halt right there, and allow
the Rebel to come up and smash his head against it, to any reasonable
extent he desired, as he had to-day. After some two hours the council
dissolved, and the officers went their several ways.

Night, sultry and starless, droned on, and it was almost midnight that I
found myself peering my way from the line of the Second Corps, back down
to the General's Headquarters, which were an ambulance in the rear, in a
little peach orchard. All was silent now but the sound of the
ambulances, as they were bringing off the wounded, and you could hear
them rattle here and there about the field, and see their lanterns. I
am weary and sleepy, almost to such an extent as not to be able to sit
on my horse. And my horse can hardly move--the spur will not start
him--what can be the reason? I know that he has been touched by two or
three bullets to-day, but not to wound or lame him to speak of. Then, in
riding by a horse that is hitched, in the dark, I got kicked; had I not
a very thick boot, the blow would have been likely to have broken my
ankle--it did break my temper as it was--and, as if it would cure
matters, I foolishly spurred my horse again. No use, he would but walk.
I dismounted; I could not lead him along at all, so out of temper I rode
at the slowest possible walk to the Headquarters, which I reached at
last. General Hancock and Gibbon were asleep in the ambulance. With a
light I found what was the matter with "Billy." A bullet had entered his
chest just in front of my left leg, as I was mounted, and the blood was
running down all his side and leg, and the air from his lungs came out
of the bullet-hole. I begged his pardon mentally for my cruelty in
spurring him, and should have done so in words if he could have
understood me. Kind treatment as is due to the wounded he could
understand, and he had it. Poor Billy! He and I were first under fire
together, and I rode him at the second Bull Run and the first and second
Fredericksburg, and at Antietam after brave "Joe" was killed; but I
shall never mount him again--Billy's battles are over.

"George, make my bed here upon the ground by the side of this ambulance.
Pull off my sabre and my boots--that will do!" Was ever princely couch
or softest down so soft as those rough blankets, there upon the unroofed
sod? At midnight they received me for four hours delicious, dreamless
oblivion of weariness and of battle. So to me ended the Second of July.

At four