There was but little of the pomp or circumstance of
military array in their appearance or approach. Though dressed uniformly
the gray and plain stuffs which they wore were more in unison with the
habit of the hunter than the warrior; and, as in that country, the rifle
is familiar as a household thing, the encounter with an individual of
the troop would perhaps call for no remark. The plaintive note of a
single bugle, at intervals reverberating wildly among the hills over
which the party wound its way, more than anything beside, indicated its
character; and even this accompaniment is so familiar as an appendage
with the southron--so common, particularly to the negroes, who acquire a
singular and sweet mastery over it, while driving their wagons through
the woods, or poling their boats down the streams, that one might fairly
doubt, with all these symbols, whether the advancing array were in fact
more military than civil in its character. They rode on briskly in the
direction of our contending parties--the sound of the bugle seeming not
only to enliven, but to shape their course, since the stout negro who
gave it breath rode considerably ahead of the troop.
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