"
Over the field the beaten soldiers, in ragged gray uniforms, were lying
beneath little bushes of sassafras and sumach, and to the right a few
campfires were burning in a shady thicket. The struggle was over, and each
man had fallen where he stood, hopeless for the first time in four long
years. Up and down the road groups of Federal horsemen trotted with
cheerful unconcern, and now and then a private paused to make a remark in
friendly tones; but the men beneath the bushes only stared with hollow eyes
in answer--the blank stare of the defeated who have put their whole
strength into the fight.
Taking out his jack-knife, Dan unfastened the flag from the hickory pole on
which he had placed it, and began cutting it into little pieces, which he
passed to each man who had fought beneath its folds. The last bit he put
into his own pocket, and trembling like one gone suddenly palsied, passed
from the midst of his silent comrades to a pine stump on the border of the
woods. Here he sat down and looked hopelessly upon the scene before
him--upon the littered roads and the great blue lines encircling the
horizon.
So this was the end, he told himself, with a bitterness that choked him
like a grip upon the throat, this the end of his boyish ardour, his dream
of fame upon the battle-field, his four years of daily sacrifice and
suffering. This was the end of the flag for which he was ready to give his
life three days ago.
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