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and staff, like the men, sleep on the ground, rolled in their blankets; and I found the General at three o'clock taking his dinner of bread and cheese, with a slice of ham, on the top of an overturned candle-box by the side of the main highway.
When it comes to sleeping, I rejoice that I am a civilian, for I am much better cared for to-night than the commander of this, the largest force ever marshalled under one general on this continent.
There are two hotels in this place, both evidently feeble at their best estate, and just now, after a prolonged visit of rapacious and boisterous rebels, in a state of suspended animation.
Capt. Rawlings, of the New Hampshire Regiment, with that versatility which enables a New Englander to turn from commanding armies to keeping a hotel with marvellous facility, has succeeded in infusing into the mind of the invalid widow who keeps one of them that the national troops have not come to sweep her and hers from the face of the earth.
She has accordingly provided me with a bed, which, if not luxurious, is, to my untutored mind, decidedly preferable to one on the ground, even under the brilliant sky and softly superb moon of this July night.
H. J. R.
--N. Y. Times, July 20.
