lips puckered as if to whistle a
merry lay, is on their flanks, in their rear, and in their front. The
enemy will send their cavalry after him, of course, but he will stay
with them, nevertheless.

[Illustration]

Add now the stream of wounded men slowly making their way to the rear;
the groups of dejected prisoners plodding along under guard, and you
have about as much of a battle as one private soldier ever sees.

[Illustration: COMING OUT]

But after the battle, man will tell to man what each has seen and felt,
until every man will feel that he has seen the whole. Hear, then, the
stories of battle.

An artilleryman--he must have been a driver--says: when the firing had
ceased an old battery horse, his lower jaw carried away by a shot, with
blood streaming from his wound, staggered up to him, gazed beseechingly
at him, and, groaning piteously, laid his bloody jaws on his shoulder,
and so made his appeal for sympathy. He was beyond help.

The pathetic nature of this story reminds a comrade that a new man in
the battery, desiring to save the labor incident to running up the gun
after the rebound, determined to hold on to the handspike, press the
trail into the ground, and hold her fast. He did try, but the rebound
proceeded as usual, and the labor-saving man was "shocked" at the
failure of his effort. Nothing daunted, the same individual soon after
applied his lips to the vent of the gun, which was choked, and
endeavored to clear it by an energetic blast from his lungs. The vent
was not cleared but the lips of the recruit were nicely browned, and the
detachment greatly amused.

At another gun it has happened that No. 1 and No. 3 have had a
difficulty. No. 3 having failed to serve the vent, there was a premature
explosion, and No. 1, being about to withdraw the rammer, fell heavily
to the ground, apparently dead. No. 3, seeing what a calamity he had
caused, hung over the dead man and begged him to speak and exonerate him
from blame. After No. 3 had exhausted all his eloquence and pathos, No.
1 suddenly rose to his feet and informed him that the premature
explosion was a fact, but the death of No. 1 was a joke intended to warn
him that if he ever failed again to serve that vent, he would have his
head broken by a blow from a rammer-head. This joke having been
completed in all its details, the firing was continued.

Another man tells how Eggleston had his arm torn away by a solid shot,
and, as he walked away, he