e famous regimental standard of
Morgan's Rifles.

Without confusion, with only a low-spoken command here and there,
battalion after battalion marched up, stacked arms, forming three sides
of a hollow square, the pulpit, with its flags and tiers of drums,
making the fourth side. The men stood at ease, hands loosely clasped
and hanging in front of them. The brigade chaplain quietly crossed the
square to his rude pulpit, mounted it, and, as he bowed his head in
prayer, every cocked hat came off, every head was lowered.

Country-folk, yokels, farmers, had gathered from all directions;
invalids from the camp hospitals were there, too, faces clay-color,
heads and limbs heavily bandaged. One of these, a sergeant of the New
York line, who wore a crimson heart sewed on his breast, was led to his
place between two comrades, he having both eyes shot out; and the
chaplain looked at him hard for a moment, then gave out the hymn,
leading the singing in a deep, full voice:

"Through darkest night
I know that Thou canst see.
Night blinds my sight,
Yet my small voice shall praise Thee constantly.
Under Thy wing,
Whose shadow blinds mine eyes,
Fearless I sing
Thy sweetness and Thy mercy to the skies!"

The swelling voices of the soldiers died away. Standing there between
our horses, Elsin's young voice still echoing in my ears, I looked up
at the placid face of the preacher, saw his quiet glance sweep the
congregation, saw something glimmer in his eyes, and his lips tighten
as he laid open his Bible, and, extending his right arm, turn to the
south, menacing the distant city with his awful text:

"The horseman lifteth up the bright sword and the glittering spear!

"Woe to the bloody city! The chariots shall rage in the streets, they
shall jostle one against another in the _broad ways_! They shall seem
like torches, they shall run like the lightnings. They shall make haste
to the wall; the defense shall be prepared.

"For that day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day
of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.

"A day of the trumpet and alarm against _fenced cities_, and against
high towers.

"For the horseman lifteth up the bright sword.... Woe to the bloody
city!"

Out over the sunlit fields rang the words of Zephaniah and of Nahum. I
saw the motionless ranks suddenly straighten; a thousand sunburned
faces were upturned, a thousand pairs of