A broken
fence rail was ablaze in the centre of the group, and as the red light fell
on each soiled and unshaven face, it stood out grotesquely from the
surrounding gloom. Some were slightly wounded, some had merely scented the
battle from behind the hill--all were drinking rare wine in honour of the
early ending of the war. As Dan looked past them over the darkening meadow,
where the returning soldiers drifted aimlessly across the patches of red
light, he asked himself almost impatiently if this were the pure and
patriotic army that held in its ranks the best born of the South? To him,
standing there, it seemed but a loosened mass, without strength and without
cohesion, a mob of schoolboys come back from a sham battle on the college
green. It was his first fight, and he did not know that what he looked upon
was but the sure result of an easy victory upon the undisciplined ardour of
raw troops--that the sinews of an army are wrought not by a single trial,
but by the strain of prolonged and strenuous endeavour.
"I say, do you reckon they'll lemme go home ter-morrow?" inquired a
slightly wounded man in the group before him. "Thar's my terbaccy needs
lookin' arter or the worms 'ull eat it clean up 'fo' I git thar." He shook
the shaggy hair from his face, and straightened the white cotton bandage
about his chin. On the right side, where the wound was, his thick sandy
beard had been cut away, and the outstanding tuft on his left cheek gave
him a peculiarly ill-proportioned look.
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