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.

 The fog-filled air is full of the noise from muskets and cannons. A new day of battle begins. The regiment is to relieve men in trenches, sitting with their backs to them and listening to the occasional pop of a skirmisher's rifle. Henry peers over at the trees up and down the trench line. Cannons on the right begin to roar with such volume that no one can hear each other speak. They eventually stop, and then the rumors begin to fly. The men say their commanders are hesitating and uncertain. Disaster stories are concocted and they whine about what more they can do. Soon the men are marching through the woods, away from the trenches. The lines of the enemy can be seen through the groves. Now the youth joins in the condemnation of the generals. His words are long and elaborate. He asks rhetorical questions about the strength of the regiment and their fighting ability. Wilson attempts to ameliorate the harshness of his words, saying that maybe the generals should not be fully blamed. Henry asks passionately if the regiment does not fight better than any other, as the general had said yesterday. The friend replies sternly that they do, but they just have bad luck. The youth says that therefore this must be the general's fault. A sarcastic soldier replies to Henry that maybe he thinks that he, Henry, fought the whole battle yesterday. Henry is chagrined and afraid that he is found out. He replies calmly that he did not think that. He realizes that there was no extra meaning in the man's question and that he was just being teased, but he is uncomfortable nonetheless and grows quiet. The regiment comes to halt in a clearing. From the woods in front of them the sounds of firing resound. They simply wait. The gray shadows of the woods stand still. A battery shells the distance from behind them. The youth launches into a protestation of wandering around just to be led into a bad place and beaten by the enemy. The friend says that it will all turn out all right in the end. Henry begins to respond with venom and volume, when the lieutenant lashes out as well. He says the men should quit talking and get ready for a battle. As the sun rises higher, the scent of battle rises. Sure enough, a few rifles flash in the groves in front of them. The regiment stands still, hesitant and tired. They look like men tied to stakes

