emptied of their contents to replenish the failing stock of the
survivors. More precious than food and water, though they were sorely
needed, were these inheritances from the dead.

The long afternoon wore slowly away. Night could not come too soon, but
it seemed that never before was it so tardy. Officers and men were
tortured by thirst. Their tongues were swollen and their lips black and
distended, often to bursting. Speech became difficult or absolutely
impossible. Officers mumbled their commands, and prayed silently for
darkness to save them from enforced surrender or flight when the last
cartridge should be spent.

Meantime, the relentless but cautious foe was carefully feeling his way
around the flanks, apparently unwilling to venture boldly into the rear
of the little army which he could not move by attack in front. A group
of officers stood by their horses in rear of Hazen's brigade when the
crack of an Enfield rifle was heard from the woods in rear across the
open field. A bullet came whizzing into the group and killed a colonel's
horse. Other shots followed from the same direction. The woods behind us
were evidently occupied by the enemy's skirmishers. A captain
volunteered to take his company and clear the woods, but ammunition was
too scarce to waste on sharpshooters.

Word came at last, in some way, that Thomas, whose firing we heard far
to the right and rear, was sorely pressed. A consultation was held by
the four division generals. They needed a commander, but who should it
be? Who would take command of that beleaguered force and undertake to
extricate it from its surrounding peril or deliver it over to Thomas?
Would Palmer? No. Would Reynolds? No. The stern duty of fighting their
divisions until they could fight no longer, and doing then whatever
desperate thing might be possible--that they would not fail in; but that
responsibility was as great as they cared to assume. Up came Hazen then.
"I'll take my brigade across that interval," said he, "and find Thomas
if he's there." Palmer objected: it would make a gap in his line; it
would expose one of his brigades to a thousand chances of
destruction--for who could tell what forces of the enemy were in that
interval or watching it?--and finally, it would take away the brigade
which had most ammunition, for Hazen had husbanded his store. But
something must be done. If the four divisions could hold out until
night, somebody must command them and take them out