k
came in the morning.

Hill, thin and pale, yet suffering from the effects of his wounds,
but burning as usual with the fire of battle, rode up and consulted long
and earnestly with Lee. Presently he went back to his own place nearer
the center, and then Lee began to send away his staff one by one with
messages. Harry was among the last to go, but he bore a dispatch to
Longstreet.

He had heard that Longstreet had criticized Lee for ordering Pickett's
famous charge at Gettysburg, but if so, Lee had taken no notice of it,
and Longstreet had proved himself the same stalwart fighter as of old.
He and the prompt arrival of his veterans had enabled Bragg to win
Chickamauga, and it was not Longstreet's fault that the advantage gained
there was lost afterward. Now Harry knew that he would be up in time
with his seasoned veterans.

As the young lieutenant rode away he saw General Lee walking back and
forth before the low fire, his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes
as serious as those of any human being could be. Harry appreciated the
immensity of his task, and in his heart was a sincere pity for the man
who bore so great a burden. He was familiar with the statement that to
Lee had been offered the command of the Northern armies at the beginning
of the war, but believing his first duty was to his State he had gone
with Virginia when Virginia reluctantly went out of the Union. Truly no
one could regret the war more than he, and yet he had struck giant blows
for its success.

A moment more and the tall figure standing beside the low fire was
lost to sight. Then Harry rode among the thickets in the rear of the
Confederate line and it was a weird and ghastly ride. Now and then his
horse's feet sank in mud, and the frogs still dared to croak around the
pools, making on such a night the most ominous of all sounds. It seemed
a sort of funeral dirge for both North and South, a croak telling of the
ruin and death that were to come on the morrow.

Damp boughs swept across his face, and the vapors, rising from the earth
and mingled with the battle smoke, were still bitter to the tongue and
poisonous to the breath. Rotten logs crushed beneath his horse's feet
and Harry felt a shiver as if the hoofs had cut through a body of the
dead. Riflemen rose out of the thickets, but he always gave them the
password, and rode on without stopping.

Then came a space where he met no human being, the gap between Hill and
Longstree