and commanding powers. His army was an army at last in fact
as well as in name--a compact and terrible fighting machine. The
oncoming Confederate hosts learned this to their sorrow again and again
in the five terrible days which followed.

On July 1st, McClellan reached the shelter of his gunboats and
intrenched himself on the heights of Malvern Hill. On its summit he
placed tier after tier of batteries swung in crescent line, commanding
every approach. Surmounting those on the highest point he planted seven
of his great siege guns. His army surrounded this hill, its left flank
resting on the James and covered by his gunboats.

It was late in the afternoon before Lee ordered a general attack. The
grey army was floundering in the mud in a vain effort to reach its
fleeing enemy in force. At noon they were still burying the dead on the
blood-soaked field of Glendale where McClellan's gallant rear guard had
stood until the last wagon train had safely arrived at Malvern Hill.

Ned Vaughan's company had been hurried from the West to the defense of
Richmond, and reached the field on the night of the 30th, too late for
the battle of Glendale, but in time to walk over its scarred soil in the
soft moonlight and get his first glimpse of war. He was yet to see a
battle.

A group of grey schoolboy comrades were burying one of their number
beneath a tall pine in the edge of an old field. He joined the circle
and watched them. They dug the grave with their bayonets, tenderly
wrapped the body in the battle flag of the South and covered it with
their hands. One of them recited a beautiful Psalm from memory, and not
a word was spoken as they drew the damp earth up into a mound. A
whip-poor-will began his song in the edge of the woods as he passed on.

A few yards further a man in grey was cutting a forked limb into a
crutch. Something dark lay huddled on the brown straw. It was a wounded
man in blue. The Southerner lifted his enemy, and placed the crutch
under him.

"Now, partner," he said cheerfully, "you're all right. You'll find the
hospital down there by them lights. They'll look out for ye."

Ned wondered vaguely how he would really feel under his first baptism of
fire. He was only a private soldier in this company which had been
ordered East. He had resigned from the first he had helped to raise--the
ambitions and intrigues of its officers had aroused his disgust and he
had taken a place in the ranks of the first company se