I
This is a simple story of a battle; such a tale as may be told by a
soldier who is no writer to a reader who is no soldier.
The morning of Sunday, the sixth day of April, 1862, was bright and warm.
Reveille had been sounded rather late, for the troops, wearied with long
marching, were to have a day of rest. The men were idling about the embers
of their bivouac fires; some preparing breakfast, others looking
carelessly to the condition of their arms and accoutrements, against the
inevitable inspection; still others were chatting with indolent dogmatism
on that never-failing theme, the end and object of the campaign. Sentinels
paced up and down the confused front with a lounging freedom of mien and
stride that would not have been tolerated at another time. A few of them
limped unsoldierly in deference to blistered feet. At a little distance in
rear of the stacked arms were a few tents out of which frowsy-headed
officers occasionally peered, languidly calling to their servants to fetch
a basin of water, dust a coat or polish a scabbard. Trim young mounted
orderlies, bearing dispatches obviously unimportant, urged their lazy nags
by devious ways amongst the men, enduring with unconcern their
good-humored raillery, the penalty of superior station. Little negroes of
not very clearly defined status and function lolled on their stomachs,
kicking their long, bare heels in the sunshine, or slumbered peacefully,
unaware of the practical waggery prepared by white hands for their
undoing.
Presently the flag hanging limp and lifeless at headquarters was seen to
lift itself spiritedly from the staff. At the same instant was heard a
dull, distant sound like the heavy breathing of some great animal below
the horizon. The flag had lifted its head to listen. There was a momentary
lull in the hum of the human swarm; then, as the flag drooped the hush
passed away. But there were some hundreds more men on their feet than
before; some thousands of hearts beating with a quicker pulse.
Again the flag made a warning sign, and again the breeze bore to our ears
the long, deep sighing of iron lungs. The division, as if it had received
the sharp word of command, sprang to its feet, and stood in groups at
"attention." Even the little blacks got up. I have since seen similar
effects produced by earthquakes; I am not sure but the ground was
trembling then. The mess-cooks, wise in their generation, lifted the
steaming camp-kettles off the fire and stood by to cast out. The mounted
orderlies had somehow disappeared. Officers came ducking from beneath
their tents and gathered in groups. Headquarters had become a swarming
hive.
The sound of the great guns now came in regular throbbings--the strong,
full pulse of the fever of battle. The flag flapped excitedly, shaking out
its blazonry of stars and stripes with a sort of fierce delight. Toward
the knot of officers in its shadow dashed from somewhere--he seemed to
have burst out of the ground in a cloud of dust--a mounted aide-de-camp,
and on the instant rose the sharp, clear notes of a bugle, caught up and
repeated, and passed on by other bugles, until the level reaches of brown
fields, the line of woods trending away to far hills, and the unseen
valleys beyond were "telling of the sound," the farther, fainter strains
half drowned in ringing cheers as the men ran to range themselves behind
the stacks of arms. For this call was not the wearisome "general" before
which the tents go down; it was the exhilarating "assembly," which goes to
the heart as wine and stirs the blood like the kisses of a beautiful
woman. Who that has heard it calling to him above the grumble of great
guns can forget the wild intoxication of its music?