its strength. The men felt insecure and talked among themselves of such tactical errors as with their meager military vocabulary they were able to name. Field and line officers gathered in groups and spoke more learnedly of what they apprehended with no greater clearness. Commanders of brigades and divisions looked anxiously to their connections on the right and on the left, sent staff officers on errands of inquiry and pushed skirmish lines silently and cautiously forward into the dubious region between the known and the unknown. At some points on the line the troops, apparently of their own volition, constructed such defenses as they could without the silent spade and the noisy ax.
One of these points was held by Captain Ransome's battery of six guns. Provided always with intrenching tools, his men had labored with diligence during the night, and now his guns thrust their black muzzles through the embrasures of a really formidable earthwork. It crowned a slight acclivity devoid of undergrowth and providing an unobstructed fire that would sweep the ground for an unknown distance in front. The position could hardly have been better chosen. It had this peculiarity, which Captain Ransome, who was greatly addicted to the use of the compass, had not failed to observe: it faced northward, whereas he knew that the general line of the army must face eastward. In fact, that part of the line was 'refused'--that is to say, bent backward, away from the enemy. This implied that Captain Ransome's battery was somewhere near the left flank of the army; for an army in line of battle retires its flanks if the nature of the ground will permit, they being its vulnerable points. Actually, Captain Ransome appeared to hold the extreme left of the line, no troops being visible in that direction beyond his own. Immediately in rear of his guns occurred that conversation between him and his brigade commander, the concluding and more picturesque part of which is reported above.
III: How to Play The Cannon without Notes
Captain Ransome sat motionless and silent on horseback. A few yards away his men were standing at their guns. Somewhere--everywhere within a few miles--were a hundred thousand men, friends and enemies. Yet he was alone. The mist had isolated him as completely as if he had been in the heart of a desert. His world was a few square yards of wet and trampled earth about the feet of his horse. His comrades in that ghostly domain were invisible and inaudible. These were conditions favorable to thought, and he was thinking. Of the nature of his thoughts his clear-cut handsome features yielded no attesting sign. His face was as inscrutable as that of the sphinx. Why should it have made a record which there was none to observe? At the sound of a footstep he merely turned his eyes in the direction whence it came; one of his sergeants, looking a giant in stature in the false perspective of the fog, approached, and when clearly defined and reduced to his true dimensions by propinquity, saluted and stood at attention.
'Well, Morris,' said the officer, returning his subordinate's salute.
'Lieutenant Price directed me to tell you, sir, that most of the infantry has been withdrawn. We have not sufficient support.'
'Yes, I know.'
'I am to say that some of our men have been out over the works a hundred yards and report that our front is not picketed.'
'Yes.'
'They were so far forward that they heard the enemy.'
'Yes.'
'They heard the rattle of the wheels of artillery and the commands of officers.'
'Yes.'
'The enemy is moving toward our works.'
Captain Ransome, who had been facing to the rear of his line--toward the point where the brigade commander and his cavalcade had been swallowed up by the fog--reined his horse about and faced the other way. Then he sat motionless as before.
'Who are the men who made that statement?' he inquired, without looking at the sergeant; his eyes were directed straight into the fog over the head of his horse.
'Corporal Hassman and Gunner Manning.'
Captain Ransome was a moment silent. A slight pallor came into his face, a slight compression affected the lines of his lips, but it would have required a closer observer than Sergeant Morris to note the change. There was none in the voice.
'Sergeant, present my compliments to Lieutenant Price and direct him to open fire with all the guns. Grape.'
The sergeant saluted and vanished in the fog.
IV: To Introduce General Masterson
Searching for his division commander, General Cameron and his escort had followed the line of battle for nearly a mile to the right of Ransome's battery, and there learned that the division commander had gone in search of the corps commander. It seemed that everybody was looking for his immediate superior--an ominous circumstance. It meant that nobody was
