Captured by the Navajos

I INTRODUCES THE BOYS It was late in the fall of the second year of the civil war that I rejoined my company at Santa Fe, New Mexico, from detached service in the Army of the Potomac. The boom of the sunrise gun awoke me on the morning after my arrival, and I hastened to attend reveille roll-call. As I descended the steps of the officers' quarters the men of the four companies composing the garrison were forming into line before their barracks. Details from the guard, which had just fired the gun and hoisted the national colors, were returning to the guard-house, and the officers were hastening to their places. At the conclusion of the ceremony I turned again towards my quarters, and noticed two handsome boys, evidently aged about fifteen and thirteen, dressed in a modification of the infantry uniform of the army, and wearing corporals' chevrons. They stood near the regimental adjutant, and seemed to be reporting their presence to him. At breakfast, the adjutant chancing to sit near me, I asked him who the youthful soldiers were. "They are the sons of Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, Corporals Frank and Henry," he replied. "They hold honorary rank, and are attached to head-quarters, acting as messengers and performing some light clerical work