that hole down, and I'll go out agin.
I won't be gone long, for I'm dead tired. Just as soon as I find an
overcoat or a blanket to put between us and the mud, I'll come back and
we'll lay down. Every joint in me aches."

He started off less carefully this time. His new shoes made him feel
more like walking. He was some distance from the regiment before he knew
it. He found an overcoat. It had been trampled into the mud by thousands
of passing feet, but still it was an overcoat, and it was not a time
to be too nice about the condition of a garment. Presently he found a
blanket in similar condition. He pulled on the overcoat, and threw
the blanket over his {87}shoulders. He felt warmer, but they were very
heavy. Still, he thought he would go on a little ways farther, and
perhaps he would find another overcoat and blanket, which would fix out
both him and his partner.

All this time men were sweeping by him in companies, regiments and
squads; batteries were moving in all directions, and mounted officers
were making their way to and fro. Filling up the spaces between these
were hundreds of men, single and in small groups, wandering about in
search of their regiments, and inquiring of everyone who would stop
to listen to them as to the whereabouts of regiments, brigades and
divisions. No one could give any satisfactory information. Organizations
which had formed a line two miles long in the morning had been driven
back, frequently in tumult and disorder, for miles through the thickets
and woods. Fragmentary organizations had been rallied from time to time.
A fragment of a regiment would rally at one point with fragments of
other regiments and make a stand, while other regiments would rally
at widely-separated places and renew the fight, only to be pushed
back again toward the Nashville Pike. Regiments and brigades that
had remained nearly intact had been rapidly shifted from one point to
another, as they were needed, until the mind could not follow their
changes, or where nightfall had found them, or whither they had been
shifted to form the new line.

At last Si succeeded in picking up another over coat and blanket out of
the mud, and started to go back to the regiment.{88}

But where was the regiment? He had long since lost all track of
its direction. He had been so intent upon studying the ground for
thrown-away clothing that he had not noticed the course he had taken.

It suddenly dawned on him that he was but one d