Federals held their ground
obstinately, and fell back, covered by artillery, at midnight. The woods
were set on fire, in the darkness, and conflagration painted fiery
terrors on the sky. The dead, littered all the fields and woods. The
retreating army had marked its route with corpses. This was the battle
of "Savage's," and neither party has called it a victory.

During the rest of the night the weary fugitives were crossing White Oak
Creek and Swamp. Toward daybreak, the last battery had accomplished the
passage; the bridge was destroyed; and preparations were made to
dispute the pursuit in the morning.

I noted these particulars and added to my lists of dead and captured. At
dusk I was about to sleep, supperless, upon the bare ground, when my
patron, Colonel Murphy, again came in sight, and invited me to occupy a
shelter-tent, on the brow of the hill at White Oak. To my great joy, he
was able to offer me some stewed beef, bread and butter, and hot coffee.
I ate voraciously, seizing the food in my naked fingers, and rending it
like a beast.

The regiment of Colonel Murphy was composed of laborers, and artificers
of every possible description. There were blacksmiths, moulders, masons,
carpenters, boat-builders, joiners, miners, machinists, riggers, and
rope-makers. They could have bridged the Mississippi, rebuilt the
Tredegar works, finished the Tower of Babel, drained the Chesapeake,
constructed the Great Eastern, paved Broadway, replaced the Grand Trunk
railroad, or tunnelled the Straits of Dover. I have often thought that
the real greatness of the Northern army lay in its ingenuity and
industry, not in its military qualifications.

Our conversation turned upon these matters, as we sat before the
Colonel's tent in the evening, and a Chaplain represented the feelings
of the North in this manner: "We must whip them. We have got more money,
more men, more ships, more ingenuity. They are bound to knuckle at last.
If we have to lose man for man with them, their host will die out before
ours. And we wont give up the Union,--not a piece of it big enough for a
bird or a bee to cover,--though we reduce these thirty millions one
half, and leave only the women and children to inherit the land." The
heart of the army was now cast down, though a large portion of the
soldiers did not know why we were falling back. I heard moody,
despondent, accusing mutterings, around the camp-fires, and my own mind
was full of grief and bitte