n, shaggy fellow
holding, or rather leaning on, a long staff, around which hung a faded
battle-flag. Thinking him out of his place and skulking, they suggested
to him that it would be well for him to join his regiment. He replied
that his regiment had all run away, and he was merely waiting a chance
to be useful. Just then the enemy's advancing skirmishers poured a hot
fire into the group, and the artillerymen began to discuss the propriety
of leaving. The color-bearer, remembering their insinuations, saw an
opportunity for retaliation. Standing, as he was, in the midst of a
shower of musket balls, he seemed almost ready to fall asleep. But
suddenly his face was illumined with a singularly pleased and childish
smile. Quietly walking up close to the group, he said, "Any you boys
want to _charge_?" The boys answered, "Yes." "Well," said the
imperturbable, "I'm the man to carry this here old flag for you. Just
follow me." So saying he led the squad full into the face of the
advancing enemy, and never once seemed to think of stopping until he was
urged to retire with the squad. He came back smiling from head to foot,
and suffered no more insinuations.

At Gettysburg, when the artillery fire was at its height, a brawny
fellow, who seemed happy at the prospect for a hot time, broke out
singing:--

"Backward, roll backward, O Time in thy flight:
Make me a child again, just for this _fight_!"

Another fellow near him replied, "Yes; and a _gal_ child at that."

At Fredericksburg a good soldier, now a farmer in Chesterfield County,
Virginia, was desperately wounded and lay on the field all night. In the
morning a surgeon approached him and inquired the nature of his wound.
Finding a wound which is always considered fatal, he advised the man to
remain quietly where he was and die. The man insisted on being removed
to a hospital, saying in the most emphatic manner, that though every man
ever wounded as he was (his bowels were punctured by the ball) had died,
he was determined not to die. The surgeon, struck by the man's courage
and nerve, consented to remove him, advising him, however, not to
cherish the hope of recovery. After a hard struggle he did recover, and
is to-day a living example of the power of a determined will.

At the Wilderness, when the fight was raging in the tangled woods and a
man could scarcely trust himself to move in any direction for fear of
going astray or running into the hands of the enemy,