to
the inner vision. They would have been less nobly minded had their own
passion inexorably claimed them. All about them were suffering and death
and the peril of their cause. For one half-hour they drew happiness from
the darkly gigantic background, but it was a quiet and lofty form,
though sweet, sweet! with whom they companioned. When the time was
passed the two rose, and Cleave held her in his arms. "Love--Love--"

When he was gone she waited awhile beneath the trees, then slowly
crossed the Capitol Square and moved toward the small room behind the
tulip tree. The streets were flooded with a sunset glow. Into Franklin
from Main came marching feet, then, dull, dull! the muffled drums.
Soldiers and furled colours and the coffin, atop it the dead man's cap
and gauntlets and sword; behind, pacing slowly, his war horse, stirrups
crossed over saddle. Soldiers, soldiers, and the drums beating like
breaking hearts. She moved back to a doorstep and let the Dead March
from "Saul" go by.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE RAILROAD GUN

The troops, moving at dawn to the Chickahominy, over a road and through
woods which testified in many ways of the blue retreat, found the
Grapevine Bridge a wreck, the sleepers hacked apart, framework and
middle structure cast into the water. Fitz John Porter and the 5th Army
Corps were across, somewhere between the river and Savage Station,
leaving only, in the thick wood above the stream, a party of
sharpshooters and a battery. When the grey pioneers advanced to their
work, these opened fire. The bridge must be rebuilt, and the grey worked
on, but with delays and difficulties. D. H. Hill, leading Jackson's
advance, brought up two batteries and shelled the opposite side. The
blue guns and riflemen moved to another position and continued, at short
intervals, to fire on the pioneers. It was Sunday the twenty-ninth;
fearfully hot by the McGehee house, and on Turkey Hill, and in the dense
midsummer woods, and in the mosquito-breeding bogs and swamps through
which meandered the Chickahominy. The river spread out as many arms as
Briareus; short, stubby creeks, slow waters prone to overflow and creep,
between high knotted roots of live-oak and cypress, into thickets of bog
myrtle. The soil hereabouts was black and wet, further back light and
sandy. The Valley troops drew the most uncomplimentary comparisons. To a
man they preferred mountains, firm rolling champaign, clean rivers with
rocky bottoms, sou