eight, above felled trees. He thought it was Pelham's--the Horse
Artillery. It stood for a moment, outlined against the orange-bosomed
cloud, then, like an army of wraiths, the smoke came between and hid it.
His horse frightened at a dead man in his path. The start and plunging
were unusual, and the rider looked to see the reason. The soldier had
drawn letters from his breast and had died with them in his hands. The
unfolded, fluttering sheets stirred as though they had life. Stafford,
riding on, found the right and found Longstreet looking sombrely, like
an old eagle from his eyrie. "I told General Lee," he said "that we
ought never to have divided. I don't see A. P. Hill. You tell General
Lee that I've only got D. R. Jones and the knowledge that we fight like
hell, and that Burnside is before me with fourteen thousand men."

Stafford retraced his way. The ground beneath was burned and scarred,
the battle cloud rolled dark, the minies sang beside his ear. Now he was
in a barren place, tasting of powder, smelling of smoke, now lit, now
darkened, but vacant of human life, and now he was in a press of men,
grey forms advancing and retreating, or standing firing, and now he was
where fighting had been and there was left a wrack of the dead and
dying. He reached the centre and gave his message, then turned toward
the left again. A few yards and his horse was killed under him. He
disengaged himself and presently caught at the bridle and stayed
another. There were many riderless horses on the field of Sharpsburg,
but he had hardly mounted before this one, too, was killed. He went on
afoot. He entered a sunken road, dropped between rough banks overhung by
a few straggling trees. The road was filled with men lying down, all in
shadow beneath the rolling battle smoke. Stafford thought it a regiment
waiting for orders; then he saw that they were all dead men. He must go
back to the Dunkard wood, and this seemed his shortest way. He entered
the lane and went up it as quickly as he might for the forms that lay
thick in the discoloured light. It looked as though the earth were
bleeding, and all the people were fantastic about him. Some lay as
straight as on a sculptured tomb, and some were hooped, and some lay
like a cross, and some were headless. As he stepped with what care he
might, a fierce yelling broke out on the side that was the grey side.
There was a charge coming--already he saw the red squares tossing! He
moved to the furt