All at once the entire rebel line broke and ran down the hill in a wave of dingy brown, while another wave of blue rolled over the works to the right and left of the 200th Ind.
ONE:They all listened eagerly to the reading of the letter, and when it was finished looked for Shorty. But he had gone outside, where there was more air.It was the chill gray of the morning, when every man's spirits and courage are at ebb-tide. For an instant, Si felt his heart sink at the thought of the awful ordeal that confronted them. There came across his mind a swift vision of the peaceful home back in Indiana, with the pleasant fields lying about, over which he used to go on sweet Spring mornings like this and note the flowers that had bloomed over night, and the growth the wheat had made. How sickening to be now starting to open up a hell of pain, wounds, and death. Then his natural courage and will reasserted themselves, and he began rousing the boys, but with a tenderness born of the thought that their hearts would be as low as his in that bleak hour.
TWO:"Just the man," said the Chief Clerk eagerly, "if you go about it right. You're a stranger here, and scarcely anybody knows that you belong to Headquarters. Get yourself back in the shape you were this morning, and go out and try your luck. It'll just be bully if we can down this old blowhard." man again. He's shaky, and talks too much. Bring it
TWO:"Hain't anything to send back home with you, boys, this time, but our love," said one of them. "That's the only thing that's safe now-a-days from bein' stole, because no one kin eat or wear it. Tell the folks to pay no attention to what the paper says. No danger o' bein' run out o' Chattanoogy. Tell 'em that we're all fat, ragged and sassy, and only waitin' the word from Gen. Rosecrans to fall on old Bragg like a thousand o' brick and mash the lights outen him."
THREE:He called: "Dara." It was hard to hear his own voice. There was no answer, and he had expected none: but he had had to call.
