close and said:
'My friend, if you have any kind regard
For me who suffer more than you may know,
I pray you utter not that name again.'
And thereupon he turned and hid his face.

"There was a mystery I might not fathom,
There was a history I might not hear:
Nor could I further press that saddened heart
To pour its secret sorrow in my ears.
Thereafter Paul was tenant of my tent--
Sat at my mess and slept upon my couch,
Save when his duty called him from my side,
And not a word escaped his lips or mine
About his secret--yet how oft I found
My eyes upon him and my bridled tongue
Prone to a question; but that solemn face
Forbade me and he wore his mystery.

"At that stern battle on Antietam's banks,
Where gallant Hooker led the fierce attack,
Paul bore a glorious part. Our starry flag,
Before a whirlwind of terrific fire,
Advancing proudly on the foe, went down.
Grim death and pale-faced panic seized the ranks.
Paul caught the flag and waving it aloft
Rallied our regiment. He came out unscathed.

"At Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville he fought:
Grim in disaster--bravest in defeat,
He leaped not into danger without cause,
Nor shrunk he from it though a gulf of fire,
When duty bade him face it. All his aim--
To win the victory; applause and praise
He almost hated; grimly he endured
The fulsome flattery of his comrades nerved
By his calm courage up to manlier deeds.

"I saw him angered once--if one might call
His sullen silence anger--as by night
Across the Rappahannock, from the field
Where brave and gallant 'Stonewall' Jackson fell,
With hopeless hearts and heavy steps we marched.
Such sullen wrath on other human face
I never saw in all those bloody years.
One evening after, as he read to me
The fulsome General Order of our Chief--
Congratulating officers and men
On their achievements in the late defeat--
His handsome face grew rigid as he read,
And as he closed, down like a thunder-clap
Upon the mess-chest fell his clinched fist:
'Fit pap for fools!' he said--'an Iron Duke
Had ground the Southern legions into dust,
Or, by the gods!--the field of Chancellorsville
Had furnished graves for ninety thousand men!'[B]

"That dark disaster sickened many a soul;
Stout hearts were sad and cowards cried for peace.
The vulture, perched hard by the eagle's crag,
Loud cawed his fellows from afar to feast.
Ill-omened bird--his carrion-cries were vain!
Again our veteran eagles plumed their wings,
And forth he