ing and
hastening the passage of the immense trains onward towards the James.
Nothing had seemed to discourage him, and no exposure in the terrible
heat had seemed to fatigue him beyond endurance. All these facts had
crept out to every division of the army, as they will do through the
subtle and unaccountable telegraphism of comrade-ry; and when regiment
after regiment heard of the incident since made memorable by De
Joinville, of his rising from his momentary rest on the piazza of a
house near White Oak and going out with a smile to prevent his soldiers
picking and eating the cherries belonging to his pretty hostess, they
had burst out into laughs and cheers more complimentary to the young
General's pluck than his devotion to Nelly Marcy, and fancied that he
might have been engaged in picking other cherries for himself, that grew
on red lips instead of on the tree!

Such were the influences which combatted those otherwise so unfavorable,
kept up their spirits even when they could see nothing but defeat and
discouragement in every movement, and made every blow they struck at the
advancing enemy more deadly than the last. Such were the influences
peculiarly active on this day when they were so much needed, and which
inspired the army-corps of Fitz-John Porter for the memorable blow
struck in the first battle of Malvern. The rebel South will long mourn
for its lost children, perished in that sanguinary conflict and in the
wider and more destructive but not fiercer one which was so soon to
follow at Malvern Hill itself.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MORE OF THE FIRST BATTLE OF MALVERN--A PAUSE--THE ATTACKS ON THE MAIN
POSITION--REPULSE AFTER REPULSE--VICTORY--STRANGE INCIDENTS OF THE LAST
HOUR OF THE BATTLE.

Still the battle went on--that ferocious attack which seemed to have the
desperation of defence, and that steady defence which appeared to have
the assured confidence of an attack. The smoke gathered rapidly, rolled
away at times, then settled in dense masses, shutting out portions of
the battle-field and whole divisions of either army from view, and
concealing the movements of either belligerent from the other until
lifted in the occasional lulls of the fiery storm or wafted away by the
lazy breeze which came sluggishly over from the James River marshes. Men
fell thickly, crushed, mangled and dead, or so terribly wounded by shot
or shell that life could be henceforth nothing more than one long,
helpless agony. Slight