"
On the road from Philadelphia, I found in the same car with our party
Dr. William Hunt, of Philadelphia, who had most kindly and faithfully
attended the Captain, then the Lieutenant, after a wound received at
Ball's Bluff, which came very near being mortal. He was going upon an
errand of mercy to the wounded, and found he had in his memorandum-book
the name of our lady-companion's husband, who had been commended to his
particular attention.
Not long after leaving Philadelphia, we passed a solitary sentry keeping
guard over a short railroad-bridge. It was the first evidence that we
were approaching the perilous borders, the marches where the North and
the South mingle their angry hosts, where the extremes of our so-called
civilization meet in conflict, and the fierce slave-driver of the Lower
Mississippi stares into the stern eyes of the forest-feller from the
banks of the Aroostook. All the way along, the bridges were guarded more
or less strongly. In a vast country like ours, communications play a far
more complex part than in Europe, where the whole territory available
for strategic purposes is so comparatively limited.
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