to be true. For a year and more we had been hearing that same good news,—"Going to Baltimore," "Going to Washington," and so forth, and we always ended with going into battle instead, or off on some long raid.

So we didn't much heed the tidings; we were too old birds to be caught with chaff.

But, in spite of our incredulity, the next morning we were marched down to General Grant's branch of the Petersburg Railway, loaded on box-cars, and carried to City Point, where we at once embarked on two huge steamers, which we found awaiting us.

For two days and nights we were cooped up in those miserable boats. We had no fire, and we suffered from the cold. We had no water for thirty-six hours, and, of course, no coffee; and what is life to a soldier without coffee? All were sea-sick, too, for the weather was rough. And so, what with hunger and thirst, cold and sea-sickness, we landed one evening at Baltimore more dead than alive.

No sooner were we well down the gangplank than the crowd of apple and pie women that stood on the wharf made quick sales and large profits. Then we marched away to a "soldiers' retreat" and were fed. Fed! We never tasted so grand a supper as that before or since—"salt horse," dry bread and coffee! The darkies that carried around the great cans of the latter were kept pretty busy for a while, I can tell you; and they must have thought:

"Dem sodjers, dar, must be done gone starved, dat's sartin. Nebber seed sech hungry men in all my bawn days,—nebber!"

After supper we were lodged in a great upper room of a large building, having bunks ranged around the four sides of it, and in the middle an open space, which was soon turned to account; for one of the boys strung up his fiddle, which he had carried on his knapsack for full two years, on every march and through every battle we had been in, and with the help of this we proceeded to celebrate our late "change of front" with music and dancing until the small hours of the morning.

Down through the streets of Baltimore we march the next day, with our blackened and tattered flags a-flying, mustering only one hundred and eighty men out of the one thousand who marched through those same streets nearly three years before. We find a train of cars awaiting us, which we gladly enter, making no complaint that we are stowed away in box or cattle cars, instead of passenger coaches, for we understand that Uncle Sam cannot afford any luxuries for his boys, and we have been used to roughing it. Nor do we complain, either, that we have no fire, although we have just come out of a warm climate, and the snow is a foot deep at Baltimore, and is getting deeper every hour as we steam away northward. Toward evening we pass Harrisburg, giving "three cheers for Andy Curtin," as the State Capitol comes in sight. Night draws on, and the boys one by one begin to bunk down on the floor, wrapped in their great-coats and blankets. But I cannot lie down or sleep until we have passed a certain way-station, from which it is but two miles across the hills to my home. I stand at the door of the car, shivering and chilled to the bone, patiently waiting and watching as village after village rushes by in the bright moonlight, until at long last we reach the well-known little station at the hour of midnight. And then, as I look across the snow-clad moonlit hills, toward the old red farmhouse where father and mother and sisters are all sleeping soundly, with never a thought of my being so near, I fall to thinking, and wondering, and wishing with a bounding heart, as the train dashes on between the mountain and the river, and bears me again farther and farther away from home. Then rolling myself up in my blanket, and drawing the cape of my overcoat about my head, I lie down on the car floor beside Andy, and am soon sound asleep.

The following evening we landed at Elmira, New York, where we were at once put on garrison duty. Why we had been taken out of the field and sent to a distant Northern city, we never could discover, and we had seen too much service to think of asking questions which the mysterious pigeon-holes of the War Department alone could answer. But we always deemed it a pity that we were not left in the field until the great civil war came to an end with the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, and that we had no part in the final gathering of the troops at Washington, where the grand old Army of the Potomac passed in review for the last time.

But so it was, that after some months of monotonous garrison duty at Elmira, the great and good news came at last one day that peace had been declared, and that the great war was over! My young readers can scarcely imagine what joy instantly burst forth all over the land. Bells were rung all day long, bonfires burned, and people paraded the streets half the night, and everybody was glad beyond possibility of expression. And among the joyful thousands all over the land, the Boys in Blue were probably the gladdest of all; for was not the war over now, and would not "Johnny come marching home?"

But before we could go home we must be mustered out, and then we must return to our State capital to be paid off and finally disbanded, and say a last good-by to our comrades in arms, the great majority of whom we should never in all probability see again. And a more hearty, rough and ready, affectionate good-by there never was in all this wide world. In the rooms of one of the hotels at the State capital we were gathered, waiting for our respective trains: knapsacks slung, Sharp's rifles at a "right-shoulder shift" or a "carry;" songs were sung, hands shaken, or rather wrung; loud, hearty "God bless you, old fellows!" resounded; and many were the toasts and the healths that were drunk before the men parted for good and all.

It was past midnight when the last camp-fire of the One Hundred and Fiftieth broke up. "Good by, boys! Good by! God bless you, old fellow!" was shouted again and again, as by companies or in little squads we were off for our several trains, some of us bound North, some East, some West,—and all bound for Home!

Of the thirteen men who had gone out from our little village (whither my father's family had meanwhile removed), but three had lived to return home together. One had already gone home the day before. Some had been discharged because of sickness or wounds, and four had been killed. As we rode along over the dusty turnpike from L—— to M—— in the rattling old stage-coach that evening in June, we could not help thinking how painful it would be for the friends of Joe Gutelius and Jimmy Lucas and Joe Ruhl and John Diehl to see us return without their brave boys, whom we had left on the field.

Then mother and sisters come around, and they must needs call for a lamp and hold it close to my face, and look me all over from head to foot, while father is saying to himself again and again, "God bless you, my boy!"

Although I knew that my name was never forgotten in the evening prayer all the while I was away, yet not once, perhaps, in all that time was father's voice so choked in utterance as when now, his heart overflowing, he came to give thanks for my safe return. And when I lay down that night in a clean white bed, for the first time in three long years, I thanked God for Peace and Home.

And—Andy? Why—the Lord bless him and his!—he's a soldier still. For, having laid aside the blue, he put on the black, being a sober, steady-going Presbyterian parson now, somewhere up in York State. I haven't seen him for years; but when we do meet, once in a great while, there is such a wringing of hands as makes us both wince until the tears start, and we sit up talking over old times so far into the night that the good folk of the house wonder whether we shall ever get to—

THE END.