Among the many who had lost chums and friends was Ned Johnson, of Company K. Ned was a young Englishman, with much of the suggestiveness of the bull-dog common to the lower class of that nation.  His fist was readier than his tongue.  His chum, Walter Savage was of the same surly type.  The two had come from England twelve years before, and had been together ever since.  Savage was killed in the struggle for the fence described in the preceding chapter.  Ned could not realize for a while that his friend was dead.  It was only when the body rapidly stiffened on its icy bed, and the eyes which had been gleaming deadly hate when he was stricken down were glazed over with the dull film of death, that he believed he was gone from him forever.  Then his rage was terrible.  For the rest of the day he was at the head of every assault upon the enemy.  His voice could ever be heard above the firing, cursing the Rebels bitterly, and urging the boys to “Stand up to ’em!  Stand right up to ’em!  Don’t give a inch!  Let them have the best you got in the shop!  Shoot low, and don’t waste a cartridge!”

When we surrendered, Ned seemed to yield sullenly to the inevitable.  He threw his belt and apparently his revolver with it upon the snow.  A guard was formed around us, and we gathered about the fires that were started.  Ned sat apart, his arms folded, his head upon his breast, brooding bitterly upon Walter’s death.  A horseman, evidently a Colonel or General, clattered up to give some directions concerning us.  At the sound of his voice Ned raised his head and gave him a swift glance; the gold stars upon the Rebel’s collar led him to believe that he was the commander of the enemy.  Ned sprang to his feet, made a long stride forward, snatched from the breast of his overcoat the revolver he had been hiding there, cocked it and leveled it at the Rebel’s breast.  Before he could pull the trigger Orderly Sergeant Charles Bentley, of his Company, who was watching him, leaped forward, caught his wrist and threw the revolver up.  Others joined in, took the weapon away, and handed it over to the officer, who then ordered us all to be searched for arms, and rode away.

All our dejection could not make us forget that we were intensely hungry.  We had eaten nothing all day.  The fight began before we had time to get any breakfast, and of course there was no interval for refreshments during the engagement.  The Rebels were no better off than we, having been marched rapidly all night in order to come upon us by daylight.

Late in the evening a few sacks of meal were given us, and we took the first lesson in an art that long and painful practice afterward was to make very familiar to us.  We had nothing to mix the meal in, and it looked as if we would have to eat it dry, until a happy thought struck some one that our caps would do for kneading troughs.  At once every cap was devoted to this.  Getting water from an adjacent