But unhappily we had made up our minds to go.
"Never did officer ride at the head of a battalion of more wobegone, spiritless wretches than I led back from Beaufort that day.

'When I march down to de landin',' said one of the men afterwards, 'my knapsack full of feathers.

Comin' back, _he lead_!' And the lead, instead of the feathers, rested on the heart of every one.
"As if the disappointment itself were not sufficient, we had to return to our pretty camp, accustomed to its drawing-room order, and find it a desert.

Every board gone from the floors, the screens torn down from the poles, all the little conveniences scattered, and, to crown all, a cold breeze such as we had not known since New-Year's Day blowing across the camp and flooding everything with dust.

I sincerely hope the regiment would never behave after a defeat as they behaved then.