kson's _Old
Guard_--who had marched the furthest and fought the hardest following
him--were the chiefest mourners. Jackson had reared a noble monument,
to be viewed from all the dimmest vistas of the future. But the fair
column was shattered near its top; and the laurel leaves that twined it
were mingled with evergreen cypress.

Then the strained suspense was broken. On the 26th of June began that
memorable series of fights that northern and southern history--voluminous
reports of generals and detailed accounts of newspapers, have made
familiar to all who care to read of battles.

A. P. Hill's steady attack at Mechanicsville, though at great cost,
drove the enemy's right wing back; to be struck next morning on the
flank by Jackson and sent, after a sullen and bloody resistance, to the
works near Gaines' Mill. Still on the barefooted boys press with
resistless rush, leaving dead or mangled brothers and writhing foemen
in their gory track! Never pausing to look back, but each successive
day driving the enemy at the bayonet's point from works frowning with
cannon.

Cold Harbor has told its brilliant story. Frasier's Farm is fought and
won!

With ranks fearfully thinned, scant of food and pausing not to rest,
the struggling men press on--ever on! Weary and faltering on the march,
the first sharp crack of the rifle lights a new fire in every eye; and
drinking the hot breath of the battle,

"Stalwart, they court like Anak's sons
The rapture of the fight!"

The tide of the battle swung round and the retreating army of
McClellan--fighting steadily by day and retreating noiselessly in the
night--fronted from the city which now lay on its left flank.

The Federals were neither demoralized, nor panic struck, as has been
sometimes believed; and such an error, while it has bloody refutation
in the nameless graves that make the track of these fights precious to
the southron--does less than justice to the constancy and enduring
valor of the little army that wrung the victory from them at such
fearful cost.

Their retreat was orderly and steady. Driven each day from works on
which they relied--marking their path with untold destruction of
munitions, supplies and even of food on which they depended--the
soldiers of the North were well held together; never refusing to turn
and face the resistless foe that hurled itself against them, careless
alike of cannon and steel, weariness and death!

There can be little dou