ul
moaning. The soldier raised his voice higher, and those leaning on
elbows listened with avidity. "Evelington Heights? Where's Evelington
Heights?"--"Between Westover and Rawling's millpond, near Malvern
Hill!"--"Malvern Hill! That was ghastly!"--"Go on, sergeant-major! We're
been pining for a newspaper."

"Were any of you boys at Malvern Hill?"

"Yes,--only those who were there ain't in a fix to tell about it! That
man over there--and that one--and that one--oh, a middling lot! They're
pretty badly off--poor boys!"

From a pallet came a hollow voice. "I was at Malvern Hill, and I ain't
never going there again--I ain't never going there again--I ain't
never.... Who's that singing? I kin sing, too--

'The years creep slowly by, Lorena;
The snow is on the grass again;
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena;
The frost gleams where the flowers have been--'"

"Don't mind him," said the soldiers on elbows. "Poor fellow! he ain't
got any voice anyhow. We know about Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill was
pretty bad. And we heard there'd been a cavalry rumpus--Jeb Stuart and
Sweeney playing their tricks! We didn't know the name of the place.
Evelington Heights! Pretty name."

The sergeant-major would not be cheated of Malvern Hill. "'Pretty bad!'
I should say 'twas pretty bad! Malvern Hill was _awful_. If anything
could induce me to be a damn Yankee 'twould be them guns of their'n!
Yes, sirree, bob! we fought and fought, and ten o'clock came and there
wasn't any moon, and we stopped. And in the night-time the damn Yankees
continued to retreat away. There was an awful noise of gun-wheels all
the night long--so the sentries said, and the surgeons and the wounded
and, I reckon, the generals. The rest of us, we were asleep. I don't
reckon there ever was men any more tired. Malvern Hill was--I can't
swear because there are ladies nursing us, but Malvern Hill was--Well,
dawn blew at reveille--No, doctor, I ain't getting light-headed. I just
get my words a little twisted. Reveille blew at dawn, and there were
sheets of cold pouring rain, and everywhere there were dead men, dead
men, dead men lying there in the wet, and the ambulances were wandering
round like ghosts of wagons, and the wood was too dripping to make a
fire, and three men out of my mess were killed, and one was a boy that
we'd all adopted, and it was awful discouraging. Yes, we were right
tired, damn Yankees and all of us.