py
shores of the creek, and beyond to the vast and sombre battle plain,
where the shells had rained. The masses of grey troops upon it, resting
on their arms, could be divined by the red points of camp-fires.
Lanterns, also, were wandering like marsh lights, up and down and to and
fro. Here, on the plateau, it was the same. They danced like giant
fireflies. He passed a blazing log about which were gathered a dozen
men. Some wag of the mess had said something jocular; to a man they were
laughing convulsively. Had they been blamed, they would perhaps have
answered that it was better to laugh than to cry. Cleave passed them
with no inclination to blame, and came to where, under the trees, the
65th was gathered. Here, too, there were fires; his men were dropped
like acorns on the ground, making a little "coosh," frying a little
bacon, attending to slight hurts, cognizant of the missing but not
referring to them loudly, glad of victory, burying all loss, with a wide
swing of courage making the best of it in the darkness. When they saw
Cleave they suspended all other operations long enough to cheer him. He
smiled, waved his hand, spoke a short word to Hairston Breckinridge, and
hurried on. He passed the 2d Virginia, mourning its colonel--Colonel
Allen--fallen in the front of the charge. He passed other bivouacs--men
of Rodes's, of Garland's, of Trimble's. "Where is General
Jackson?"--"Can't tell you, sir--" "Here is General Ewell."

"Old Dick" squatted by a camp-fire, was broiling a bit of bacon, head on
one side, as he looked up with bright round eyes at Cleave, whom he
liked. "That you, Richard Cleave? By God, sir, if I were as excellent a
major-general as I am a cook!--Have a bit?--Well, we wolloped them! They
fought like men, and we fought like men, and by God, I can't get the
cannon out of my ears! General Jackson?--I thought he was in front with
D. H. Hill. Going to do anything more to-night? It's pretty late, but
I'm ready."

"Nothing--without General Jackson," said Cleave. "Thank you, general--if
I might have a mouthful of coffee? I haven't the least idea when I have
eaten."

Ewell handed him the tin cup. He drank hastily and went on. Now it was
by a field hospital, ghastly sights and ghastly sounds, pine boughs set
for torches. He shut his eyes in a moment's faintness. It looked a
demoniac place, a smoke-wreathed platform in some Inferno circle. He met
a staff officer coming up from the plain. "General Lee has rid