ey shouldered arms and showed how fields were won. Boom!
went Sigel's guns out of the past, and crash! came the Texas cavalry,
and the whoop of the Louisiana Pelicans rang in their ears. They
marched south after Hindman, and then came back with Grant to
Vicksburg, where they fought and bled and died. The general left them
and went east, where he "deployed on our right" and executed flank
movements, and watched Pickett's column come fling itself to death at
Gettysburg. And Watts McHurdie rode with the artillery through the
rear of the rebel lines at Pittsburg Landing, and when the rebel
officer saw the little man's bravery, and watched him making for the
Union lines bringing three guns, he waved his hat and told his
soldiers not to shoot at that boy. The colonel took a stick and marked
out on the floor our position at Antietam, and showed where the
reserves were supposed to be and how the enemy masked his guns behind
that hill, and we planted our artillery on the opposite ridge; and he
marched with the infantry and lay in ambush while the enemy came
marching in force through the wood. In time Watts McHurdie was talking
to Lincoln in the streets of Richmond, and telling for the hundredth
time what Lincoln said of the song and how he had sung it. But who
cares now what Lincoln said? It was something kind, you may be sure,
with a tear and a laugh in it, and the veterans laughed, while their
eyes grew moist as they always did when Watts told it. Then they fell
to carnage again--a fierce fight against time, against the moment
when they must leave their old companion alone. Up hills they charged
and down dales, and the moon rose high, and cast its shadow to the
eastward before they parted. First Dolan edged away, and then the
general went, waving his hand military fashion; and the colonel
returned the salute. When the gate had clanged, Watts rose to go. He
did not speak, nor did the colonel. Arm in arm, they walked down the
steps together, and halfway down the garden path the colonel rested
his hand on the little man's shoulder as they walked in silence. At
the gate they saw each other's tears, and the little man's voice
failed him when the colonel said, "Well, good-by, comrade--good
night." So Watts turned and ran, while the colonel, for the first time
in his manhood, loosed the cords of his sorrow and stood alone in the
moonlight with upturned face, swaying like an old tree in a storm.

CHAPTER XXI

And now those w