"
There was hot blood in him also, thought Dan, as he looked at him--and yet
of all the men that he had ever known he would have called the Governor the
most humane.
"I dare say--I'll get used to it, sir," he answered. "Yes, it was a
glorious victory."
He broke away and went off into the twilight over the wide meadow to the
little wayside spring. Across the road there was a field of clover, where a
few campfires twinkled, and he hastened toward it eager to lie down in the
darkness and fall asleep. As his feet sank in the moist earth, he looked
down and saw that the little purple flower was still blooming in the mud.
IV
AFTER THE BATTLE
The field of trampled clover looked as if a windstorm had swept over it,
strewing the contents of a dozen dismantled houses. There were stacks of
arms and piles of cooking utensils, knapsacks, half emptied, lay beside the
charred remains of fires, and loose fence rails showed red and white
glimpses of playing cards, hidden, before the fight, by superstitious
soldiers.
Groups of men were scattered in dark spots over the field, and about them
stragglers drifted slowly back from the road to Centreville. There was no
discipline, no order--regiment was mixed with regiment, and each man was
hopelessly inquiring for his lost company.
As Dan stepped over the fallen fence upon the crushed pink heads of the
clover, he came upon a circle of privates making merry over a lunch basket
they had picked up on the turnpike--a basket brought by one of the
Washington parties who had gayly driven out to watch the battle.
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