In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war; concealed in the forest at the bottom of that military rat trap, in which half a hundred men in possession of the exits might have starved an army to sub mission, lay five regiments of Federal infantry. They had marched all the previous day and night and were resting. At nightfall they would take to the road again, climb to the place where their unfaithful sentinel now slept, and, descending the other slope of the ridge, fall upon a camp of the enemy at about mid night. Their hope was to surprise it, for the road lead to the rear of it. In case of failure their position would be perilous in the extreme; and fail they surely would should accident or vigilance apprise the enemy of the movement. The sleeping sentinel in the clump of laureln was a young Virginian named Carter Druse. He was the son of wealthy parents, an only child, and had known such case and cultiva tion and high living as wealth and taste were able to command in the mountain country of Western Virginia. His home was but a few miles from where he now lay. One morning he had risen from the breakfast table and said, quietly but gravely: Father, a Union regi ment has arrived at Grafton. I am going to join it. The father lifted his leonine head, looked at the son a moment in silence, and replied. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.