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We pass it and trudge on in light marching order, carrying arms, blankets, haversacks, and canteens. Our knapsacks are upon the train. Fortunate for our backs that they do not have to bear any more burden! For the day grows sultry. It is one of those breezeless baking days which brew thunder-gusts.
Here we remained till about three p. m. next day, when hurried orders were received to march with nothing but guns and ammunition. Our shelter tents were left standing, and our blankets in them, but the men had hungered and thirsted too much within the last six months to leave haversacks and canteens.
"So have I; for we were so busy at noon, that I did not have time to eat much dinner, though it was served as usual. I think we had better go to supper now, and then we will look about us." Both of them began to eat from their haversacks, and they made a hearty meal of it.
It was a ride of five miles among scarred trees, over ground cut by the wheels of guns and caissons, among shattered muskets, disabled cannon, broken wagons, and all the heavier débris of battle. Everywhere could be seen torn garments, haversacks, and other personal equipments of soldiers.
It was a very hard hot day's work that we had before us. We carried a lunch in our haversacks, and when we got into the country we received humorous and good-natured replies to questions we asked those we met. For instance, I was in charge of a section of the advance guard, and I asked a native how far we were from Naas. He answered: "Three miles and a wee bit, sur."
On wheels we had, to accompany this column, eight ambulances, sixteen ammunition wagons, a pontoon train for eight canvas boats, and a small supply-train, with fifteen days' rations of coffee, sugar, and salt, it being intended to depend on the country for the meat and bread ration, the men carrying in their haversacks nearly enough to subsist them till out of the exhausted valley.
They look to their flints and priming, and tighten the buckles of their belts. They draw forth from their haversacks pieces of dry tasajo, eating it raw. They stand by their horses, ready to mount. It is not yet time. The light is gathering into the valley. The blue mist that hung over the river during the night is rising upward. We can see the town. We can trace the odd outlines of the houses.
The Boer victors walked in among the litter of stricken men and horses. 'Practically all of them were dressed in khaki and had the water-bottles and haversacks of our soldiers.
Another charge on the haversacks about 5 P.M. Began to wonder where or how we were to pass the night. Our efficient Quartermaster, L.M.; at length solved the problem. He procured a lot of shelter tents, which were distributed, and the work of setting them up commenced. A little straw was brought from somewhere and put in for a bottom. Took a stroll through the town in the evening with Messrs.
These served for supper and breakfast, but we had nothing for dinner, for if when we started in the morning we put the cooked corn in the haversacks it soured under the hot rays of the sun, and time was too precious to allow a halt for cooking a fresh supply at noon. Fording the Potomac again, we passed out of Maryland into Virginia at Williamsport and proceeded rapidly to Harper's Ferry.
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