receded it, sounding the signal of his death, and the
battle again going on over the trampled body.

It was not until hours after that the mystery of the white figure was
fully explained. The poor fellow had been a soldier of one of the
Western regiments, ill with fever, and sent on to Harrison's Landing
with the first of the troops who reached the James. In his delirium he
had no doubt heard the booming of the cannon in the morning attack, and
gathered the impression that a battle must be going on and that _he_
should not be absent. He had managed, by some means, to elude the guards
and the few hospital nurses yet spared to the army; had escaped from the
temporary hospital, barefoot and clothed only in his white drawers,
shirt, and a sheet thrown around his shoulders; had made his way,
unseen, through the woods and over the marshes lying between Harrison's
Landing and Malvern; had provided himself probably by means of his still
remaining jack-knife, with that singular but fatal weapon of offence;
and then, nerved with fictitious strength by his fever and the sights
and sounds of battle raging before him, he had rushed into the conflict
as before described, dying a death more noble than the lingering decay
of fever, after working such destruction among the rebel ranks as he
might never have been able to do in the pride of his health and manhood.

And here this extended picture of one of the most important battles ever
yet fought on this continent, must close, except so far as in
side-issues connected with it may happen to be involved some of the
persons more intimately concerned in the progress of this relation.

CHAPTER XIX.

JOHN CRAWFORD THE ZOUAVE, AND BOB WEBSTER, DITTO--BUSH-FIGHTING, WITH
VARIOUS RESULTS--THE BURNING HOUSE AND A STRANGE DEATH-SCENE--JOHN
CRAWFORD BECOMES A MAN OF FAMILY.

It has not yet been our fortune to happen upon John Crawford the Zouave,
in the search for whom we have stumbled upon Malvern Hill and its
fearful panorama of bloodshed. As a member of the Advance Guard, he, was
not likely to be absent from the fierce charge made by his corps at the
close of that day; and he was not. It is at the very moment of the
conclusion of that charge, that the quest becomes successful.

John Crawford participated in that general advance, in the front rank of
the Zouaves, in high health and spirits, and yelling quite as loudly and
discordantly as any of his companions. This was not his first a