--I remember now. So he rejoined at Manassas."

"He hadn't been in earlier, sir. He had an accident, he said. He's a
fine soldier, but he's a silent kind of a man. He keeps to himself. He
won't take promotion."

"Tell him to come here."

Deaderick came. The gold in this open place, before the clear west, was
very light and fine. It illuminated. Also the place was a little
withdrawn, no one very near, and by comparison with the tornado which
had raged, the stillness seemed complete. The gunner stood before the
general, quiet, steady-eyed, broad-browed. Stonewall Jackson, his
gauntleted hands folded over the saddle bow, gazed upon him fully and
long. The gold light held, and the hush of the place; in the distance,
in the Wilderness, the birds began again their singing. At last Jackson
spoke. "The army will rest to-night. Headquarters will be yonder, by the
road. Report to me there at ten o'clock. I will listen to what you have
to say. That is all now."

Night stole over the Wilderness, a night of large, mild stars, of
vagrant airs, of balm and sweetness. Earth lay in a tender dream, all
about her her wild flowers and her fresh-clad trees. The grey and the
blue soldiers slept, too, and one dreamed of this and one dreamed of
that. Alike they dreamed of home and country and cause, of loved women
and loved children and of their comrades. Grey and blue, these two
armies fought each for an idea, and they fought well, as people fight
who fight for an idea. And that it was not a material thing for which
they fought, but a concept, lifted from them something of the grossness
of physical struggle, carried away as with a strong wind much of the
pettiness of war, brought their strife upon the plane of heroes. There
is a beauty and a strength in the thought of them, grey and blue,
sleeping in the Wilderness, under the gleam of far-away worlds.

The generals did not sleep. In the Chancellor house, north of the pike,
Fighting Joe Hooker held council with his commanders of corps, with
Meade and Sickles and Slocum and Howard and Couch. Out in the
Wilderness, near the Plank Road, with the light from a camp-fire turning
to bronze and wine-red the young oak leaves about them, there held
council Robert Edward Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Near them a war horse
neighed; there came the tramp of the sentry, then quiet stole upon the
scene. The staff was near at hand, but to-night staff and couriers held
themselves stiller than still. There was