s heart, in a secure
pocket, he placed it, there to lie and give him strength and courage for
the cruel day's work, and something besides the coming of night to look
forward to. For the rest, he went among the lines, and smiled like a boy
released from school to see how silently and savagely they fought.

The Sixth Corps rested wherever there was shade along the banks of Rock
Creek, and gathered strength and breath for whatever work should be
assigned to it.

Aladdin, sharing a cherry-pie with a friend, shivered with excitement,
for there was a terrific and ever-increasing discharge of cannons and
muskets on the left, and it seemed that the time to go forward again and
win glory was at hand. Presently one came riding back from the battle.
His face was shining with delight, and, sitting like a centaur to
the fiery plunges of his horse, he swung his hat and shouted. It was
Sedgwick's chief of staff, McMahon, and he brought glorious news, for
he said that the corps was to move toward the heavy firing, where the
fighting was most severe.

Then the whole corps sprang to its feet and went forward, tearing down
the fences in its path and trampling the long grass in the fields. A
mile away the long, flowery slopes ended in a knobbed hill revealed
through smoke. That was Little Round Top, and its possession meant
victory or defeat. The corps was halted and two regiments were sent
forward up the long slope. To them the minutes seemed moments. They went
like a wave over the crest to the right of the hill, and poured down
into the valley beyond. Here the blue flood of men banked against a
stone wall, spreading to right and left, as the waters of a stream
spread the length of a dam. Then they began to fire dreadfully into the
faces of their enemy, and to curse terribly, as is proper in battle.
Bullets stung the long line like wasps, and men bit the sod.

Aladdin was ordered to ride up Little Round Top for information.
Half-way up he left his horse among the boulders and finished the
laborious ascent on foot. At the summit he came upon a leaderless
battery loading and firing like clockwork, and he saw that the rocks
were strewn with dead men in light-blue Zouave uniforms, who looked as
if they had fallen in a shower from the clouds. Many had their faces
caved in with stones, and terrible rents showed where the bayonet
had been at work, for in this battle men had fought hand to hand like
cave-dwellers. Bullets hit the rocks with s