Year: 1868

comrades who swept onward to fill theil
places. On, over the piled-up mounds oi
dead and dying, of wounded and slain, to the
mouth of the battery seizing the guns; bay.
oneting the gunners at their posts; planting
their flag and struggling around it: theii
leader on the wall, sword in hand, his blue
eyes blazing, his fair face aflame, his clear
voice calling out, Forward, my brave boys.'
him. Forwardit was. They followed him,
gathered about him, gained an angle Of the
fort and fought where he fell, around his
PROSTATE body, over his peaceful heart, =
shielding its dead-silence by their living,
pulsating ones, till they, too, were stricken
down, then hacked, hewn, battered, mang-
led, heroic, yet overcome, the remnant was
beaten back,


Ably sustained by their supporters, Anglo
African and Anglo Saxon wed together 10
carry off the palm of courage and glory.
All the world knows the last fought with
herolsm sublime all the world forgets this
and them in contemplating the deeds and
the death of their compatriots. Said Ma
poleon at Austerlitz to young Russian Off
Ger, overwhelmed with shame at yielding
his sword, "Young man, be consoled ; those
have titles to glory" To say that on that
memorable night the last were surpassed by
the first is still to leave ample margin on
which to write in glowing characters the
record Of their deeds.


AS the men were clambering up the para
pet their olor-sergeant was shot dead, the
colors trailing stained and wet in the dust
beside him. Ercildoune, who was lust be-
hind, sprang forward, seized the staff from
his dying hand, and mounted with it up
ward. A ball struck his right arm, yet ere
it could fall shattered by his side, his left
hand caught the flag and carried it onward.
Even in the mad sweep of assault and death
the men around him found breath and time
to hurrah, and those behind him pressed
more gallanty forward to follow such lead.
He kept In his place, the colors flying
though fain. with loss of blood and wrung
with agony, up tho slippery steep; up to
the walls of the fort; on the wall itself,
planting the flag where the men made that
brief, splendid stand, and melted away like
snow before furnace-heat Here a bayonet
thrust met him and brought him down, a
great wound in his brave breast, but he did
not yield; dropping to his knees, pressing
his unbroken arm upon the gaping wound,
bracing himself against dead comrade,-
the colors still flew; an inspiration to the
men about him; defiance to the foe.


At last when the shattered ranks fell back,
sullenly and slowly retreating, it was seen
by those who watched him, lying for
three hundred rods around in every form of
wounded suffering, he was painfully
working his way downward, still holding
aloft the flag, bent evidently on saving it,
and saving it as flag had rarely, If ever, been
saved before,


Some of the men had crawled, some had
been carried, some hastily caught up and
helped by comrades to sheltered tent out
OF range of the fire. hospital tent, they
called it, If anything could bear that name
which was but place where men could lie
to suffer and expire, without bandage, q
surgeon, or even q drop of cooling water to
moisten parched and dying lips. Among
these was Jim. He had small field-glass
in his pocket, and forgot or ignored his pain
In his eager interest of watching through this
the progress Of the man and the flag, and
reporting accounts to his no less eager COM
panions. Black soldiers and white were
alike mad with excitement over the deed;
and fear lest the colors which had not yet
dipped should at last bite the ground.


Now and then he paused at some impedi-
ment; it was where the dead and dying were
piled SO thickly as to compel him to make
detour. Now and then he rested a moment
to press his arm tighter against his torn and
open breast. The rain fell in such torrents,
the evening shadows were gathering so thick
ly, tina. they could scarcely trace his course,
long before 1t was ended.


Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself on
rd,-step by step down the hill, inch by
inch across the ground,-to the door of the
hospital; and then, while dying eyes bright
ened, dying hands and even shattered
stumps were thrown into the air,-in brief,
while dying men held back their souls from
the 'eternities to cheer him, ,-gasped out, II
old flag-never once-touched the ground"
and then, away from the reach and sight
of its foes, in the midst of its defenders, who
loved and were dying for it, the flag at last
fell.





Meanwhile, other troops had gone up to
the encounter; other regiments stroye to
win what these men had failed to gain and
through the night, and the storm, and the
terrific reception, did their gallant endeavor
lin vain.


The next day flag Of truce went up to
beg the body of the heroic young chief who
had so led the marvellous assault. 1t came
back without him. A ditch, deep and wide,
had been dug his body, and those of TWEEN
ty-two of his men found upon and about him,
flung into it in one common heap; and the
word was sent back, "We have buried him
with his niggers."


1t was well done. The fair, sweet face
and gallant breast H. peacefully enough
under their stately monument of ebony.


1t was well done. What more fitting
close of such life,-what fate more wei
come to him who had fought with them, had
loved and believed in them, had led them
to death, than to lie with them when they
died?


1t was well done. Slavery buried these
men, black and white, together, and
white in a common grave. Let liberty see
to it, then, that black and white be raised to-
gether In a life better than the old. I-I.