he exploding of a caisson, and fell behind one of the guns
of his battery. He was so sure that he was to be killed on this day
that it had never occurred to him that he might be trivially wounded and
carried to the rear in safety. An expression of almost comical chagrin
came over his face, for life was nothing to him, and somewhere far above
the smoke a goodly welcome awaited him: that he knew. Men came with a
stretcher to carry him off, but he cursed them roundly and struggled
to his well knee. The cannon behind which he had fallen was about to be
discharged.

"Give 'em hell!" cried Hannibal.

As he spoke, the piece was fired, and leaping back on the recoil, as a
frenzied horse that breaks its halter, one of the wheels struck him
a terrible blow on the body, breaking all the ribs on that side and
killing him instantly. His face wore a glad smile, and afterward, when
Aladdin found him and took the gold locket from his pocket, and read the
inscription written, a great wonder seized men:

July 3, 1863.
Nunc dimittis.
Te Deum laudamus.

Thus in one battle fell the three strong hostages which an old man had
given to fortune.

XXXV

Three o'clock the Union batteries were ordered to be silent, for it was
well known to those in command that presently there would be a powerful
attack by infantry, for which the cannonade was supposed to have paved
the way with death and disorder, and it was necessary that the pieces
should be kept cool in order to be in efficient condition to grapple
with and suppress this attack. Sometimes a regiment, stung to a frenzy
of courage by bullets and the death of comrades, will rise from its
trench without the volition of its officers, and go frantically forward
against overwhelming odds. A different effect of an almost identical
psychological process is patience. Men will sometimes lie as quietly
under a rain of bullets, in order to get in one effective shot at an
enemy, as cattle in the hot months will lie under a rain of water to get
cool. It was so now. The whole Union army was seized by a kind of bloody
deliberation and lay like statues of men, while, for quarter of an hour
more, the Confederates continued to thunder from their guns. Now and
again a man felt lovingly the long black tube of a cannon to see if its
temperature was falling. Others came hurrying from the rear with relays
of powder, shot, shell, and canister.

It seemed