The line fell in, the men
getting to their horses and mounting in silence; the Colonel put himself
at their head and gave the order of march, and the dark line turned
in the darkness, crossed the little plateau between the smouldering
camp-fires and the spectral caissons with the harness hanging beside
them, and slowly entered the dim charcoal-burner's track. Not a word was
spoken as they moved off. They might all have been phantoms. Only, the
sergeant in the rear, as he crossed the little breastwork which ran
along the upper side and marked the boundary of the little camp, half
turned and glanced at the dying fires, the low, newly made mounds in the
corner, the abandoned caissons, and the empty redoubt, and said, slowly,
in a low voice to himself,

"Well, by God!"

THE GRAY JACKET OF "NO. 4"

My meeting with him was accidental. I came across him passing through
"the square". I had seen him once or twice on the street, each time
lurching along so drunk that he could scarcely stagger, so that I was
surprised to hear what he said about the war. He was talking to someone
who evidently had been in the army himself, but on the other side--a
gentleman with the loyal-legion button in his coat, and with a beautiful
scar, a sabre-cut across his face. He was telling of a charge in some
battle or skirmish in which, he declared, his company, not himself--for
I remember he said he was "No. 4", and was generally told off to hold
the horses; and that that day he had had the ill luck to lose his horse
and get a little scratch himself, so he was not in the charge--did the
finest work he ever saw, and really (so he claimed) saved the day. It
was this self-abnegation that first arrested my attention, for I had
been accustomed all my life to hear the war talked of; it was one of the
inspiring influences in my humdrum existence. But the speakers,
although they generally boasted of their commands, never of themselves
individually, usually admitted that they themselves had been in the
active force, and thus tacitly shared in the credit. "No. 4", however,
expressly disclaimed that he was entitled to any of the praise,
declaring that he was safe behind the crest of the hill (which he said
he "hugged mighty close"), and claimed the glory for the rest of the
command.

"It happened just as I have told you here," he said, in closing. "Old
Joe saw the point as soon as the battery went to work, and sent Binford
Terrell to the