It is said that a word may change a life. Actually? No, not of itself; the life which is changed must be ready for the word, else we were creatures dominated by our surroundings.
I had been a fragment,--a sort of moral flotsam cast up by an unknown sea,--and I had found a rude harbour in Company H. If I touched a larger world, it was only through the medium of the company in its relations to that world. I had formed some attachments,--ties which have lasted through life thus far, and will always last,--but these attachments were immediate only, and, so far as I felt, were almost baseless; for not directly could I see and feel what was felt by the men I loved. Outside the narrow bounds of the company my world was all abstract. I fought for that world, for it appealed to my reason; but it was with effort that I called before my mind that world, which was a very present help to every other man. The one great fact was war; the world was an ideal world rather than a reality. And I frequently felt that, although the ideal after all is the only reality, yet that reality to me must be lacking in the varying quality of light, and the delicate degrees of sweetness and truth which home and friends and all the material good of earth were said to assume for charming their possessors. The day brought me into contact with men; the night left me alone with myself. In my presence men spoke of homes far away, of mothers, of sisters, of wives and children. I could see how deep was the interest which moved them to speak, and, in a measure, they had my sympathy; yet such interest was mystery rather than fact, theoretical rather than practical. I could fill these pages with pathetic and humorous sayings heard in the camps, for my memory peculiarly exerted itself to retain--or rather, I should say, spontaneously retained--what I saw and heard; saw and heard with the least emotion, perhaps, ever experienced by a soldier. Absorbed in reflections on what I heard, and in fancies of a world of which I knew so little, it is not to be doubted that I constructed ideals far beyond the humdrum reality of home life, impracticable ideals that tended only to separate me more from other men. Their world was not my world; this I knew full well, and I sometimes thought they knew it; for while no rude treatment marked their intercourse with me, yet few sought me as a friend. My weak attempts to become companionable had failed and had left me more morose. But for the Captain and for Joe Bellot, I should have been hopeless.
Such had been my feelings before I had willed; now, in a degree, everything was changed; indifference, at least, was gone, and although I was yet subject to the strange experience which ruled my mind and hindered it, yet I knew that I had large power over myself, and I hoped that I should always determine to live the life of a healthy human being, that I should be able to accept the relationships which, through Company H, bound me to all men and all things, and that my interest henceforth would be diversified--touching the world and what is in it rather than myself alone. But this was mere hope; the only certain change was in the banishment of my former indifference.
The morning of Thursday, the 26th of June, passed away, and we yet held our place in the line. At two o'clock the long roll was heard in every regiment. Our knapsacks had been piled, to be stored in Richmond.
"Fall in, Company H! Fall in, men! Fall in promptly!" shouted Orderly-sergeant Mackay.
By fours we went to rear and left, then northward at a rapid stride. Some of the men tried to jest, and failed.
At three o'clock we were crossing Meadow Bridge; we could see before us and behind us long lines of infantry--Lee's left wing in motion.
Beyond the bridge the column filed right; A.P. Hill came riding back along the line of the Light Division.
Suddenly, from over the hills a mile and more away, comes the roar of cannon. We leave the road and march through fields and meadows; the passing of the troops ahead has cleared the way; we go through gaps in rail fences.