take our battery from
us--every gun, and some of the caissons.'

Another soldier met us, unencumbered with blouse or coat of any kind,
his accoutrements well adjusted over his gray flannel shirt, and his
rifle sloped carelessly back over his shoulder. His eyes were bloodshot,
and his face, all begrimed with smoke and gunpowder, wore an expression
haggard, gaunt, and very weary. He was a sharpshooter, he told us,
belonging to some Missouri regiment, and had been out skirmishing almost
ever since daylight, with not a mouthful to eat since the evening
before. His cartridges--and he showed us his empty cartridge-box--had
given out the second time, and he was 'used up.' In his hat and clothes
were several bullet holes; but he had been hit but once, he said, and
then by only a spent buckshot.

'Boys, I'm glad you're come,' he said. 'It's a fact, they _have_ whipped
us so far; but I guess we've got 'em all right _now_. How many of
Buell's army can come up to-night?'

A hurried, many-voiced reply, and hastening on past a heterogeneous
collection of soldiery--couriers, cavalry-men, malingerers, stragglers,
a few of the slightly wounded, and camp followers of all sorts--we
quickly reached the river's brink. The boat was lying close below.
Twenty feet down the crumbling bank, slipping, or swinging down by the
roots and twigs of friendly bushes, the regiment lost but little time in
embarking. The horses of our field officers were somehow got on board,
and, with crowded decks, the little steamer headed for the landing right
over against us. Two or three boats were there hugging the shore, quiet
and motionless, and there were still more at the lower landing. One or
two of these the deck hands pointed out to us as magazine boats,
freighted with precious stores of ammunition, and the remainder were
now, of necessity, being used as hospital boats. The wounded had quite
filled these latter, and several hundred more of the day's victims had
already been sent down the river to Savannah. One of the gunboats, fresh
from its glorious work up beyond the bend, shortly came in sight, moving
slowly down stream, as though reconnoitring the bank for some inlet up
which its crashing broadsides could be poured with deadliest effect, if
the enemy should again appear in sight.

An informal command to land was given us presently, but many had already
anticipated it. How terribly significant becomes the simple mechanism of
loading a rifle when one kn