less heaps. Some were collected around the trunks of trees.
Some were scattered about on rocks and stumps. Wherever you went they
were directly in front and on either side of you. As the beams of
morning crept through the grove the phantasmagoria became still more
striking. Distant objects were brought to light, and those near you,
faintly descried or not observed before, became distinct. The whole
extended wood was seen to be filled with these black shapeless heaps,
strewn on the ground indiscriminately everywhere. They encircled the
smouldering fires, which ever and anon would shoot up a sparkling blaze
as if some one had stirred them. Some taller than the rest were moving
about slowly and solemnly. Here and there were commissary and
quartermaster wagons, the teams unhitched and turned about like
Barnum's equine monster--their heads where their tails ought to be--and
looking demurely into the wagons, where, on boxes and barrels, were
other dismal black heaps. Observe one of these. It is crowned with a
soft felt hat, the rim bent down all around, from which the water is
dripping drearily. Looking under it you see the large, sad, careworn
visage of Colonel Everdell, ever watchful of his men, and now sharing
with them this extremity of discomfort and exposure.

As the morning waxes light the camp-fires flame up stronger if not
brighter, and now you see real human figures moving about. These
ominous black heaps scattered everywhere are, as it were, eggs, and out
of each of them will crawl in due time a full-fledged biped. See yonder
by that fire; one of them is even now in violent motion--evidently in
the pangs of birth. Presto! a man emerges from it as it collapses to
the ground. He goes straight to the fire, stirs it up, blows the sick
embers, cuts slivers for kindling and lays them on, takes the axe,
splits a rail in pieces which he piles on the now quivering spires of
flame, and goes to other black heaps and shakes them with reproachful
summons. Lo, these too split apart, and out from each appears a man!
These take black iron pots and go off. Presently they come swinging
back with the pots filled with water. Meantime the fire is finely
started, the pots are slung astride a long pole set over the fire, the
wood crackles, the flames shoot up wrapping the pots around. And now
the camp is all astir. The black objects are twice as numerous as
before, moving about with increased animation. You imagine Little
Antietam to be