The Shasta courier., 1865-09-09
An Army Sleeping and Waking.

The Thinking Bayonet, by Rev. Jas. X.
Hosmer, gives us some lively pictures of
camp and battle. Here, for example, is a
vivid sketch of the opening of great battle
in Louisiana:
Battle at last IT'S great army; and at
nightfall it camps in ploughed fields. The
soldier under his shelter tent, or stretched
without cover along the ridge of Il furrow, to
be on the highest and dryest ground in case
of a rain, shouts a joke through the dark !;
then adjusts his piece in the hollow of his
arm before he goes to sleep. The army
camps there, and upon the summit of the
ridges, among trees-rude roads being hasti-
ly cut, and artillery wheeled up to positions
through the stumps. the axles hardly clearing
the distractions. The battery men in their
shirt sleeves, after smoking their pipes, lie
down on the ground by their horses, tall and
stout in their red blankets. The army camps
too, in ravines; tired men, lying in long
rows in the sand in the dried up bed of a
torrent, getting up with limps and growls to
let body of cavalry 90 past, who rattle by
at the heels of Colonel.
The capes and braidings on the officers
dark overcoat show out when he trots past d
little gap, through which the starlight comes
down into the gulf. 9 Boom" from far
away "boom," now and then, from near at
hand 'crack, crack" from the rifles of the
pickets. So it is at night; for friend and foe
on the opposite sides of hills. at the opposite
ends of fields, just across the brook from one
another. alike belted and weaponed, soiled
and wearied, lie under the same canopy.
waiting for daybreak.
Now it is nearly time Enoch Felt, Yam
kee blacksmith, now corporal of cavalry,
hears a rustic in the woods In front; then a
sudden crack and whiz passes his ear. Five
carbines flash in return their sudden spouts
of sparkling fire from his squad then the
yidettes canter back with word that the ene-
my is in motion.
A sound of galloping hoofs far away,
coming nearer; 50 remarks Manly Wilde,
on picket under the gum tree. With gun "a
port, starting up from leaning with back to
the tree, he calls low to the two Sleeping
men lying snoringly, with heads pillowed on
gnarled roots. Now the tramp of line of
men; three guns, one after the other, sharp
and clear in night; then back upon the re-
serve. Forward, the enemy came, here, too /;
the woods swapping and rustlng before the
lines, as they pour after; the foot of an Ar
kansas riheman sinking into the ashes where
Manly last night made his coffee.
A sudden deep boom, then the wish wish
of a shell, a burst overhead; then pause.
while crash through the limbs came the
fragments of iron whist, Biddy what
made We spaik SO airly?'' says Pat Flanagan
rising from sleep on to one elbow, and rub
hing his eyes. "Och it's at the bloody
war l am" as he pretends to recoves his SEN
ses. Hurry up" says Jur Hanscom, whose
turn is on guard, "they're comm, sure; l
heern captain. just now, dressin' up his
company" Bedad." says Pat. '.but be-
fore lave Pll fill me ould kittle here at the
spring in the hollow beyant Never a rib'll
kape me from that nown' So Pat climbs
out in front of the post, slipping down the
bank among the moss and dry leaves, to
the fatstones by the spring. "Clickl" among
the bushes above. 1t is gray now. and the
rebel skrmish lineis hurrying forward A
Mississippi corporal cocks his piece, and ir
a moment, poor Pat has the bullet. He tum
bles his length along the rocks badly wound
od