The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-04-08

lines" was my word to them. Order
being restored in the line, took the |
staff officer aside for mutual explana-
ton. He was wrought up to a high |
pitch by the strain Of the long effort to |
find us, along the dark and perilous
front. Repeating that our army was al
ready across the river, and that he had
been sent to direct us to the remaining
ponton bridge, he apologized for his
rashness in delivering his message, on
the plea that he did not know The en-
emy's pickets were so near; andin turn
/ explained the necessity of my rough
treatment of him, to seem to contradict
and countermand him, that the men on
both sides, who must have distinctly
heard him, might be kept in their
places; that ours, especially, should not
buddle in confusion out of the shelter
of their pits, and draw the enemy's fire,
and perhaps an overwhelming attack
upon us.
With manner intended to reassure
their justly troubled minds, the situa-
ton of things and the plan of proper
retiring were made known to the men.
The movement was quickly organized
and executed. Each alternate man was
to stay fast in his pit and dig more de-
mOnstratively than ever, while the
others, each company in charge of its
second officer, should noiselessly retire
to the nearest advantageous ground and
form in extended order faced to the
front, and there stand until the re-
naming line should in like manner
have taken position in their rear, when
they in turn were to retire behind this
second line. In that way we could at
least prevent the enemy from following
us up too recklessly and could come
off the field in good order.
Those who were the last to evacuate
the rife-pits had to use caution, trail
ing their pieces, and with anything but
/ the soldiers erect bearing. We had
black flying clouds broke apart in riffs,
and the moonlight struck us into full
view and the CLEAN of the musket bar
rels made us for the moment shining
mark. "To the ground, every man of
you," and they fell fiat and motionless
at the word. From that time we had
to watch the favoring obscurity of the
flying clouds. We, too, had caught
glimpse of the enemy creeping forward
from their rife-pits and were aware
that they were following us, though
perhaps in their ignorance of the field
and of the meaning of our movements,
quite as scared as we were; and posi-
bly, not wholly callous to the appalling
images of havoc through which we had
to pass. Mangled forms, rent and
tossed as if the maddened beasts of the
arena had run riot among them; limbs
flung from their bodies and half tram
pied into the bloody mire; grim faces,
stark and stiff, into the light of which
struck a more than deadly pallor-a
phantom light as of something neither
dead nor living, with a fiXedness that
was mere than stiffness; open eyes
that saw not, but seemed to see more
than human; hands that still grasped
their muskets with clutch no living
strength could loosen; the ghostly
CLEAN of the scattered musket-barrels
weaving an unearthly web, or bright
sword-blade flashing back as if still
swung by the valorOus arm that had
given it life for its deadly stroke.
Phantasmal martyr-pyres, the heaped,
incongruous ruins of lost battery
horses, caunoneers, dismounted guns,
splintered ammunition-chests, crushed
wheels, overturned carriages, the tongue
erect in the air, the pole-yokes swing
ing gibbet-like on high, looming sud-
denly on you with a shuddering light,
then vanishing as from the earth, when
the swift dragon-cloud smites the face
of the moon, and blackened night swal-
lows up the hideous scene-all save
where on the far edge of the field some
solitary lantern sways and sails, like
the wierd lowering will-o'- the-wisp,
while unwearying love seeks still the
living lost among the dead.
Midway in our course we passed a
house, around which terrible slaughter
had ragged, the wrecks still lying where
they fell. | remember but too well
how the night-wind shrieked and howled
about the desolate walls and rooms
a voice as of innumerable spirits that
could not rise-while some swinging
door or blind sounded like the Tapping
wings of the demon of doom. / do not
think there has ever been moment in
my life since when the sound of that
wind has been out of my ears.
We were able by our orderly move
ment, however hurried, to bring off
such of the wounded as we encountered
on the abandoned field. AT the bridge
lCuu VIC SdtuCltu anu NditCu a ittiS
for all that should pass over before us
and fingered still, as if loath to turn
away, held back by a sigh of the night
wind, like the last wall of the stricken
field, that took the breath from our bos-
: oms and the strength from our limbs.
But the rain fell now in torrents; the
bridge-boats creaked as the swelling
current rushed by; the narrow plank
:, way, bedded with earth to deaden
sound, stretched out into the darkness,
reckoning us to noiseless passage, as
from world to world. For little while
it swayed beneath our tread; men stood
by the anchor lines, few fingered al
the further fastenings. "Cut the
: guys!" the last order fell; the great
pontons swung to the hither shore, and
: the river ran, cold and dark, between
us and our dead that had died in vain
l L. L. Chamberlain in COn1re01tiOndISt