1

May 1862.

  23. Friday � The house, like most of
Its kind, was a wooden-built one, two stories
In height, with a garden in front and rear,
rather prettily laid out, with roses and other
flowers growing in all the luxuriance of a
Virginia May.  Of the Twenty-Three negroes
owned by widow Crump, all had run away,
except Three old women and one man, who
dwelt at some huts, at a little distance, near
the stables, in which I had lodged my mule
after supplying him with an unusual allowance
of corn, securing him by pacing a detached
door over the entrance.  In the house, up-
stairs, the rooms communicated, with an
old-fashioned ascent or descent of a step
or two between each.  They contained plenty
of old furniture, as intimated, dusty mir-
rors and articles suggestive of country-
life, which set me thinking of Chacombre.
  The Zouaves in possession were full of the
story of their share of the battle of Williams-
burg, relating how they had been on picket-
duty on the morning of the evacuation of York-
town, how they raced with the Mozarters in
order to achieve the honor of planting the
Union flag in the works, how, returning to