more and
more hazard with fatigue and privation, weak and slender forms falling
from the ranks, cowards and traitors skulking to the rear, till at
length on the banks of the river stood an army, hungry, footsore,
marchworn, but plucky, and ready for any service that might be required
of them, even if that service were but to 'march up the hill and then
march down again'--what was left of them.

An atom in the moving mass of blue, Clement Moore shared the pontoon
crossing, was silent through the storms of cheers that greeted each
regiment as they splashed over and up the bank, and, drawn up in line of
battle at last, surveyed the field without a pulsation of emotion. Other
men about him chafed at the restraint; he stood motionless, with eyes a
thousand miles away. And when the advance sounded, and the line started
with a cheer, no sound passed his lips. A half-unconscious prayer went
up that he might fall there, and have it over with this life battle,
that had gone so sorely against him. He moved as in a dream. The whirl
and roar of battle swept around and by him; he charged with the
fiercest, saw the blue lines reel and break only to close up and charge
again, took his life in his hand a dozen times, and stood at length with
the few who held that first line of rifle pits, gazing in each other's
faces in the momentary lull, and wondering at their own existence. Then
came a shock, shivers of red-hot pain ran through every nerve, and
then--blissful, cool unconsciousness. Captain George, galloping by, with
the red glare of battle on his face, saw the fall, and halted. A half
dozen ready hands swung the body to his saddle. For a little the tide of
battle eddied away, and in the comparative quiet, George tore down the
hill to a spring bubbling out under the cedars.

The darkness that wrapped the wounded man dissolved gradually. The
thunder and crash of guns, the mad cheers, the confusion of the bands
withdrew farther and farther, and drifted away from his failing senses.
He was back in his Southern home; the arm under his head was his
mother's; and he murmured some boyish request. Jasmine and clematis
oppressed him with their oversweetness; overhead the shining leaves of
the magnolia swung with slow grace. So long since he had seen a
magnolia, not since that evening--a life time ago, it seemed; the sight
and fragrance fell on him as her cool touch did that last time. The
heart throbs choked him then; he was choking again. 'W