There was, I remember, no elephant on the boat that passed us across that evening, nor, I think, any hippopotamus.  These would have been out of place.  We had, however, a woman.  Whether the baby was somewhere on board I did not learn.  She was a fine creature, this woman; somebody’s wife.  Her mission, as she understood it, was to inspire the failing heart with courage; and when she selected mine I felt less flattered by her preference than astonished by her penetration.  How did she learn?  She stood on the upper deck with the red blaze of battle bathing her beautiful face, the twinkle of a thousand rifles mirrored in her eyes; and displaying a small ivory-handled pistol, she told me in a sentence punctuated by the thunder of great guns that if it came to the worst she would do her duty like a man!  I am proud to remember that I took off my hat to this little fool.

V

Along the sheltered strip of beach between the river bank and the water was a confused mass of humanity—­several thousands of men.  They were mostly unarmed; many were wounded; some dead.  All the camp-following tribes were there; all the cowards; a few officers.  Not one of them knew where his regiment was, nor if he had a regiment.  Many had not.  These men were defeated, beaten, cowed.  They were deaf to duty and dead to shame.  A more demented crew never drifted to the rear of broken battalions.  They would have stood in their tracks and been shot down to a man by a provost-marshal’s guard, but they could not have been urged up that bank.  An army’s bravest men are its cowards.  The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.

Whenever a steamboat would land, this abominable mob had to be kept off her with bayonets; when she pulled away, they sprang on her and were pushed by scores into the water, where they were suffered to drown one another in their own way.  The men disembarking insulted them, shoved them, struck them.  In return they expressed their unholy delight in the certainty of our destruction by the enemy.

By the time my regiment had reached the plateau night had put an end to the struggle.  A sputter of rifles would break out now and then, followed perhaps by a spiritless hurrah.  Occasionally a shell from a far-away battery would come pitching down somewhere near, with a whir crescendo, or flit above our heads with a whisper like that made by the wings of a night bird, to smother itself in the river.  But there was no more fighting.  The gunboats, however, blazed away at set intervals all night long, just to make the enemy uncomfortable and break him of his rest.

For us there was no rest.  Foot by foot we moved through the dusky fields, we knew not whither.  There were men all about us, but no camp-fires; to have made a blaze would have been madness.  The men were of strange regiments; they mentioned the names of unknown generals.  They gathered in groups by the wayside, asking eagerly our numbers.  They recounted the depressing incidents of the day.  A thoughtful officer shut their mouths with a sharp word as he passed; a wise one coming after encouraged them to repeat their doleful tale all along the line.