He wore a long black and gray beard, uncut and unkempt, and snarled, tangled, and knotted into the most fantastic forms.

His gray uniform, plentifully bedaubed with Virginia mud, was torn in a hundred places, and hung in tatters upon his emaciated frame.

On his head was an old felt hat, in a terribly dilapidated condition.

He wore one boot and one shoe, which he had probably taken from the common sewer of Richmond, or some other southern city; they were ripped to such an extent that the "uppers" went flipperty-flap as he walked, and had the general appearance of the open mouth of the mythic dragon, with five bare toes in each to represent teeth.
As he approached, the unthinking soldiers of the party indulged in screams of laughter at the uncouth appearance of the whilom rebel; and certainly the character in tableau or farce need not have spoken, to convulse any audience that ever assembled in Christendom.

Rip Van Winkle, with the devastations and dilapidations of five-and-twenty years hanging about him, did not present a more forlorn appearance than did this representative of the Confederate army.
"What are you laughing at ?" demanded the deserter, not at all delighted with this reception.
"I say, old fellow, how long since you escaped from the rag-bag ?" jeered one of the men.
"What's the price of boots in Richmond now ?" asked another.
"Who's your barber ?" "Silence, men!" interposed Tom, sternly, for he could not permit his boys to make fun of the wretchedness of any human being.
"We'll sell you out for paper stock," said Ben Lethbridge, who had just returned from three months' service in the Rip-Raps for desertion.
"Shut up, Ben!" added Tom.
"Dry up, all of you!" said Corporal Snyder.
"Who and what are you ?" asked Tom, of the deserter.
"I'm a Union man!" replied the stranger with emphasis; "and I didn't expect to be treated in this way after all I've suffered." "They thought you were a rebel.