Read "Two Little Confederates" by Thomas Nelson Page online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In course of time they saw a great deal of "the army," -- which meant / the Confederates. The idea that the Yankees could ever get to Oakland / never entered any one's head. It was understood that the army lay / between Oakland and them, and surely they could never get by the / innumerable soldiers who were always passing up one road or the other, / and who, day after day and night after night, were coming to be fed, / and were rapidly eating up everything that had been left on the place. / By the end of the first year they had been coming so long that they / made scarcely any difference; but the first time a regiment camped in / the neighborhood it created great excitement.
It became known one night that a cavalry regiment, in which were / several of their cousins, was encamped at Honeyman's Bridge, and the / boys' mother determined to send a supply of provisions for the camp / next morning; so several sheep were killed, the smoke-house was / opened, and all night long the great fires in the kitchen and / wash-house glowed; and even then there was not room, so that a big / fire was kindled in the back yard, beside which saddles of mutton / were roasted in the tin kitchens. Everybody was "rushing."