se of Louisburg, knight meeting knight, pawn meeting pawn, each side
giving and taking pieces on the red board of war.

The main intrenchments erected in the defences of Louisburg lay at
right angles to the road along which came the Northern advance, and
upon the side of the wood nearest to the town. Back of the trenches
lay broken fields, cut up by many fences and dotted with occasional
trees. In the fields both the wheat and the flowers were now trampled
down, and a thousand industrious and complaining bees buzzed protest at
the losing of their commerce. The defences themselves were but
earthworks, though skilfully laid out. Along their front, well hidden
by the forest growth, ran a line of entangling abattis of stakes and
sharpened interwoven boughs.

In the centre of the line of defence lay the reserves, the boys of
Louisburg, flanked on either side by regiments of veterans, the lean
and black-haired Georgians and Carolinians, whose steadiness and
unconcern gave comfort to more than one bursting boyish heart. The
veterans had long played the game of war. They had long since said
good-bye to their women. They had seen how small a thing is life, how
easily and swiftly to be ended. Yellow-pale, their knees standing high
in front of them as they squatted about on the ground, their long black
hair hanging down uncared for, they chewed, smoked, swore, and cooked
as though there was no jarring in the earth, no wide foreboding on the
air. One man, sitting over his little fire, alternately removed and
touched his lips to the sooty rim of his tin cup, swearing because it
was too hot. He swore still more loudly and in tones more aggrieved
when a bullet, finding that line, cut off a limb from a tree above and
dropped it into his fire, upsetting the frying pan in which he had
other store of things desirable. Repairing all this damage as he
might, he lit his pipe and leaned against the tree, sitting with his
knees high in front of him. There came other bullets, singing,
sighing. Another bullet found that same line as the man sat there
smoking.

Overhead were small birds, chirping, singing, twittering. A long black
line of crows passed, tumbling in the air, with much confusion of
chatter and clangour of complaint that their harvest, too, had been
disturbed. They had been busy. Why should men play this game when
there were serious things of life?

The general played calmly, and ever the points and edges and fron