hat the troops gave the name of "the battle of Bloody Bridge." Picture
a slightly undulating country covered with thick low forest; a narrow
road that by an open plank bridge crosses a wide, sluggish stream with
marshy banks, and curves beyond abruptly to the right to avoid a low,
steep hill facing the bridge; crowning this hill an earth-work, rude to
be sure, but steep, sodded, almost impregnable to men without artillery
to play upon it; within, two cannon, for which there is plenty of
ammunition, and six hundred Confederate soldiers, fresh, eager,
determined; on the road in front of the battery, but just out of range
of its guns, the Union forces halting under arms, the leaders anxious
and discouraged, the men exhausted, careworn, wondering what is to be
done next, heartily sick of it all, yet willing to do their best; in the
thicket on both sides the road, not sheltered, only covered, within
pistol-shot of the enemy, six hundred United States soldiers, a
Massachusetts colored regiment, one of the first recruited, without
cannon, over-marched, overheated, a forlorn hope, _sent forward to take
the battery_! These men, stealthily assembling there among the trees and
bushes, are ready. Not one of them carries a pound of superfluous
weight. Their rifles with fixed bayonets, a handful of cartridges, a
canteen of water, are enough. They wear flannel shirts and blue
trowsers; numbers are bareheaded, some have cut off the sleeves of their
shirts: they know there is work before them. Many kneel in prayer;
comrades exchange messages to loved ones at home, and give each other
little keepsakes--the rings they wore or brier pipes carved over with
the names of coast battles; others--perhaps they have no loved
ones--look to the locks of their pieces and await impatiently the signal
to advance. The officers--white men, most of them Boston society
fellows, old Harvard boys who once thought a six-mile pull or a long
innings at cricket on a hot day hard work, and knew no more of military
tactics than the Lancers--move about among them, speaking to this one
and to that one, calling each by name, jesting quietly with one,
encouraging another, praising a third, endeavoring to inspire in all a
hope which they dare not feel themselves.

But hark! The signal to move. Quickly they form in the road, and with a
shout advance at a run, their dusky faces glistening in that summer sun
and their manly hearts beating bravely in the very jaws of death.