



Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles
Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










THE LITTLE REGIMENT

AND OTHER EPISODES OF THE

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

By

STEPHEN CRANE




CONTENTS


THE LITTLE REGIMENT

THREE MIRACULOUS SOLDIERS

A MYSTERY OF HEROISM

AN INDIANA CAMPAIGN

A GREY SLEEVE

THE VETERAN




THE LITTLE REGIMENT

I


The fog made the clothes of the men of the column in the roadway seem
of a luminous quality. It imparted to the heavy infantry overcoats a
new colour, a kind of blue which was so pale that a regiment might have
been merely a long, low shadow in the mist. However, a muttering, one
part grumble, three parts joke, hovered in the air above the thick
ranks, and blended in an undertoned roar, which was the voice of the
column.

The town on the southern shore of the little river loomed spectrally, a
faint etching upon the grey cloud-masses which were shifting with oily
languor. A long row of guns upon the northern bank had been pitiless in
their hatred, but a little battered belfry could be dimly seen still
pointing with invincible resolution toward the heavens.

The enclouded air vibrated with noises made by hidden colossal things.
The infantry tramplings, the heavy rumbling of the artillery, made the
earth speak of gigantic preparation. Guns on distant heights thundered
from time to time with sudden, nervous roar, as if unable to endure in
silence a knowledge of hostile troops massing, other guns going to
position. These sounds, near and remote, defined an immense
battle-ground, described the tremendous width of the stage of the
prospective drama. The voices of the guns, slightly casual, unexcited
in their challenges and warnings, could not destroy the unutterable
eloquence of the word in the air, a meaning of impending struggle which
made the breath halt at the lips.

The column in the roadway was ankle-deep in mud. The men swore piously
at the rain which drizzled upon them, compelling them to stand always
very erect in fear of the drops that would sweep in under their
coat-collars. The fog was as cold as wet cloths. The men stuffed their
hands deep in their pockets, and huddled their muskets in their arms.
The machinery of orders had rooted these soldiers deeply into the mud,
precisely as almighty nature roots mullein stalks.

They listened and speculated when a tumult of fighting came from the
dim town across the river. When the noise lulled for a time they
resumed their descriptions of the mud and graphically exaggerated the
number of hours they had been kept waiting. The general commanding
their division rode along the ranks, and they cheered admiringly,
affectionately, crying out to him gleeful prophecies of the coming
battle. Each man scanned him with a peculiarly keen personal interest,
and afterward spoke of him with unquestioning devotion and confidence,
narrating anecdotes which were mainly untrue.

When the jokers lifted the shrill voices which invariably belonged to
them, flinging witticisms at their comrades, a loud laugh would sweep
from rank to rank, and soldiers who had not heard would lean forward
and demand repetition. When were borne past them some wounded men with
grey and blood-smeared faces, and eyes that rolled in that helpless
beseeching for assistance from the sky which comes with supreme pain,
the soldiers in the mud watched intently, and from time to time asked
of the bearers an account of the affair. Frequently they bragged of
their corps, their division, their brigade, their regiment. Anon they
referred to the mud and the cold drizzle. Upon this threshold of a wild
scene of death they, in short, defied the proportion of events with
that splendour of heedlessness which belongs only to veterans.

"Like a lot of wooden soldiers," swore Billie Dempster, moving his feet
in the thick mass, and casting a vindictive glance indefinitely:
"standing in the mud for a hundred years."

"Oh, shut up!" murmured his brother Dan. The manner of his words
implied that this fraternal voice near him was an indescribable bore.

"Why should I shut up?" demanded Billie.

"Because you're a fool," cried Dan, taking no time to debate it; "the
biggest fool in the regiment."

There was but one man between them, and he was habituated. These
insults from brother to brother had swept across his chest, flown past
his face, many times during two long campaigns. Upon this occasion he
simply grinned first at one, then at the other.

The way of these brothers was not an unknown topic in regimental
gossip. They had enlisted simultaneously, with each sneering loudly at
the other for doing it. They left their little town, and went forward
with the flag, exchanging protestations of undying suspicion. In the
camp life they so openly despised each other that, when entertaining
quarrels were lacking, their companions often contrived situations
calculated to bring forth display of this fraternal dislike.

Both were large-limbed, strong young men, and often fought with friends
in camp unless one was near to interfere with the other. This latter
happened rather frequently, because Dan, preposterously willing for any
manner of combat, had a very great horror of seeing Billie in a fight;
and Billie, almost odiously ready himself, simply refused to see Dan