to the boys he remarked
sarcastically:

"Fine lot o' marksmen you are, for a fact. Halfa dozen o' you bangin'
away at a hundred yards, and not comin' close enough to a nigger to let
him know you was shootin' at him. Now will you lay down and go to sleep?
Here, Si, you take charge o' this gang and let me go to sleep. I've had
enough o' them for one night."

During the night a train came up, carrying a regiment of entirely
new troops. In the morning these scattered over the ground, scanning
everything with the greatest interest and drinking in every detail of
the thrilling events of the previous night.

"It's just killin'," said Si to Shorty, "to watch the veteran airs our
boys are puttin' on over those new fellers. You'd think they'd fit in
every battle since Bunker Hill, and learned Gen. Grant all he knows
about tactics. Talk about the way the old fellers used to fill us up,
why, these boys lay away over everything we ever knowed. I overheard
Harry Joslyn laying it into about 40 of them. 'No man knows just what
his feelin's will be under fire until he has the actual experience,'
says he. 'Now, the first time I heard a rebel bullet whistle,' and his
face took on a look as if he was trying to recollect something years
ago."

"Yes," laughed Shorty, "and you should hear little Pete Skidmore and
Sandy Baker lecturing them greenies as to the need o' lookin' carefully
to their rear and beware o' rebels sneakin' 'round and attackin'
their trains. Hold on. Look through this brush. There's Monty Scruggs
explainin' the plan o' battle to a crowd of 'em. He don't know we're
anywhere around. Listen and you'll hear something."

"The enemy had reached the ground in advance of us," Monty was
elucidating, in language with which his school histories and the daily
papers had familiarized him, "and had strongly posted himself along
those hights, occupying a position of great natural strength, including
their own natural cussedness. Their numbers was greatly superior to
ours, and they had prepared a cunning trap for us, which we only escaped
by the vigilance of Corpril Elliott and the generalship of Serg't
Klegg. I tell you, those men are a dandy team when it comes to running
a battle. They know their little biz, and don't you forget it for a
minute. The enemy opened a galling fire, when Corpril Elliott gallantly
advanced to that point there and responded, while Serg't Klegg rapidly
arrayed his men along there, and the battle became te