18    
          With Lowe�s  Balloon- Corps:
Gaining the road we set first Lumley the
artist, then Whittemore, who were going on
ahead for a few miles to Lowe�s balloon
corps, encamped in the immediate vicinity of
the rebels.  They persuaded us to accompany
them.  Whittemore was mounted on a big white
horse, very handsome to look at, but afflicted
with a bad sore on his back, I, of course,
bestrode my �muell,� and the others trudged,
Hall displaying more dissatisfaction and
ill temper than I had witnessed in him
before � and no wonder for the muddy road
was horrible.  Striking down a lane to the
left, after a ride of some distance, we passed
a cavalry encampment, of the regiment to which
Clif Thomson belonged.  Here we stopped at
a roadside tent, where I begged some corn-
cobs for my beast.  On and on�; at last reach-
ing the encampment of the balloon corps, in
a grove of trees, near a house.  Here we got
a welcome and a meal and I fed the mule.
Then we slept in a tent, on the ground, some
four of five of us, not too comfortably.  It
was a beautiful, solemn, tranquil night
overhead, we rather uneasy, for the enemy
was so near us that the balloon fellows would 
have shifted their quarters, had they not been