So I dismiss Coon Hollow, lost amid the hills of Orange. The spot is
desolate to-day, and the bleak wood is silent. But for me, Stuart is
singing there now as then--and will sing in my memory forever!
XV.
LEE'S "RAGGED REGIMENTS."
It required a stout heart to laugh and sing, _con amore_, in the last
days of that winter, and the first days of spring, 1864.
Those very figures, "1864," tell the story, and explain this. Do they
not, reader?
Each year of the war has its peculiar physiognomy.
1861--that is mirth, adventure, inexperience, bright faces, wreaths of
flowers, "boxes" from home, and "honorable mention" in reports, if you
only waved your sword and shouted "Hurrah!" Then you heard the brass
bands playing, the drum gayly rolling, the bugles sending their joyous
notes across the fields and through the forests--blooming fields,
untouched forests!--and that music made the pulses dance. Gayly-clad
volunteers marched gallantly through the streets; the crowds cheered;
the new flags, shaped by fair hands, fluttered;--not a bullet had torn
through them, not a rent was seen in the new uniforms. As the trains
swept by with the young heroes on board, bevies of lovely girls
cheered, waved handkerchiefs, and threw nosegays. Eyes were sparkling,
lips smiling, cheeks glowing in '61.
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