ers and have
sport with them after the fight, another ancient pastime of our half-ape
ancestors. They threw down some of their blankets but held on to their
handcuffs.

When the first crash of battle came these raw recruits on both sides
fought with desperate bravery for nine terrible hours. They fought from
dawn until three o'clock in the afternoon under the broiling Southern
sun of July. Charge and counter charge left their toll of the dead and
then the tired archaic muscles began to wonder when it would end. Why
hadn't victory come? Where were the prisoners they were to manacle?

Both sides were sick with hunger and weariness. The Southerners were
expecting reinforcements from Manassas Junction. The Northerners were
expecting reinforcements. Their eyes were turned toward the same road
which led from the Shenandoah Valley.

A dust cloud suddenly rose over the hill. A fresh army was marching on
the scene. North and South looked with straining eyes. They were not
long in doubt. The first troops suddenly swung in on the right flank of
the Southern army and began to form their lines to charge the North.

Suddenly from this fresh Southern line rose a new cry. From two thousand
throats came the shrill, elemental, savage shout of the hunter in sight
of his game--the fierce Rebel Yell.

They charged the Northern lines and then pandemonium--blind, unreasoning
wolf-panic seized the army that had marched with songs and shouts to
kill. They broke and fled. They cut the traces of their horses, left the
guns, mounted and rode for life.

The mob engulfed the buggies and carriages of Congressmen and picnickers
who had come out from Washington to see the fun. A rebellion crushed at
a blow!

Stuart at the head of his Black Horse Cavalry, his saber flashing, cut
his way through this mob again and again.

When the smoke of battle lifted, the dazed, ill-organized ambulance
corps searched the field for the first toll of the Blood Feud. They
found only nine hundred boys slain and two thousand six hundred wounded.
They lay weltering in their blood in the smothering heat and dust and
dirt.

The details of men were busy burying the dead, some of their bodies yet
warm.

The morning after dawned black and lowering and the rain began to pour
in torrents. Through the streets of Washington the stragglers streamed.
The plumes which waved as they sang were soaked and drooping. Their
gorgeous, new uniforms were wrinkled and mud-smeared.