When the general had joined his staff and escort, awaiting him at a little distance, the whole cavalcade moved off toward the right of the guns and vanished in the fog.  Captain Ransome was alone, silent, motionless as an equestrian statue.  The gray fog, thickening every moment, closed in about him like a visible doom.

II

UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES MEN DO NOT WISH TO BE SHOT

The fighting of the day before had been desultory and indecisive.  At the points of collision the smoke of battle had hung in blue sheets among the branches of the trees till beaten into nothing by the falling rain.  In the softened earth the wheels of cannon and ammunition wagons cut deep, ragged furrows, and movements of infantry seemed impeded by the mud that clung to the soldiers’ feet as, with soaken garments and rifles imperfectly protected by capes of overcoats they went dragging in sinuous lines hither and thither through dripping forest and flooded field.  Mounted officers, their heads protruding from rubber ponchos that glittered like black armor, picked their way, singly and in loose groups, among the men, coming and going with apparent aimlessness and commanding attention from nobody but one another.  Here and there a dead man, his clothing defiled with earth, his face covered with a blanket or showing yellow and claylike in the rain, added his dispiriting influence to that of the other dismal features of the scene and augmented the general discomfort with a particular dejection.  Very repulsive these wrecks looked—­not at all heroic, and nobody was accessible to the infection of their patriotic example.  Dead upon the field of honor, yes; but the field of honor was so very wet!  It makes a difference.

The general engagement that all expected did not occur, none of the small advantages accruing, now to this side and now to that, in isolated and accidental collisions being followed up.  Half-hearted attacks provoked a sullen resistance which was satisfied with mere repulse.  Orders were obeyed with mechanical fidelity; no one did any more than his duty.

“The army is cowardly to-day,” said General Cameron, the commander of a Federal brigade, to his adjutant-general.

“The army is cold,” replied the officer addressed, “and—­yes, it doesn’t wish to be like that.”

He pointed to one of the dead bodies, lying in a thin pool of yellow water, its face and clothing bespattered with mud from hoof and wheel.

The army’s weapons seemed to share its military delinquency.  The rattle of rifles sounded flat and contemptible.  It had no meaning and scarcely roused to attention and expectancy the unengaged parts of the line-of-battle and the waiting reserves.  Heard at a little distance, the reports of cannon were feeble in volume and timbre:  they lacked sting and resonance.  The guns seemed to be fired with light charges, unshotted.  And so the futile day wore on to its dreary close, and then to a night of discomfort succeeded a day of apprehension.