of the Union soldiers on that futile expedition, from the narrow, dusty roads, the frequent scarcity of water, the intense heat.  With infinite fatigue and peril they advanced only five or six miles in a day’s march.  Many died of sunstroke, and many fell by the way utterly exhausted.  There was occasional skirmishing; but one actual battle.  To that the troops gave the name of “the battle of Bloody Bridge.”  Picture a slightly undulating country covered with thick low forest; a narrow road that by an open plank bridge crosses a wide, sluggish stream with marshy banks, and curves beyond abruptly to the right to avoid a low, steep hill facing the bridge; crowning this hill an earth-work, rude to be sure, but steep, sodded, almost impregnable to men without artillery to play upon it; within, two cannon, for which there is plenty of ammunition, and six hundred Confederate soldiers, fresh, eager, determined; on the road in front of the battery, but just out of range of its guns, the Union forces halting under arms, the leaders anxious and discouraged, the men exhausted, careworn, wondering what is to be done next, heartily sick of it all, yet willing to do their best; in the thicket on both sides the road, not sheltered, only covered, within pistol-shot of the enemy, six hundred United States soldiers, a Massachusetts colored regiment, one of the first recruited, without cannon, over-marched, overheated, a forlorn hope, sent forward to take the battery!  These men, stealthily assembling there among the trees and bushes, are ready.  Not one of them carries a pound of superfluous weight.  Their rifles with fixed bayonets, a handful of cartridges, a canteen of water, are enough.  They wear flannel shirts and blue trowsers; numbers are bareheaded, some have cut off the sleeves of their shirts:  they know there is work before them.  Many kneel in prayer; comrades exchange messages to loved ones at home, and give each other little keepsakes—­the rings they wore or brier pipes carved over with the names of coast battles; others—­perhaps they have no loved ones—­look to the locks of their pieces and await impatiently the signal to advance.  The officers—­white men, most of them Boston society fellows, old Harvard boys who once thought a six-mile pull or a long innings at cricket on a hot day hard work, and knew no more of military tactics than the Lancers—­move about among them, speaking to this one and to that one, calling each by name, jesting quietly with one, encouraging another, praising a third, endeavoring to inspire in all a hope which they dare not feel themselves.

But hark!  The signal to move.  Quickly they form in the road, and with a shout advance at a run, their dusky faces glistening in that summer sun and their manly hearts beating bravely in the very jaws of death.  Now the bridge trembles beneath their steady tread:  the foremost are at the hill, yet no sign of life in the battery.  Only the smooth green bank, the wretched flag in the distance, and