prompt:
Chapter: When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for a
thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an
unexpected world.  Gray mists were slowly shifting before the first
efforts of the sun rays.  An impending splendor could be seen in the
eastern sky.  An icy dew had chilled his face, and immediately upon
arousing he curled farther down into his blanket.  He stared for a
while at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day.

The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of fighting.
There was in the sound an expression of a deadly persistency, as if it
had not begun and was not to cease.

About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen the
previous night.  They were getting a last draught of sleep before the
awakening.  The gaunt, careworn features and dusty figures were made
plain by this quaint light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of
the men in corpselike hues and made the tangled limbs appear pulseless
and dead.  The youth started up with a little cry when his eyes first
swept over this motionless mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground,
pallid, and in strange postures.  His disordered mind interpreted the
hall of the forest as a charnel place.  He believed for an instant that
he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move lest these
corpses start up, squalling and squawking.  In a second, however, he
achieved his proper mind. He swore a complicated oath at himself.  He
saw that this somber picture was not a fact of the present, but a mere
prophecy.

He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air,
and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about a small
blaze.  A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard the hard
cracking of axe blows.

Suddenly there was a hollow rumble of drums.  A distant bugle sang
faintly.  Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near and far
over the forest.  The bugles called to each other like brazen
gamecocks.  The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.

The body of men in the woods rustled.  There was a general uplifting of
heads.  A murmuring of voices broke upon the air.  In it there was much
bass of grumbling oaths.  Strange gods were addressed in condemnation
of the early hours necessary to correct war.  An officer's peremptory
tenor rang out and quickened the stiffened movement of the men.  The
tangled limbs unraveled.  The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind
fists that twisted slowly in the eye sockets.

The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn.  "Thunder!" he
remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his hand
felt carefully of the bandage over his wound. His friend, perceiving
him to be awake, came from the fire.  "Well, Henry, ol' man, how do yeh
feel this mornin'?" he demanded.

The youth yawned again.  Then he puckered his mouth to a little pucker.
His head, in truth, felt precisely like a melon, and there was an
unpleasant sensation at his stomach.

"Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad," he said.

"Thunder!" exclaimed the other.  "I hoped ye'd feel all right this
mornin'.  Let's see th' bandage--I guess it's slipped."  He began to
tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until the youth exploded.

"Gosh-dern it!" he said in sharp irritation; "you're the hangdest man I
ever saw!  You wear muffs on your hands.  Why in good thunderation
can't you be more easy?  I'd rather you'd stand off an' throw guns at
it.  Now, go slow, an' don't act as if you was nailing down carpet."

He glared with insolent command at his friend, but the latter answered
soothingly. "Well, well, come now, an' git some grub," he said.  "Then,
maybe, yeh'll feel better."

At the fireside the loud young soldier watched over his comrade's wants
with tenderness and care.  He was very busy marshaling the little black
vagabonds of tin cups and pouring into them the streaming, iron colored
mixture from a small and sooty tin pail.  He had some fresh meat, which
he roasted hurriedly upon a stick.  He sat down then and contemplated
the youth's appetite with glee.

The youth took note of a remarkable change in his comrade since those
days of camp life upon the river bank.  He seemed no more to be
continually regarding the proportions of his personal prowess.  He was
not furious at small words that pricked his conceits.  He was no more a
loud young soldier.  There was about him now a fine reliance.  He
showed a quiet belief in his purposes and his abilities.  And this
inward confidence evidently enabled him to be indifferent to little
words of other men aimed at him.

The youth reflected.  He had been used to regarding his comrade as a
blatant child with an audacity grown from his inexperience,
thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage.  A
swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own dooryard.  The youth
wondered where had been born these new eyes; when his comrade had made
the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be
subjected by him.  Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of
wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing.  And
the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his
friend's neighborhood.

His comrade balanced his ebony coffee-cup on his knee.  "Well, Henry,"
he said, "what d'yeh think th' chances are?  D'yeh think we'll wallop
'em?"

The youth considered for a moment.  "Day-b'fore-yesterday," he finally
replied, with boldness, "you would 'a' bet you'd lick the hull
kit-an'-boodle all by yourself."

His friend looked a trifle amazed.  "Would I?" he asked.  He pondered.
"Well, perhaps I would," he decided at last.  He stared humbly at the
fire.

The youth was quite disconcerted at this surprising reception of his
remarks.  "Oh, no, you wouldn't either," he said, hastily trying to
retrace.

But the other made a deprecating gesture. "Oh, yeh needn't mind,
Henry," he said.  "I believe I was a pretty big fool in those days." He
spoke as after a lapse of years.

There was a little pause.

"All th' officers say we've got th' rebs in a pretty tight box," said
the friend, clearing his throat in a commonplace way.  "They all seem
t' think we've got 'em jest where we want 'em."

"I don't know about that," the youth replied. "What I seen over on th'
right makes me think it was th' other way about.  From where I was, it
looked as if we was gettin' a good poundin' yestirday."

"D'yeh think so?" inquired the friend.  "I thought we handled 'em
pretty rough yestirday."

"Not a bit," said the youth.  "Why, lord, man, you didn't see nothing
of the fight.  Why!" Then a sudden thought came to him.  "Oh! Jim
Conklin's dead."

His friend started.  "What?  Is he?  Jim Conklin?"

The youth spoke slowly.  "Yes.  He's dead. Shot in th' side."

"Yeh don't say so.  Jim Conklin. . . . poor cuss!"

All about them were other small fires surrounded by men with their
little black utensils. From one of these near came sudden sharp voices
in a row.  It appeared that two light-footed soldiers had been teasing
a huge, bearded man, causing him to spill coffee upon his blue knees.
The man had gone into a rage and had sworn comprehensively.  Stung by
his language, his tormentors had immediately bristled at him with a
great show of resenting unjust oaths. Possibly there was going to be a
fight.

The friend arose and went over to them, making pacific motions with his
arms.  "Oh, here, now, boys, what's th' use?" he said.  "We'll be at
th' rebs in less'n an hour.  What's th' good fightin' 'mong ourselves?"

One of the light-footed soldiers turned upon him red-faced and violent.
"Yeh needn't come around here with yer preachin'.  I s'pose yeh don't
approve 'a fightin' since Charley Morgan licked yeh; but I don't see
what business this here is 'a yours or anybody else."

"Well, it ain't," said the friend mildly.  "Still I hate t' see--"

There was a tangled argument.

"Well, he--," said the two, indicating their opponent with accusative
forefingers.

The huge soldier was quite purple with rage. He pointed at the two
soldiers with his great hand, extended clawlike.  "Well, they--"

But during this argumentative time the desire to deal blows seemed to
pass, although they said much to each other.  Finally the friend
returned to his old seat.  In a short while the three antagonists could
be seen together in an amiable bunch.

"Jimmie Rogers ses I'll have t' fight him after th' battle t'-day,"
announced the friend as he again seated himself.  "He ses he don't
allow no interferin' in his business.  I hate t' see th' boys fightin'
'mong themselves."

The youth laughed.  "Yer changed a good bit.  Yeh ain't at all like yeh
was.  I remember when you an' that Irish feller--"  He stopped and
laughed again.

"No, I didn't use t' be that way," said his friend thoughtfully.
"That's true 'nough."

"Well, I didn't mean--" began the youth.

The friend made another deprecatory gesture. "Oh, yeh needn't mind,
Henry."

There was another little pause.

"Th' reg'ment lost over half th' men yestirday," remarked the friend
eventually.  "I thought a course they was all dead, but, laws, they
kep' a-comin' back last night until it seems, after all, we didn't lose
but a few.  They'd been scattered all over, wanderin' around in th'
woods, fightin' with other reg'ments, an' everything.  Jest like you
done."

"So?" said the youth.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Henry wakes in the gray, misty dawn, feeling as though he has been "asleep for a thousand years. In the distance he hears the roar of fighting which rumbles around him with a "deadly persistency. Looking around at his sleeping comrades, Henry believes for a moment that he is surrounded by dead men and cries out in anguish. When the bugle blows, however, the men get up slowly. Wilson asks Henry how he feels as he tends to his head. Pretty bad," Henry replies. As Wilson tends to Henry, Henry notices a change in his friend: he is no longer the loud soldier, that sensitive and prickly youth obsessed with his own sense of valor. Instead, he seems to have acquired a quiet, but remarkable, confidence. The two men discuss the battle, and Henry reports that Jim Conklin is dead. A group of soldiers exchanges harsh words near Henry and Wilson, nearly coming to blows. Wilson intervenes, keeps the peace, and returns to Henry. He says that the regiment lost more than half of its men the day before, but that many of them have since returned--they scattered in the woods, he reports, and fought with other regiments, just like Henry


prompt:
Chapter: The regiment was standing at order arms at the side of a lane, waiting
for the command to march, when suddenly the youth remembered the little
packet enwrapped in a faded yellow envelope which the loud young
soldier with lugubrious words had intrusted to him.  It made him start.
He uttered an exclamation and turned toward his comrade.

"Wilson!"

"What?"

His friend, at his side in the ranks, was thoughtfully staring down the
road.  From some cause his expression was at that moment very meek. The
youth, regarding him with sidelong glances, felt impelled to change his
purpose.  "Oh, nothing," he said.

His friend turned his head in some surprise, "Why, what was yeh goin'
t' say?"

"Oh, nothing," repeated the youth.

He resolved not to deal the little blow.  It was sufficient that the
fact made him glad.  It was not necessary to knock his friend on the
head with the misguided packet.

He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how easily
questionings could make holes in his feelings.  Lately, he had assured
himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize him with a
persistent curiosity, but he felt certain that during the first period
of leisure his friend would ask him to relate his adventures of the
previous day.

He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon with which he could
prostrate his comrade at the first signs of a cross-examination.  He
was master.  It would now be he who could laugh and shoot the shafts of
derision.

The friend had, in a weak hour, spoken with sobs of his own death.  He
had delivered a melancholy oration previous to his funeral, and had
doubtless in the packet of letters, presented various keepsakes to
relatives.  But he had not died, and thus he had delivered himself into
the hands of the youth.

The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined to
condescension.  He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good humor.

His self-pride was now entirely restored.  In the shade of its
flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs, and
since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from an
encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of his own
to keep him from an attitude of manfulness.  He had performed his
mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.

Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked at
them from a distance he began to see something fine there.  He had
license to be pompous and veteranlike.

His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight.

In the present, he declared to himself that it was only the doomed and
the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstance.  Few but they
ever did it.  A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows
had no business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong
in the ways of the universe, or even with the ways of society.  Let the
unfortunates rail; the others may play marbles.

He did not give a great deal of thought to these battles that lay
directly before him.  It was not essential that he should plan his ways
in regard to them.  He had been taught that many obligations of a life
were easily avoided.  The lessons of yesterday had been that
retribution was a laggard and blind.  With these facts before him he
did not deem it necessary that he should become feverish over the
possibilities of the ensuing twenty-four hours.  He could leave much to
chance.  Besides, a faith in himself had secretly blossomed.  There was
a little flower of confidence growing within him.  He was now a man of
experience.  He had been out among the dragons, he said, and he assured
himself that they were not so hideous as he had imagined them. Also,
they were inaccurate; they did not sting with precision.  A stout heart
often defied, and defying, escaped.

And, furthermore, how could they kill him who was the chosen of gods
and doomed to greatness?

He remembered how some of the men had run from the battle.  As he
recalled their terror-struck faces he felt a scorn for them.  They had
surely been more fleet and more wild than was absolutely necessary.
They were weak mortals. As for himself, he had fled with discretion and
dignity.

He was aroused from this reverie by his friend, who, having hitched
about nervously and blinked at the trees for a time, suddenly coughed
in an introductory way, and spoke.

"Fleming!"

"What?"

The friend put his hand up to his mouth and coughed again.  He fidgeted
in his jacket.

"Well," he gulped, at last, "I guess yeh might as well give me back
them letters."  Dark, prickling blood had flushed into his cheeks and
brow.

"All right, Wilson," said the youth.  He loosened two buttons of his
coat, thrust in his hand, and brought forth the packet.  As he extended
it to his friend the latter's face was turned from him.

He had been slow in the act of producing the packet because during it
he had been trying to invent a remarkable comment upon the affair. He
could conjure nothing of sufficient point.  He was compelled to allow
his friend to escape unmolested with his packet.  And for this he took
unto himself considerable credit.  It was a generous thing.

His friend at his side seemed suffering great shame.  As he
contemplated him, the youth felt his heart grow more strong and stout.
He had never been compelled to blush in such manner for his acts; he
was an individual of extraordinary virtues.

He reflected, with condescending pity: "Too bad!  Too bad!  The poor
devil, it makes him feel tough!"

After this incident, and as he reviewed the battle pictures he had
seen, he felt quite competent to return home and make the hearts of the
people glow with stories of war.  He could see himself in a room of
warm tints telling tales to listeners.  He could exhibit laurels.  They
were insignificant; still, in a district where laurels were infrequent,
they might shine.

He saw his gaping audience picturing him as the central figure in
blazing scenes.  And he imagined the consternation and the ejaculations
of his mother and the young lady at the seminary as they drank his
recitals.  Their vague feminine formula for beloved ones doing brave
deeds on the field of battle without risk of life would be destroyed.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: He had performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man. Henry remembers the yellow envelope that Wilson had asked to be delivered to his family upon his death. He is about to remind Wilson of it, but thinks better of this at the last moment. He believes that having the envelope--an emblem of Wilson's past vulnerability--will enable him to deflect any unpleasant questions Wilson might ask about Henry's activities during the previous day. For Henry, the envelope becomes an insurance policy against being caught in a lie, and his self-assurance is restored. He does not worry about the battles ahead of him, thinking that he is "doomed to greatness" and cannot be killed. He feels scorn for his comrades who ran from the battle the previous day, thinking that they fled more wildly than was necessary, while he himself "fled with discretion and dignity. Wilson interrupts Henry's reverie by asking him for the envelope back. Henry returns it, and Wilson seems deeply embarrassed. Henry feels sorry for his friend and immensely superior to him; he imagines telling his mother and a young lady from his hometown stories of the war, and thinks that his tales will shatter their feeble preconceptions of heroism and combat


prompt:
Chapter: A sputtering of musketry was always to be heard.  Later, the cannon had
entered the dispute.  In the fog-filled air their voices made a
thudding sound.  The reverberations were continued.  This part of the
world led a strange, battleful existence.

The youth's regiment was marched to relieve a command that had lain
long in some damp trenches.  The men took positions behind a curving
line of rifle pits that had been turned up, like a large furrow, along
the line of woods.  Before them was a level stretch, peopled with
short, deformed stumps.  From the woods beyond came the dull popping of
the skirmishers and pickets, firing in the fog.  From the right came
the noise of a terrific fracas.

The men cuddled behind the small embankment and sat in easy attitudes
awaiting their turn.  Many had their backs to the firing.  The youth's
friend lay down, buried his face in his arms, and almost instantly, it
seemed, he was in a deep sleep.

The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered over at
the woods and up and down the line.  Curtains of trees interfered with
his ways of vision.  He could see the low line of trenches but for a
short distance.  A few idle flags were perched on the dirt hills.
Behind them were rows of dark bodies with a few heads sticking
curiously over the top.

Always the noise of skirmishers came from the woods on the front and
left, and the din on the right had grown to frightful proportions. The
guns were roaring without an instant's pause for breath.  It seemed
that the cannon had come from all parts and were engaged in a
stupendous wrangle.  It became impossible to make a sentence heard.

The youth wished to launch a joke--a quotation from newspapers.  He
desired to say, "All quiet on the Rappahannock," but the guns refused
to permit even a comment upon their uproar. He never successfully
concluded the sentence. But at last the guns stopped, and among the men
in the rifle pits rumors again flew, like birds, but they were now for
the most part black creatures who flapped their wings drearily near to
the ground and refused to rise on any wings of hope.  The men's faces
grew doleful from the interpreting of omens.  Tales of hesitation and
uncertainty on the part of those high in place and responsibility came
to their ears.  Stories of disaster were borne into their minds with
many proofs.  This din of musketry on the right, growing like a
released genie of sound, expressed and emphasized the army's plight.

The men were disheartened and began to mutter.  They made gestures
expressive of the sentence: "Ah, what more can we do?"  And it could
always be seen that they were bewildered by the alleged news and could
not fully comprehend a defeat.

Before the gray mists had been totally obliterated by the sun rays, the
regiment was marching in a spread column that was retiring carefully
through the woods.  The disordered, hurrying lines of the enemy could
sometimes be seen down through the groves and little fields.  They were
yelling, shrill and exultant.

At this sight the youth forgot many personal matters and became greatly
enraged.  He exploded in loud sentences.  "B'jiminey, we're generaled
by a lot 'a lunkheads."

"More than one feller has said that t'-day," observed a man.

His friend, recently aroused, was still very drowsy.  He looked behind
him until his mind took in the meaning of the movement.  Then he
sighed.  "Oh, well, I s'pose we got licked," he remarked sadly.

The youth had a thought that it would not be handsome for him to freely
condemn other men. He made an attempt to restrain himself, but the
words upon his tongue were too bitter.  He presently began a long and
intricate denunciation of the commander of the forces.

"Mebbe, it wa'n't all his fault--not all together.  He did th' best he
knowed.  It's our luck t' git licked often," said his friend in a weary
tone.  He was trudging along with stooped shoulders and shifting eyes
like a man who has been caned and kicked.

"Well, don't we fight like the devil?  Don't we do all that men can?"
demanded the youth loudly.

He was secretly dumfounded at this sentiment when it came from his
lips.  For a moment his face lost its valor and he looked guiltily
about him.  But no one questioned his right to deal in such words, and
presently he recovered his air of courage.  He went on to repeat a
statement he had heard going from group to group at the camp that
morning.  "The brigadier said he never saw a new reg'ment fight the way
we fought yestirday, didn't he?  And we didn't do better than many
another reg'ment, did we? Well, then, you can't say it's th' army's
fault, can you?"

In his reply, the friend's voice was stern.  "'A course not," he said.
"No man dare say we don't fight like th' devil.  No man will ever dare
say it.  Th' boys fight like hell-roosters.  But still--still, we don't
have no luck."

"Well, then, if we fight like the devil an' don't ever whip, it must be
the general's fault," said the youth grandly and decisively.  "And I
don't see any sense in fighting and fighting and fighting, yet always
losing through some derned old lunkhead of a general."

A sarcastic man who was tramping at the youth's side, then spoke
lazily.  "Mebbe yeh think yeh fit th' hull battle yestirday, Fleming,"
he remarked.

The speech pierced the youth.  Inwardly he was reduced to an abject
pulp by these chance words.  His legs quaked privately.  He cast a
frightened glance at the sarcastic man.

"Why, no," he hastened to say in a conciliating voice, "I don't think I
fought the whole battle yesterday."

But the other seemed innocent of any deeper meaning.  Apparently, he
had no information. It was merely his habit.  "Oh!" he replied in the
same tone of calm derision.

The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat.  His mind shrank from going
near to the danger, and thereafter he was silent.  The significance of
the sarcastic man's words took from him all loud moods that would make
him appear prominent. He became suddenly a modest person.

There was low-toned talk among the troops. The officers were impatient
and snappy, their countenances clouded with the tales of misfortune.
The troops, sifting through the forest, were sullen.  In the youth's
company once a man's laugh rang out.  A dozen soldiers turned their
faces quickly toward him and frowned with vague displeasure.

The noise of firing dogged their footsteps. Sometimes, it seemed to be
driven a little way, but it always returned again with increased
insolence.  The men muttered and cursed, throwing black looks in its
direction.

In a clear space the troops were at last halted. Regiments and
brigades, broken and detached through their encounters with thickets,
grew together again and lines were faced toward the pursuing bark of
the enemy's infantry.

This noise, following like the yellings of eager, metallic hounds,
increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun went
serenely up the sky, throwing illuminating rays into the gloomy
thickets, it broke forth into prolonged pealings. The woods began to
crackle as if afire.

"Whoop-a-dadee," said a man, "here we are! Everybody fightin'.  Blood
an' destruction."

"I was willin' t' bet they'd attack as soon as th' sun got fairly up,"
savagely asserted the lieutenant who commanded the youth's company. He
jerked without mercy at his little mustache. He strode to and fro with
dark dignity in the rear of his men, who were lying down behind
whatever protection they had collected.

A battery had trundled into position in the rear and was thoughtfully
shelling the distance. The regiment, unmolested as yet, awaited the
moment when the gray shadows of the woods before them should be slashed
by the lines of flame.  There was much growling and swearing.

"Good Gawd," the youth grumbled, "we're always being chased around like
rats!  It makes me sick.  Nobody seems to know where we go or why we
go.  We just get fired around from pillar to post and get licked here
and get licked there, and nobody knows what it's done for.  It makes a
man feel like a damn' kitten in a bag. Now, I'd like to know what the
eternal thunders we was marched into these woods for anyhow, unless it
was to give the rebs a regular pot shot at us.  We came in here and got
our legs all tangled up in these cussed briers, and then we begin to
fight and the rebs had an easy time of it. Don't tell me it's just
luck!  I know better.  It's this derned old--"

The friend seemed jaded, but he interrupted his comrade with a voice of
calm confidence. "It'll turn out all right in th' end," he said.

"Oh, the devil it will!  You always talk like a dog-hanged parson.
Don't tell me!  I know--"

At this time there was an interposition by the savage-minded
lieutenant, who was obliged to vent some of his inward dissatisfaction
upon his men.  "You boys shut right up!  There no need 'a your wastin'
your breath in long-winded arguments about this an' that an' th' other.
You've been jawin' like a lot 'a old hens.  All you've got t' do is to
fight, an' you'll get plenty 'a that t' do in about ten minutes.  Less
talkin' an' more fightin' is what's best for you boys.  I never saw
sech gabbling jackasses."

He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the temerity to
reply.  No words being said, he resumed his dignified pacing.

"There's too much chin music an' too little fightin' in this war,
anyhow," he said to them, turning his head for a final remark.

The day had grown more white, until the sun shed his full radiance upon
the thronged forest. A sort of a gust of battle came sweeping toward
that part of the line where lay the youth's regiment.  The front
shifted a trifle to meet it squarely.  There was a wait.  In this part
of the field there passed slowly the intense moments that precede the
tempest.

A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the regiment.  In an instant
it was joined by many others.  There was a mighty song of clashes and
crashes that went sweeping through the woods. The guns in the rear,
aroused and enraged by shells that had been thrown burlike at them,
suddenly involved themselves in a hideous altercation with another band
of guns.  The battle roar settled to a rolling thunder, which was a
single, long explosion.

In the regiment there was a peculiar kind of hesitation denoted in the
attitudes of the men. They were worn, exhausted, having slept but
little and labored much.  They rolled their eyes toward the advancing
battle as they stood awaiting the shock.  Some shrank and flinched.
They stood as men tied to stakes.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The men are led to a group of trenches where Wilson promptly falls asleep. For a time, rumors fly fast and fierce as to the conduct of the battle and the activities of the enemy. Briefly, Henry glimpses a column of gray-suited enemy soldiers, and his regiment is quickly marched into the forest. Henry begins complaining bitterly about his army's leadership, blaming the generals for their failure to win battles. When another soldier mocks him, however, Henry falls silent, afraid that he will be exposed as a fraud. The lieutenant shepherds the men to a spot in the woods, where he says they will encounter the enemy in only a few minutes. As the battle roar swells to a thunder, the men wearily await the fight


prompt:
Chapter: This advance of the enemy had seemed to the youth like a ruthless
hunting.  He began to fume with rage and exasperation.  He beat his
foot upon the ground, and scowled with hate at the swirling smoke that
was approaching like a phantom flood.  There was a maddening quality in
this seeming resolution of the foe to give him no rest, to give him no
time to sit down and think. Yesterday he had fought and had fled
rapidly. There had been many adventures.  For to-day he felt that he
had earned opportunities for contemplative repose.  He could have
enjoyed portraying to uninitiated listeners various scenes at which he
had been a witness or ably discussing the processes of war with other
proved men.  Too it was important that he should have time for physical
recuperation.  He was sore and stiff from his experiences.  He had
received his fill of all exertions, and he wished to rest.

But those other men seemed never to grow weary; they were fighting with
their old speed.

He had a wild hate for the relentless foe.  Yesterday, when he had
imagined the universe to be against him, he had hated it, little gods
and big gods; to-day he hated the army of the foe with the same great
hatred.  He was not going to be badgered of his life, like a kitten
chased by boys, he said.  It was not well to drive men into final
corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.

He leaned and spoke into his friend's ear.  He menaced the woods with a
gesture.  "If they keep on chasing us, by Gawd, they'd better watch
out.  Can't stand TOO much."

The friend twisted his head and made a calm reply.  "If they keep on
a-chasin' us they'll drive us all inteh th' river."

The youth cried out savagely at this statement.  He crouched behind a
little tree, with his eyes burning hatefully and his teeth set in a
curlike snarl.  The awkward bandage was still about his head, and upon
it, over his wound, there was a spot of dry blood.  His hair was
wondrously tousled, and some straggling, moving locks hung over the
cloth of the bandage down toward his forehead.  His jacket and shirt
were open at the throat, and exposed his young bronzed neck. There
could be seen spasmodic gulpings at his throat.

His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it was an
engine of annihilating power.  He felt that he and his companions were
being taunted and derided from sincere convictions that they were poor
and puny.  His knowledge of his inability to take vengeance for it made
his rage into a dark and stormy specter, that possessed him and made
him dream of abominable cruelties.  The tormentors were flies sucking
insolently at his blood, and he thought that he would have given his
life for a revenge of seeing their faces in pitiful plights.

The winds of battle had swept all about the regiment, until the one
rifle, instantly followed by others, flashed in its front.  A moment
later the regiment roared forth its sudden and valiant retort.  A dense
wall of smoke settled slowly down. It was furiously slit and slashed by
the knifelike fire from the rifles.

To the youth the fighters resembled animals tossed for a death struggle
into a dark pit.  There was a sensation that he and his fellows, at
bay, were pushing back, always pushing fierce onslaughts of creatures
who were slippery.  Their beams of crimson seemed to get no purchase
upon the bodies of their foes; the latter seemed to evade them with
ease, and come through, between, around, and about with unopposed skill.

When, in a dream, it occurred to the youth that his rifle was an
impotent stick, he lost sense of everything but his hate, his desire to
smash into pulp the glittering smile of victory which he could feel
upon the faces of his enemies.

The blue smoke-swallowed line curled and writhed like a snake stepped
upon.  It swung its ends to and fro in an agony of fear and rage.

The youth was not conscious that he was erect upon his feet.  He did
not know the direction of the ground.  Indeed, once he even lost the
habit of balance and fell heavily.  He was up again immediately.  One
thought went through the chaos of his brain at the time.  He wondered
if he had fallen because he had been shot.  But the suspicion flew away
at once.  He did not think more of it.

He had taken up a first position behind the little tree, with a direct
determination to hold it against the world.  He had not deemed it
possible that his army could that day succeed, and from this he felt
the ability to fight harder.  But the throng had surged in all ways,
until he lost directions and locations, save that he knew where lay the
enemy.

The flames bit him, and the hot smoke broiled his skin.  His rifle
barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne it upon his
palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it, and pounding them
with his clanking, bending ramrod.  If he aimed at some changing form
through the smoke, he pulled his trigger with a fierce grunt, as if he
were dealing a blow of the fist with all his strength.

When the enemy seemed falling back before him and his fellows, he went
instantly forward, like a dog who, seeing his foes lagging, turns and
insists upon being pursued.  And when he was compelled to retire again,
he did it slowly, sullenly, taking steps of wrathful despair.

Once he, in his intent hate, was almost alone, and was firing, when all
those near him had ceased. He was so engrossed in his occupation that
he was not aware of a lull.

He was recalled by a hoarse laugh and a sentence that came to his ears
in a voice of contempt and amazement.  "Yeh infernal fool, don't yeh
know enough t' quit when there ain't anything t' shoot at?  Good Gawd!"

He turned then and, pausing with his rifle thrown half into position,
looked at the blue line of his comrades.  During this moment of leisure
they seemed all to be engaged in staring with astonishment at him. They
had become spectators.  Turning to the front again he saw, under the
lifted smoke, a deserted ground.

He looked bewildered for a moment.  Then there appeared upon the glazed
vacancy of his eyes a diamond point of intelligence.  "Oh," he said,
comprehending.

He returned to his comrades and threw himself upon the ground.  He
sprawled like a man who had been thrashed.  His flesh seemed strangely
on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued in his ears.  He groped
blindly for his canteen.

The lieutenant was crowing.  He seemed drunk with fighting.  He called
out to the youth: "By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild cats like you
I could tear th' stomach outa this war in less'n a week!"  He puffed
out his chest with large dignity as he said it.

Some of the men muttered and looked at the youth in awe-struck ways. It
was plain that as he had gone on loading and firing and cursing without
the proper intermission, they had found time to regard him. And they
now looked upon him as a war devil.

The friend came staggering to him.  There was some fright and dismay in
his voice.  "Are yeh all right, Fleming?  Do yeh feel all right?  There
ain't nothin' th' matter with yeh, Henry, is there?"

"No," said the youth with difficulty.  His throat seemed full of knobs
and burs.

These incidents made the youth ponder.  It was revealed to him that he
had been a barbarian, a beast.  He had fought like a pagan who defends
his religion.  Regarding it, he saw that it was fine, wild, and, in
some ways, easy.  He had been a tremendous figure, no doubt.  By this
struggle he had overcome obstacles which he had admitted to be
mountains.  They had fallen like paper peaks, and he was now what he
called a hero.  And he had not been aware of the process.  He had slept
and, awakening, found himself a knight.

He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades.  Their
faces were varied in degrees of blackness from the burned powder. Some
were utterly smudged.  They were reeking with perspiration, and their
breaths came hard and wheezing.  And from these soiled expanses they
peered at him.

"Hot work!  Hot work!" cried the lieutenant deliriously.  He walked up
and down, restless and eager.  Sometimes his voice could be heard in a
wild, incomprehensible laugh.

When he had a particularly profound thought upon the science of war he
always unconsciously addressed himself to the youth.

There was some grim rejoicing by the men.

"By thunder, I bet this army'll never see another new reg'ment like us!"

"You bet!"

  "A dog, a woman, an' a walnut tree,
   Th' more yeh beat 'em, th' better they be!

That's like us."

"Lost a piler men, they did.  If an' ol' woman swep' up th' woods she'd
git a dustpanful."

"Yes, an' if she'll come around ag'in in 'bout an' hour she'll git a
pile more."

The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the trees
came the rolling clatter of the musketry.  Each distant thicket seemed
a strange porcupine with quills of flame.  A cloud of dark smoke, as
from smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun now bright and gay in the
blue, enameled sky.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: After a maddening and intense period of waiting for the inevitable, the enemy sweeps down upon the line of blue-uniformed men. Seized by a feverish hatred of the enemy, Henry fights in a frenzy, firing and reloading and refusing to retreat. In the heat and smoke, he is aware of nothing but his own rage. After a while, he hears one of his comrades laughing and realizes that he is firing at nothing; the battle is over, the enemy has fled. His regiment now regards Henry with awe, regaling him with stories of his ferocious prowess in the combat. The lieutenant tells Henry that if he had ten thousand "wildcats" like him, he could win the war in a week. Strangely, Henry feels as though he himself had nothing to do with his brave exploits; rather, it was as if he fell asleep and woke to find himself a knight. The exultant soldiers congratulate one another happily, and chatter about how many men the enemy lost in the battle. In the bright blue sky, the sun shines gaily, marred only by a cloud of dark smoke from the fighting


prompt:
Chapter: The ragged line had respite for some minutes, but during its pause the
struggle in the forest became magnified until the trees seemed to
quiver from the firing and the ground to shake from the rushing of the
men.  The voices of the cannon were mingled in a long and interminable
row.  It seemed difficult to live in such an atmosphere.  The chests of
the men strained for a bit of freshness, and their throats craved water.

There was one shot through the body, who raised a cry of bitter
lamentation when came this lull.  Perhaps he had been calling out
during the fighting also, but at that time no one had heard him.  But
now the men turned at the woeful complaints of him upon the ground.

"Who is it?  Who is it?"

"It's Jimmie Rogers.  Jimmie Rogers."

When their eyes first encountered him there was a sudden halt, as if
they feared to go near. He was thrashing about in the grass, twisting
his shuddering body into many strange postures. He was screaming
loudly.  This instant's hesitation seemed to fill him with a
tremendous, fantastic contempt, and he damned them in shrieked
sentences.

The youth's friend had a geographical illusion concerning a stream, and
he obtained permission to go for some water.  Immediately canteens were
showered upon him.  "Fill mine, will yeh?"  "Bring me some, too."  "And
me, too." He departed, ladened.  The youth went with his friend,
feeling a desire to throw his heated body onto the stream and, soaking
there, drink quarts.

They made a hurried search for the supposed stream, but did not find
it.  "No water here," said the youth.  They turned without delay and
began to retrace their steps.

From their position as they again faced toward the place of the
fighting, they could of course comprehend a greater amount of the
battle than when their visions had been blurred by the hurling smoke of
the line.  They could see dark stretches winding along the land, and on
one cleared space there was a row of guns making gray clouds, which
were filled with large flashes of orange-colored flame.  Over some
foliage they could see the roof of a house.  One window, glowing a deep
murder red, shone squarely through the leaves.  From the edifice a tall
leaning tower of smoke went far into the sky.

Looking over their own troops, they saw mixed masses slowly getting
into regular form. The sunlight made twinkling points of the bright
steel.  To the rear there was a glimpse of a distant roadway as it
curved over a slope.  It was crowded with retreating infantry.  From
all the interwoven forest arose the smoke and bluster of the battle.
The air was always occupied by a blaring.

Near where they stood shells were flip-flapping and hooting. Occasional
bullets buzzed in the air and spanged into tree trunks. Wounded men and
other stragglers were slinking through the woods.

Looking down an aisle of the grove, the youth and his companion saw a
jangling general and his staff almost ride upon a wounded man, who was
crawling on his hands and knees.  The general reined strongly at his
charger's opened and foamy mouth and guided it with dexterous
horsemanship past the man.  The latter scrambled in wild and torturing
haste.  His strength evidently failed him as he reached a place of
safety.  One of his arms suddenly weakened, and he fell, sliding over
upon his back.  He lay stretched out, breathing gently.

A moment later the small, creaking cavalcade was directly in front of
the two soldiers.  Another officer, riding with the skillful abandon of
a cowboy, galloped his horse to a position directly before the general.
The two unnoticed foot soldiers made a little show of going on, but
they lingered near in the desire to overhear the conversation. Perhaps,
they thought, some great inner historical things would be said.

The general, whom the boys knew as the commander of their division,
looked at the other officer and spoke coolly, as if he were criticising
his clothes.  "Th' enemy's formin' over there for another charge," he
said.  "It'll be directed against Whiterside, an' I fear they'll break
through there unless we work like thunder t' stop them."

The other swore at his restive horse, and then cleared his throat.  He
made a gesture toward his cap.  "It'll be hell t' pay stoppin' them,"
he said shortly.

"I presume so," remarked the general.  Then he began to talk rapidly
and in a lower tone.  He frequently illustrated his words with a
pointing finger.  The two infantrymen could hear nothing until finally
he asked: "What troops can you spare?"

The officer who rode like a cowboy reflected for an instant.  "Well,"
he said, "I had to order in th' 12th to help th' 76th, an' I haven't
really got any.  But there's th' 304th.  They fight like a lot 'a mule
drivers.  I can spare them best of any."

The youth and his friend exchanged glances of astonishment.

The general spoke sharply.  "Get 'em ready, then.  I'll watch
developments from here, an' send you word when t' start them.  It'll
happen in five minutes."

As the other officer tossed his fingers toward his cap and wheeling his
horse, started away, the general called out to him in a sober voice: "I
don't believe many of your mule drivers will get back."

The other shouted something in reply.  He smiled.

With scared faces, the youth and his companion hurried back to the line.

These happenings had occupied an incredibly short time, yet the youth
felt that in them he had been made aged.  New eyes were given to him.
And the most startling thing was to learn suddenly that he was very
insignificant.  The officer spoke of the regiment as if he referred to
a broom.  Some part of the woods needed sweeping, perhaps, and he
merely indicated a broom in a tone properly indifferent to its fate. It
was war, no doubt, but it appeared strange.

As the two boys approached the line, the lieutenant perceived them and
swelled with wrath. "Fleming--Wilson--how long does it take yeh to git
water, anyhow--where yeh been to."

But his oration ceased as he saw their eyes, which were large with
great tales.  "We're goin' t' charge--we're goin' t' charge!" cried the
youth's friend, hastening with his news.

"Charge?" said the lieutenant.  "Charge? Well, b'Gawd!  Now, this is
real fightin'."  Over his soiled countenance there went a boastful
smile.  "Charge?  Well, b'Gawd!"

A little group of soldiers surrounded the two youths.  "Are we, sure
'nough?  Well, I'll be derned!  Charge?  What fer?  What at?  Wilson,
you're lyin'."

"I hope to die," said the youth, pitching his tones to the key of angry
remonstrance.  "Sure as shooting, I tell you."

And his friend spoke in re-enforcement.  "Not by a blame sight, he
ain't lyin'.  We heard 'em talkin'."

They caught sight of two mounted figures a short distance from them.
One was the colonel of the regiment and the other was the officer who
had received orders from the commander of the division.  They were
gesticulating at each other. The soldier, pointing at them, interpreted
the scene.

One man had a final objection: "How could yeh hear 'em talkin'?"  But
the men, for a large part, nodded, admitting that previously the two
friends had spoken truth.

They settled back into reposeful attitudes with airs of having accepted
the matter.  And they mused upon it, with a hundred varieties of
expression.  It was an engrossing thing to think about.  Many tightened
their belts carefully and hitched at their trousers.

A moment later the officers began to bustle among the men, pushing them
into a more compact mass and into a better alignment.  They chased
those that straggled and fumed at a few men who seemed to show by their
attitudes that they had decided to remain at that spot.  They were like
critical shepherds struggling with sheep.

Presently, the regiment seemed to draw itself up and heave a deep
breath.  None of the men's faces were mirrors of large thoughts.  The
soldiers were bended and stooped like sprinters before a signal.  Many
pairs of glinting eyes peered from the grimy faces toward the curtains
of the deeper woods.  They seemed to be engaged in deep calculations of
time and distance.

They were surrounded by the noises of the monstrous altercation between
the two armies. The world was fully interested in other matters.
Apparently, the regiment had its small affair to itself.

The youth, turning, shot a quick, inquiring glance at his friend.  The
latter returned to him the same manner of look.  They were the only
ones who possessed an inner knowledge.  "Mule drivers--hell t'
pay--don't believe many will get back."  It was an ironical secret.
Still, they saw no hesitation in each other's faces, and they nodded a
mute and unprotesting assent when a shaggy man near them said in a meek
voice: "We'll git swallowed."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: As the Union troops rest, the fighting deeper in the forest intensifies until the air is parched with smoke and the battle-roar drowns out all other sounds. During a sudden lull in the battle, the men hear one of their comrades, Jimmie Rogers, crying out in pain. Thinking there is a stream nearby, Wilson offers to go for water and Henry accompanies him. They fail to find a stream, but reach a place from which they can see a large portion of the battle as it unfolds. They see dark masses of blue troops slowly gather into formation. They watch as a general nearly tramples a wounded man. As the general and his staff pass by, they hear the commanders discussing how best to fortify a weak position. The general asks one officer which unit he can spare; the officer replies that the only regiment he does not need is the 304th--Henry's regiment--because its members "fight like a lot 'a mule drivers


prompt:
Chapter: The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages now seemed
to veil powers and horrors.  He was unaware of the machinery of orders
that started the charge, although from the corners of his eyes he saw
an officer, who looked like a boy a-horseback, come galloping, waving
his hat.  Suddenly he felt a straining and heaving among the men.  The
line fell slowly forward like a toppling wall, and, with a convulsive
gasp that was intended for a cheer, the regiment began its journey. The
youth was pushed and jostled for a moment before he understood the
movement at all, but directly he lunged ahead and began to run.

He fixed his eye upon a distant and prominent clump of trees where he
had concluded the enemy were to be met, and he ran toward it as toward
a goal.  He had believed throughout that it was a mere question of
getting over an unpleasant matter as quickly as possible, and he ran
desperately, as if pursued for a murder.  His face was drawn hard and
tight with the stress of his endeavor.  His eyes were fixed in a lurid
glare.  And with his soiled and disordered dress, his red and inflamed
features surmounted by the dingy rag with its spot of blood, his wildly
swinging rifle and banging accouterments, he looked to be an insane
soldier.

As the regiment swung from its position out into a cleared space the
woods and thickets before it awakened.  Yellow flames leaped toward it
from many directions.  The forest made a tremendous objection.

The line lurched straight for a moment.  Then the right wing swung
forward; it in turn was surpassed by the left.  Afterward the center
careered to the front until the regiment was a wedge-shaped mass, but
an instant later the opposition of the bushes, trees, and uneven places
on the ground split the command and scattered it into detached clusters.

The youth, light-footed, was unconsciously in advance.  His eyes still
kept note of the clump of trees.  From all places near it the clannish
yell of the enemy could be heard.  The little flames of rifles leaped
from it.  The song of the bullets was in the air and shells snarled
among the tree-tops.  One tumbled directly into the middle of a
hurrying group and exploded in crimson fury. There was an instant's
spectacle of a man, almost over it, throwing up his hands to shield his
eyes.

Other men, punched by bullets, fell in grotesque agonies.  The regiment
left a coherent trail of bodies.

They had passed into a clearer atmosphere. There was an effect like a
revelation in the new appearance of the landscape.  Some men working
madly at a battery were plain to them, and the opposing infantry's
lines were defined by the gray walls and fringes of smoke.

It seemed to the youth that he saw everything.  Each blade of the green
grass was bold and clear.  He thought that he was aware of every change
in the thin, transparent vapor that floated idly in sheets.  The brown
or gray trunks of the trees showed each roughness of their surfaces.
And the men of the regiment, with their starting eyes and sweating
faces, running madly, or falling, as if thrown headlong, to queer,
heaped-up corpses--all were comprehended.  His mind took a mechanical
but firm impression, so that afterward everything was pictured and
explained to him, save why he himself was there.

But there was a frenzy made from this furious rush.  The men, pitching
forward insanely, had burst into cheerings, moblike and barbaric, but
tuned in strange keys that can arouse the dullard and the stoic.  It
made a mad enthusiasm that, it seemed, would be incapable of checking
itself before granite and brass.  There was the delirium that
encounters despair and death, and is heedless and blind to the odds. It
is a temporary but sublime absence of selfishness.  And because it was
of this order was the reason, perhaps, why the youth wondered,
afterward, what reasons he could have had for being there.

Presently the straining pace ate up the energies of the men.  As if by
agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed.  The volleys
directed against them had had a seeming windlike effect.  The regiment
snorted and blew.  Among some stolid trees it began to falter and
hesitate. The men, staring intently, began to wait for some of the
distant walls of smoke to move and disclose to them the scene.  Since
much of their strength and their breath had vanished, they returned to
caution.  They were become men again.

The youth had a vague belief that he had run miles, and he thought, in
a way, that he was now in some new and unknown land.

The moment the regiment ceased its advance the protesting splutter of
musketry became a steadied roar.  Long and accurate fringes of smoke
spread out.  From the top of a small hill came level belchings of
yellow flame that caused an inhuman whistling in the air.

The men, halted, had opportunity to see some of their comrades dropping
with moans and shrieks.  A few lay under foot, still or wailing. And
now for an instant the men stood, their rifles slack in their hands,
and watched the regiment dwindle.  They appeared dazed and stupid. This
spectacle seemed to paralyze them, overcome them with a fatal
fascination.  They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering their
eyes, looked from face to face.  It was a strange pause, and a strange
silence.

Then, above the sounds of the outside commotion, arose the roar of the
lieutenant.  He strode suddenly forth, his infantile features black
with rage.

"Come on, yeh fools!" he bellowed.  "Come on!  Yeh can't stay here. Yeh
must come on." He said more, but much of it could not be understood.

He started rapidly forward, with his head turned toward the men.  "Come
on," he was shouting.  The men stared with blank and yokel-like eyes at
him.  He was obliged to halt and retrace his steps.  He stood then with
his back to the enemy and delivered gigantic curses into the faces of
the men.  His body vibrated from the weight and force of his
imprecations.  And he could string oaths with the facility of a maiden
who strings beads.

The friend of the youth aroused.  Lurching suddenly forward and
dropping to his knees, he fired an angry shot at the persistent woods.
This action awakened the men.  They huddled no more like sheep.  They
seemed suddenly to bethink them of their weapons, and at once commenced
firing.  Belabored by their officers, they began to move forward.  The
regiment, involved like a cart involved in mud and muddle, started
unevenly with many jolts and jerks.  The men stopped now every few
paces to fire and load, and in this manner moved slowly on from trees
to trees.

The flaming opposition in their front grew with their advance until it
seemed that all forward ways were barred by the thin leaping tongues,
and off to the right an ominous demonstration could sometimes be dimly
discerned. The smoke lately generated was in confusing clouds that made
it difficult for the regiment to proceed with intelligence.  As he
passed through each curling mass the youth wondered what would confront
him on the farther side.

The command went painfully forward until an open space interposed
between them and the lurid lines.  Here, crouching and cowering behind
some trees, the men clung with desperation, as if threatened by a wave.
They looked wild-eyed, and as if amazed at this furious disturbance
they had stirred.  In the storm there was an ironical expression of
their importance.  The faces of the men, too, showed a lack of a
certain feeling of responsibility for being there.  It was as if they
had been driven.  It was the dominant animal failing to remember in the
supreme moments the forceful causes of various superficial qualities.
The whole affair seemed incomprehensible to many of them.

As they halted thus the lieutenant again began to bellow profanely.
Regardless of the vindictive threats of the bullets, he went about
coaxing, berating, and bedamning.  His lips, that were habitually in a
soft and childlike curve, were now writhed into unholy contortions.  He
swore by all possible deities.

Once he grabbed the youth by the arm. "Come on, yeh lunkhead!" he
roared.  "Come on!  We'll all git killed if we stay here.  We've on'y
got t' go across that lot.  An' then"--the remainder of his idea
disappeared in a blue haze of curses.

The youth stretched forth his arm.  "Cross there?"  His mouth was
puckered in doubt and awe.

"Certainly.  Jest 'cross th' lot!  We can't stay here," screamed the
lieutenant.  He poked his face close to the youth and waved his
bandaged hand.  "Come on!"  Presently he grappled with him as if for a
wrestling bout.  It was as if he planned to drag the youth by the ear
on to the assault.

The private felt a sudden unspeakable indignation against his officer.
He wrenched fiercely and shook him off.

"Come on yerself, then," he yelled.  There was a bitter challenge in
his voice.

They galloped together down the regimental front.  The friend scrambled
after them.  In front of the colors the three men began to bawl: "Come
on! come on!"  They danced and gyrated like tortured savages.

The flag, obedient to these appeals, bended its glittering form and
swept toward them.  The men wavered in indecision for a moment, and
then with a long, wailful cry the dilapidated regiment surged forward
and began its new journey.

Over the field went the scurrying mass.  It was a handful of men
splattered into the faces of the enemy.  Toward it instantly sprang the
yellow tongues.  A vast quantity of blue smoke hung before them.  A
mighty banging made ears valueless.

The youth ran like a madman to reach the woods before a bullet could
discover him.  He ducked his head low, like a football player.  In his
haste his eyes almost closed, and the scene was a wild blur.  Pulsating
saliva stood at the corners of his mouth.

Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing
fondness for this flag which was near him.  It was a creation of beauty
and invulnerability.  It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its form
with an imperious gesture to him.  It was a woman, red and white,
hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because
no harm could come to it he endowed it with power.  He kept near, as if
it could be a saver of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind.

In the mad scramble he was aware that the color sergeant flinched
suddenly, as if struck by a bludgeon.  He faltered, and then became
motionless, save for his quivering knees.

He made a spring and a clutch at the pole. At the same instant his
friend grabbed it from the other side.  They jerked at it, stout and
furious, but the color sergeant was dead, and the corpse would not
relinquish its trust.  For a moment there was a grim encounter.  The
dead man, swinging with bended back, seemed to be obstinately tugging,
in ludicrous and awful ways, for the possession of the flag.

It was past in an instant of time.  They wrenched the flag furiously
from the dead man, and, as they turned again, the corpse swayed forward
with bowed head.  One arm swung high, and the curved hand fell with
heavy protest on the friend's unheeding shoulder.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Henry and Wilson, who had believed their regiment to be unstoppable, are shocked to hear it insulted. They are further stunned to hear the general tell the officer that he expects most of the 304th to be killed in the coming attack. The two friends hurry back to their comrades with the news that they are about to charge. As the officers organize the men into marching formation, Henry and Wilson consider what they have heard. They do not taint the resolve of the other soldiers with their pathetic news, but instead keep the secret to themselves. Nevertheless, they prepare for the charge with quiet resignation. The men lumber forward toward a line of enemy soldiers. Henry sees men pounded by bullets, splayed and tumbling in grotesque shapes. As the men charge, the regiment comes to a halt twice, until the lieutenant once again spurs them into motion. The bullets continue to fly and Henry notices the regiment's flag flying before him. He begins to follow it as if it were a sacred talisman. Suddenly, the color sergeant--the soldier responsible for carrying the flag, is hit and falls to his knees. Henry and Wilson pry the flag from his dead fingers and continue to charge


prompt:
Chapter: When the two youths turned with the flag they saw that much of the
regiment had crumbled away, and the dejected remnant was coming slowly
back.  The men, having hurled themselves in projectile fashion, had
presently expended their forces.  They slowly retreated, with their
faces still toward the spluttering woods, and their hot rifles still
replying to the din.  Several officers were giving orders, their voices
keyed to screams.

"Where in hell yeh goin'?" the lieutenant was asking in a sarcastic
howl.  And a red-bearded officer, whose voice of triple brass could
plainly be heard, was commanding: "Shoot into 'em! Shoot into 'em, Gawd
damn their souls!"  There was a melee of screeches, in which the men
were ordered to do conflicting and impossible things.

The youth and his friend had a small scuffle over the flag.  "Give it
t' me!"  "No, let me keep it!"  Each felt satisfied with the other's
possession of it, but each felt bound to declare, by an offer to carry
the emblem, his willingness to further risk himself.  The youth roughly
pushed his friend away.

The regiment fell back to the stolid trees. There it halted for a
moment to blaze at some dark forms that had begun to steal upon its
track. Presently it resumed its march again, curving among the tree
trunks.  By the time the depleted regiment had again reached the first
open space they were receiving a fast and merciless fire. There seemed
to be mobs all about them.

The greater part of the men, discouraged, their spirits worn by the
turmoil, acted as if stunned.  They accepted the pelting of the bullets
with bowed and weary heads.  It was of no purpose to strive against
walls.  It was of no use to batter themselves against granite.  And
from this consciousness that they had attempted to conquer an
unconquerable thing there seemed to arise a feeling that they had been
betrayed. They glowered with bent brows, but dangerously, upon some of
the officers, more particularly upon the red-bearded one with the voice
of triple brass.

However, the rear of the regiment was fringed with men, who continued
to shoot irritably at the advancing foes.  They seemed resolved to make
every trouble.  The youthful lieutenant was perhaps the last man in the
disordered mass.  His forgotten back was toward the enemy.  He had been
shot in the arm.  It hung straight and rigid. Occasionally he would
cease to remember it, and be about to emphasize an oath with a sweeping
gesture.  The multiplied pain caused him to swear with incredible power.

The youth went along with slipping, uncertain feet.  He kept watchful
eyes rearward.  A scowl of mortification and rage was upon his face. He
had thought of a fine revenge upon the officer who had referred to him
and his fellows as mule drivers.  But he saw that it could not come to
pass.  His dreams had collapsed when the mule drivers, dwindling
rapidly, had wavered and hesitated on the little clearing, and then had
recoiled. And now the retreat of the mule drivers was a march of shame
to him.

A dagger-pointed gaze from without his blackened face was held toward
the enemy, but his greater hatred was riveted upon the man, who, not
knowing him, had called him a mule driver.

When he knew that he and his comrades had failed to do anything in
successful ways that might bring the little pangs of a kind of remorse
upon the officer, the youth allowed the rage of the baffled to possess
him.  This cold officer upon a monument, who dropped epithets
unconcernedly down, would be finer as a dead man, he thought. So
grievous did he think it that he could never possess the secret right
to taunt truly in answer.

He had pictured red letters of curious revenge. "We ARE mule drivers,
are we?"  And now he was compelled to throw them away.

He presently wrapped his heart in the cloak of his pride and kept the
flag erect.  He harangued his fellows, pushing against their chests
with his free hand.  To those he knew well he made frantic appeals,
beseeching them by name. Between him and the lieutenant, scolding and
near to losing his mind with rage, there was felt a subtle fellowship
and equality.  They supported each other in all manner of hoarse,
howling protests.

But the regiment was a machine run down. The two men babbled at a
forceless thing.  The soldiers who had heart to go slowly were
continually shaken in their resolves by a knowledge that comrades were
slipping with speed back to the lines.  It was difficult to think of
reputation when others were thinking of skins.  Wounded men were left
crying on this black journey.

The smoke fringes and flames blustered always.  The youth, peering once
through a sudden rift in a cloud, saw a brown mass of troops,
interwoven and magnified until they appeared to be thousands.  A
fierce-hued flag flashed before his vision.

Immediately, as if the uplifting of the smoke had been prearranged, the
discovered troops burst into a rasping yell, and a hundred flames
jetted toward the retreating band.  A rolling gray cloud again
interposed as the regiment doggedly replied.  The youth had to depend
again upon his misused ears, which were trembling and buzzing from the
melee of musketry and yells.

The way seemed eternal.  In the clouded haze men became panicstricken
with the thought that the regiment had lost its path, and was
proceeding in a perilous direction.  Once the men who headed the wild
procession turned and came pushing back against their comrades,
screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they had
considered to be toward their own lines. At this cry a hysterical fear
and dismay beset the troops.  A soldier, who heretofore had been
ambitious to make the regiment into a wise little band that would
proceed calmly amid the huge-appearing difficulties, suddenly sank down
and buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing to a doom.  From
another a shrill lamentation rang out filled with profane allusions to
a general. Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their eyes roads of
escape.  With serene regularity, as if controlled by a schedule,
bullets buffed into men.

The youth walked stolidly into the midst of the mob, and with his flag
in his hands took a stand as if he expected an attempt to push him to
the ground.  He unconsciously assumed the attitude of the color bearer
in the fight of the preceding day.  He passed over his brow a hand that
trembled.  His breath did not come freely. He was choking during this
small wait for the crisis.

His friend came to him.  "Well, Henry, I guess this is good-by--John."

"Oh, shut up, you damned fool!" replied the youth, and he would not
look at the other.

The officers labored like politicians to beat the mass into a proper
circle to face the menaces.  The ground was uneven and torn.  The men
curled into depressions and fitted themselves snugly behind whatever
would frustrate a bullet.

The youth noted with vague surprise that the lieutenant was standing
mutely with his legs far apart and his sword held in the manner of a
cane. The youth wondered what had happened to his vocal organs that he
no more cursed.

There was something curious in this little intent pause of the
lieutenant.  He was like a babe which, having wept its fill, raises its
eyes and fixes upon a distant toy.  He was engrossed in this
contemplation, and the soft under lip quivered from self-whispered
words.

Some lazy and ignorant smoke curled slowly. The men, hiding from the
bullets, waited anxiously for it to lift and disclose the plight of the
regiment.

The silent ranks were suddenly thrilled by the eager voice of the
youthful lieutenant bawling out: "Here they come!  Right onto us,
b'Gawd!"  His further words were lost in a roar of wicked thunder from
the men's rifles.

The youth's eyes had instantly turned in the direction indicated by the
awakened and agitated lieutenant, and he had seen the haze of treachery
disclosing a body of soldiers of the enemy.  They were so near that he
could see their features. There was a recognition as he looked at the
types of faces.  Also he perceived with dim amazement that their
uniforms were rather gay in effect, being light gray, accented with a
brilliant-hued facing.  Too, the clothes seemed new.

These troops had apparently been going forward with caution, their
rifles held in readiness, when the youthful lieutenant had discovered
them and their movement had been interrupted by the volley from the
blue regiment.  From the moment's glimpse, it was derived that they had
been unaware of the proximity of their dark-suited foes or had mistaken
the direction. Almost instantly they were shut utterly from the youth's
sight by the smoke from the energetic rifles of his companions.  He
strained his vision to learn the accomplishment of the volley, but the
smoke hung before him.

The two bodies of troops exchanged blows in the manner of a pair of
boxers.  The fast angry firings went back and forth.  The men in blue
were intent with the despair of their circumstances and they seized
upon the revenge to be had at close range.  Their thunder swelled loud
and valiant.  Their curving front bristled with flashes and the place
resounded with the clangor of their ramrods.  The youth ducked and
dodged for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory views of the enemy.
There appeared to be many of them and they were replying swiftly.  They
seemed moving toward the blue regiment, step by step.  He seated
himself gloomily on the ground with his flag between his knees.

As he noted the vicious, wolflike temper of his comrades he had a sweet
thought that if the enemy was about to swallow the regimental broom as
a large prisoner, it could at least have the consolation of going down
with bristles forward.

But the blows of the antagonist began to grow more weak.  Fewer bullets
ripped the air, and finally, when the men slackened to learn of the
fight, they could see only dark, floating smoke.  The regiment lay
still and gazed.  Presently some chance whim came to the pestering
blur, and it began to coil heavily away.  The men saw a ground vacant
of fighters.  It would have been an empty stage if it were not for a
few corpses that lay thrown and twisted into fantastic shapes upon the
sward.

At sight of this tableau, many of the men in blue sprang from behind
their covers and made an ungainly dance of joy.  Their eyes burned and
a hoarse cheer of elation broke from their dry lips.

It had begun to seem to them that events were trying to prove that they
were impotent.  These little battles had evidently endeavored to
demonstrate that the men could not fight well.  When on the verge of
submission to these opinions, the small duel had showed them that the
proportions were not impossible, and by it they had revenged themselves
upon their misgivings and upon the foe.

The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again. They gazed about them with
looks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim, always
confident weapons in their hands.  And they were men.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: After seizing the flag from the fallen color bearer, Henry and Wilson see the regiment slinking back toward them, the enemy having broken their charge. The lieutenant cries out angrily, but the men fall back to a row of trees, relatively safe from the deadly hail of gunfire. After a scuffle, Henry succeeds in pulling the flag away from Wilson, and bears it himself. As the men march across the battlefield, they are pelted with bullets, and surrounded by fortified groups of enemy soldiers. Henry, who entertains the notion of a victory as "a fine revenge upon the officer who had referred to him and his fellows as mule drivers," mulls with shame and rage that victory is not to be. Still, he holds the flag proudly and urges the men to fight, even though the regiment is in tatters and men are beginning to scatter. Soon, the enemy is upon Henry's regiment, which, at the last minute, mounts a respectable defense. Henry comforts himself with the thought that if the enemy is meant to win the battle, their victory will at least not be an easy one. As the 304th fights, he is assured of its confidence in combat. In a pitched battle, Henry's regiment succeeds in forcing the enemy soldiers to retreat. The spirits of all the men in Henry's group are uplifted; they feel as though they have regained their capabilities, and proceed with a new enthusiasm


prompt:
Chapter: Presently they knew that no firing threatened them.  All ways seemed
once more opened to them.  The dusty blue lines of their friends were
disclosed a short distance away.  In the distance there were many
colossal noises, but in all this part of the field there was a sudden
stillness.

They perceived that they were free.  The depleted band drew a long
breath of relief and gathered itself into a bunch to complete its trip.

In this last length of journey the men began to show strange emotions.
They hurried with nervous fear.  Some who had been dark and unfaltering
in the grimmest moments now could not conceal an anxiety that made them
frantic.  It was perhaps that they dreaded to be killed in
insignificant ways after the times for proper military deaths had
passed.  Or, perhaps, they thought it would be too ironical to get
killed at the portals of safety.  With backward looks of perturbation,
they hastened.

As they approached their own lines there was some sarcasm exhibited on
the part of a gaunt and bronzed regiment that lay resting in the shade
of trees.  Questions were wafted to them.

"Where th' hell yeh been?"

"What yeh comin' back fer?"

"Why didn't yeh stay there?"

"Was it warm out there, sonny?"

"Goin' home now, boys?"

One shouted in taunting mimicry: "Oh, mother, come quick an' look at
th' sojers!"

There was no reply from the bruised and battered regiment, save that
one man made broadcast challenges to fist fights and the red-bearded
officer walked rather near and glared in great swashbuckler style at a
tall captain in the other regiment.  But the lieutenant suppressed the
man who wished to fist fight, and the tall captain, flushing at the
little fanfare of the red-bearded one, was obliged to look intently at
some trees.

The youth's tender flesh was deeply stung by these remarks.  From under
his creased brows he glowered with hate at the mockers.  He meditated
upon a few revenges.  Still, many in the regiment hung their heads in
criminal fashion, so that it came to pass that the men trudged with
sudden heaviness, as if they bore upon their bended shoulders the
coffin of their honor.  And the youthful lieutenant, recollecting
himself, began to mutter softly in black curses.

They turned when they arrived at their old position to regard the
ground over which they had charged.

The youth in this contemplation was smitten with a large astonishment.
He discovered that the distances, as compared with the brilliant
measurings of his mind, were trivial and ridiculous.  The stolid trees,
where much had taken place, seemed incredibly near.  The time, too, now
that he reflected, he saw to have been short. He wondered at the number
of emotions and events that had been crowded into such little spaces.
Elfin thoughts must have exaggerated and enlarged everything, he said.

It seemed, then, that there was bitter justice in the speeches of the
gaunt and bronzed veterans.  He veiled a glance of disdain at his
fellows who strewed the ground, choking with dust, red from
perspiration, misty-eyed, disheveled.

They were gulping at their canteens, fierce to wring every mite of
water from them, and they polished at their swollen and watery features
with coat sleeves and bunches of grass.

However, to the youth there was a considerable joy in musing upon his
performances during the charge.  He had had very little time previously
in which to appreciate himself, so that there was now much satisfaction
in quietly thinking of his actions.  He recalled bits of color that in
the flurry had stamped themselves unawares upon his engaged senses.

As the regiment lay heaving from its hot exertions the officer who had
named them as mule drivers came galloping along the line.  He had lost
his cap.  His tousled hair streamed wildly, and his face was dark with
vexation and wrath. His temper was displayed with more clearness by the
way in which he managed his horse.  He jerked and wrenched savagely at
his bridle, stopping the hard-breathing animal with a furious pull near
the colonel of the regiment.  He immediately exploded in reproaches
which came unbidden to the ears of the men.  They were suddenly alert,
being always curious about black words between officers.

"Oh, thunder, MacChesnay, what an awful bull you made of this thing!"
began the officer. He attempted low tones, but his indignation caused
certain of the men to learn the sense of his words.  "What an awful
mess you made! Good Lord, man, you stopped about a hundred feet this
side of a very pretty success!  If your men had gone a hundred feet
farther you would have made a great charge, but as it is--what a lot of
mud diggers you've got anyway!"

The men, listening with bated breath, now turned their curious eyes
upon the colonel. They had a ragamuffin interest in this affair.

The colonel was seen to straighten his form and put one hand forth in
oratorical fashion. He wore an injured air; it was as if a deacon had
been accused of stealing.  The men were wiggling in an ecstasy of
excitement.

But of a sudden the colonel's manner changed from that of a deacon to
that of a Frenchman. He shrugged his shoulders.  "Oh, well, general, we
went as far as we could," he said calmly.

"As far as you could?  Did you, b'Gawd?" snorted the other.  "Well,
that wasn't very far, was it?" he added, with a glance of cold contempt
into the other's eyes.  "Not very far, I think.  You were intended to
make a diversion in favor of Whiterside.  How well you succeeded your
own ears can now tell you."  He wheeled his horse and rode stiffly away.

The colonel, bidden to hear the jarring noises of an engagement in the
woods to the left, broke out in vague damnations.

The lieutenant, who had listened with an air of impotent rage to the
interview, spoke suddenly in firm and undaunted tones.  "I don't care
what a man is--whether he is a general or what--if he says th' boys
didn't put up a good fight out there he's a damned fool."

"Lieutenant," began the colonel, severely, "this is my own affair, and
I'll trouble you--"

The lieutenant made an obedient gesture. "All right, colonel, all
right," he said.  He sat down with an air of being content with himself.

The news that the regiment had been reproached went along the line. For
a time the men were bewildered by it.  "Good thunder!" they ejaculated,
staring at the vanishing form of the general.  They conceived it to be
a huge mistake.

Presently, however, they began to believe that in truth their efforts
had been called light.  The youth could see this conviction weigh upon
the entire regiment until the men were like cuffed and cursed animals,
but withal rebellious.

The friend, with a grievance in his eye, went to the youth.  "I wonder
what he does want," he said.  "He must think we went out there an'
played marbles!  I never see sech a man!"

The youth developed a tranquil philosophy for these moments of
irritation.  "Oh, well," he rejoined, "he probably didn't see nothing
of it at all and got mad as blazes, and concluded we were a lot of
sheep, just because we didn't do what he wanted done.  It's a pity old
Grandpa Henderson got killed yestirday--he'd have known that we did our
best and fought good.  It's just our awful luck, that's what."

"I should say so," replied the friend.  He seemed to be deeply wounded
at an injustice. "I should say we did have awful luck!  There's no fun
in fightin' fer people when everything yeh do--no matter what--ain't
done right.  I have a notion t' stay behind next time an' let 'em take
their ol' charge an' go t' th' devil with it."

The youth spoke soothingly to his comrade. "Well, we both did good. I'd
like to see the fool what'd say we both didn't do as good as we could!"

"Of course we did," declared the friend stoutly.  "An' I'd break th'
feller's neck if he was as big as a church.  But we're all right,
anyhow, for I heard one feller say that we two fit th' best in th'
reg'ment, an' they had a great argument 'bout it.  Another feller, 'a
course, he had t' up an' say it was a lie--he seen all what was goin'
on an' he never seen us from th' beginnin' t' th' end.  An' a lot more
struck in an' ses it wasn't a lie--we did fight like thunder, an' they
give us quite a send-off.  But this is what I can't stand--these
everlastin' ol' soldiers, titterin' an' laughin', an' then that
general, he's crazy."

The youth exclaimed with sudden exasperation: "He's a lunkhead!  He
makes me mad. I wish he'd come along next time.  We'd show 'im what--"

He ceased because several men had come hurrying up.  Their faces
expressed a bringing of great news.

"O Flem, yeh jest oughta heard!" cried one, eagerly.

"Heard what?" said the youth.

"Yeh jest oughta heard!" repeated the other, and he arranged himself to
tell his tidings.  The others made an excited circle.  "Well, sir, th'
colonel met your lieutenant right by us--it was damnedest thing I ever
heard--an' he ses: 'Ahem! ahem!' he ses.  'Mr. Hasbrouck!' he ses, 'by
th' way, who was that lad what carried th' flag?' he ses.  There,
Flemin', what d' yeh think 'a that?  'Who was th' lad what carried th'
flag?' he ses, an' th' lieutenant, he speaks up right away: 'That's
Flemin', an' he's a jimhickey,' he ses, right away.  What?  I say he
did.  'A jim-hickey,' he ses--those 'r his words.  He did, too. I say
he did.  If you kin tell this story better than I kin, go ahead an'
tell it.  Well, then, keep yer mouth shet.  Th' lieutenant, he ses:
'He's a jimhickey,' an' th' colonel, he ses: 'Ahem! ahem! he is,
indeed, a very good man t' have, ahem!  He kep' th' flag 'way t' th'
front.  I saw 'im.  He's a good un,' ses th' colonel.  'You bet,' ses
th' lieutenant, 'he an' a feller named Wilson was at th' head 'a th'
charge, an' howlin' like Indians all th' time,' he ses.  'Head 'a th'
charge all th' time,' he ses.  'A feller named Wilson,' he ses.  There,
Wilson, m'boy, put that in a letter an' send it hum t' yer mother, hay?
'A feller named Wilson,' he ses.  An' th' colonel, he ses: 'Were they,
indeed?  Ahem! ahem!  My sakes!' he ses.  'At th' head 'a th'
reg'ment?' he ses.  'They were,' ses th' lieutenant.  'My sakes!' ses
th' colonel. He ses: 'Well, well, well,' he ses, 'those two babies?'
'They were,' ses th' lieutenant. 'Well, well,' ses th' colonel, 'they
deserve t' be major generals,' he ses.  'They deserve t' be
major-generals.'"

The youth and his friend had said: "Huh!" "Yer lyin', Thompson."  "Oh,
go t' blazes!" "He never sed it."  "Oh, what a lie!"  "Huh!" But
despite these youthful scoffings and embarrassments, they knew that
their faces were deeply flushing from thrills of pleasure.  They
exchanged a secret glance of joy and congratulation.

They speedily forgot many things.  The past held no pictures of error
and disappointment. They were very happy, and their hearts swelled with
grateful affection for the colonel and the youthful lieutenant.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: At last the regiment returns to the fortified position of its army. The other soldiers mock the 304th for stopping "about a hundred feet this side of a very pretty success," which fills Henry's group with impotent rage. Looking back across the field from his new position of safety, Henry is astonished to realize that a distance that seemed so great is actually quite small--the line of trees from which he and his companions so perilously made their escape seems ridiculously near. As Henry contemplates this fact, the officer who called the men mule drivers suddenly rides up to the group. Accosting the colonel, he berates the men for their pitiful behavior and calls them "mud diggers. This enrages the men, and a murmur rises up from the ranks about the incompetence and condescension of the blue army's commanders. As the soldiers gripe to one another, a few men approach Henry and Wilson, excitement glowing on their faces. They say that they have overheard the colonel of the regiment talking to the lieutenant about Henry and Wilson: the two soldiers are, in the colonel's estimation, the best fighters in the regiment. Though they pretend to be uninterested in the report, Henry and Wilson are deeply satisfied and feel a renewed confidence in the war effort


prompt:
Chapter: When the woods again began to pour forth the dark-hued masses of the
enemy the youth felt serene self-confidence.  He smiled briefly when he
saw men dodge and duck at the long screechings of shells that were
thrown in giant handfuls over them.  He stood, erect and tranquil,
watching the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue
curve along the side of an adjacent hill.  His vision being unmolested
by smoke from the rifles of his companions, he had opportunities to see
parts of the hard fight.  It was a relief to perceive at last from
whence came some of these noises which had been roared into his ears.

Off a short way he saw two regiments fighting a little separate battle
with two other regiments.  It was in a cleared space, wearing a
set-apart look.  They were blazing as if upon a wager, giving and
taking tremendous blows. The firings were incredibly fierce and rapid.
These intent regiments apparently were oblivious of all larger purposes
of war, and were slugging each other as if at a matched game.

In another direction he saw a magnificent brigade going with the
evident intention of driving the enemy from a wood.  They passed in out
of sight and presently there was a most awe-inspiring racket in the
wood.  The noise was unspeakable.  Having stirred this prodigious
uproar, and, apparently, finding it too prodigious, the brigade, after
a little time, came marching airily out again with its fine formation
in nowise disturbed.  There were no traces of speed in its movements.
The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb at the yelling
wood.

On a slope to the left there was a long row of guns, gruff and
maddened, denouncing the enemy, who, down through the woods, were
forming for another attack in the pitiless monotony of conflicts.  The
round red discharges from the guns made a crimson flare and a high,
thick smoke.  Occasional glimpses could be caught of groups of the
toiling artillerymen.  In the rear of this row of guns stood a house,
calm and white, amid bursting shells.  A congregation of horses, tied
to a long railing, were tugging frenziedly at their bridles.  Men were
running hither and thither.

The detached battle between the four regiments lasted for some time.
There chanced to be no interference, and they settled their dispute by
themselves.  They struck savagely and powerfully at each other for a
period of minutes, and then the lighter-hued regiments faltered and
drew back, leaving the dark-blue lines shouting. The youth could see
the two flags shaking with laughter amid the smoke remnants.

Presently there was a stillness, pregnant with meaning.  The blue lines
shifted and changed a trifle and stared expectantly at the silent woods
and fields before them.  The hush was solemn and churchlike, save for a
distant battery that, evidently unable to remain quiet, sent a faint
rolling thunder over the ground.  It irritated, like the noises of
unimpressed boys.  The men imagined that it would prevent their perched
ears from hearing the first words of the new battle.

Of a sudden the guns on the slope roared out a message of warning.  A
spluttering sound had begun in the woods.  It swelled with amazing
speed to a profound clamor that involved the earth in noises.  The
splitting crashes swept along the lines until an interminable roar was
developed.  To those in the midst of it it became a din fitted to the
universe.  It was the whirring and thumping of gigantic machinery,
complications among the smaller stars.  The youth's ears were filled
up.  They were incapable of hearing more.

On an incline over which a road wound he saw wild and desperate rushes
of men perpetually backward and forward in riotous surges. These parts
of the opposing armies were two long waves that pitched upon each other
madly at dictated points.  To and fro they swelled. Sometimes, one side
by its yells and cheers would proclaim decisive blows, but a moment
later the other side would be all yells and cheers. Once the youth saw
a spray of light forms go in houndlike leaps toward the waving blue
lines. There was much howling, and presently it went away with a vast
mouthful of prisoners.  Again, he saw a blue wave dash with such
thunderous force against a gray obstruction that it seemed to clear the
earth of it and leave nothing but trampled sod.  And always in their
swift and deadly rushes to and fro the men screamed and yelled like
maniacs.

Particular pieces of fence or secure positions behind collections of
trees were wrangled over, as gold thrones or pearl bedsteads.  There
were desperate lunges at these chosen spots seemingly every instant,
and most of them were bandied like light toys between the contending
forces.  The youth could not tell from the battle flags flying like
crimson foam in many directions which color of cloth was winning.

His emaciated regiment bustled forth with undiminished fierceness when
its time came. When assaulted again by bullets, the men burst out in a
barbaric cry of rage and pain.  They bent their heads in aims of intent
hatred behind the projected hammers of their guns. Their ramrods
clanged loud with fury as their eager arms pounded the cartridges into
the rifle barrels.  The front of the regiment was a smoke-wall
penetrated by the flashing points of yellow and red.

Wallowing in the fight, they were in an astonishingly short time
resmudged.  They surpassed in stain and dirt all their previous
appearances.  Moving to and fro with strained exertion, jabbering the
while, they were, with their swaying bodies, black faces, and glowing
eyes, like strange and ugly friends jigging heavily in the smoke.

The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a
hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths suited to the
emergency.  Strings of expletives he swung lashlike over the backs of
his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise
impaired his resources.

The youth, still the bearer of the colors, did not feel his idleness.
He was deeply absorbed as a spectator.  The crash and swing of the
great drama made him lean forward, intent-eyed, his face working in
small contortions.  Sometimes he prattled, words coming unconsciously
from him in grotesque exclamations.  He did not know that he breathed;
that the flag hung silently over him, so absorbed was he.

A formidable line of the enemy came within dangerous range.  They could
be seen plainly--tall, gaunt men with excited faces running with long
strides toward a wandering fence.

At sight of this danger the men suddenly ceased their cursing monotone.
There was an instant of strained silence before they threw up their
rifles and fired a plumping volley at the foes.  There had been no
order given; the men, upon recognizing the menace, had immediately let
drive their flock of bullets without waiting for word of command.

But the enemy were quick to gain the protection of the wandering line
of fence.  They slid down behind it with remarkable celerity, and from
this position they began briskly to slice up the blue men.

These latter braced their energies for a great struggle.  Often, white
clinched teeth shone from the dusky faces.  Many heads surged to and
fro, floating upon a pale sea of smoke. Those behind the fence
frequently shouted and yelped in taunts and gibelike cries, but the
regiment maintained a stressed silence.  Perhaps, at this new assault
the men recalled the fact that they had been named mud diggers, and it
made their situation thrice bitter.  They were breathlessly intent upon
keeping the ground and thrusting away the rejoicing body of the enemy.
They fought swiftly and with a despairing savageness denoted in their
expressions.

The youth had resolved not to budge whatever should happen.  Some
arrows of scorn that had buried themselves in his heart had generated
strange and unspeakable hatred.  It was clear to him that his final and
absolute revenge was to be achieved by his dead body lying, torn and
gluttering, upon the field.  This was to be a poignant retaliation upon
the officer who had said "mule drivers," and later "mud diggers," for
in all the wild graspings of his mind for a unit responsible for his
sufferings and commotions he always seized upon the man who had dubbed
him wrongly.  And it was his idea, vaguely formulated, that his corpse
would be for those eyes a great and salt reproach.

The regiment bled extravagantly.  Grunting bundles of blue began to
drop.  The orderly sergeant of the youth's company was shot through the
cheeks.  Its supports being injured, his jaw hung afar down, disclosing
in the wide cavern of his mouth a pulsing mass of blood and teeth. And
with it all he made attempts to cry out. In his endeavor there was a
dreadful earnestness, as if he conceived that one great shriek would
make him well.

The youth saw him presently go rearward. His strength seemed in nowise
impaired.  He ran swiftly, casting wild glances for succor.

Others fell down about the feet of their companions.  Some of the
wounded crawled out and away, but many lay still, their bodies twisted
into impossible shapes.

The youth looked once for his friend.  He saw a vehement young man,
powder-smeared and frowzled, whom he knew to be him.  The lieutenant,
also, was unscathed in his position at the rear.  He had continued to
curse, but it was now with the air of a man who was using his last box
of oaths.

For the fire of the regiment had begun to wane and drip.  The robust
voice, that had come strangely from the thin ranks, was growing rapidly
weak.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: This praise fortifies Henry for the next battle, which he meets with "serene self-confidence. The blue and the gray form for "another attack in the pitiless monotony of conflicts. As the battle rages on, Henry's regiment thins. Great losses of life and energy hamper the regiment, and Henry loses himself in spectatorship for a while. He can only stand and watch the events around him, but does not feel his idleness: "He did not know that he breathed; that the flag hung silently over him, so absorbed was he. Henry maintains his resolve not to retreat, regardless of what happens, thinking that his dead body would be the ultimate revenge on the man who called the 304th Regiment "mule drivers" and "mud diggers. As bullets whir in the air around him, Henry sees the regiment growing starker. Many of the blue soldiers are hit, some falling to the ground in vivid gore. Henry notes that Wilson and the lieutenant are unhurt, but that the regiment's fire is rapidly weakening