But of events toward nightfall the images are clearer and more sharply defined. The sun is setting, large, red, and fiery-looking, in a dull haze that hangs over the thickly-wooded horizon. We are nearing the ford where we are to cross the Rappahannock. We come to some hilltop, and—hark! A deep, ominous growl comes, from how many miles away we know not; now another; then another!
On, boys, on! There is work doing ahead, and terrible work it is, for two great armies are at each other's throat, and the battle is raging fierce and high, although we know nothing as yet of how it may be going.
On,—on,—on!
Turning sharp to the left, we enter the approach to the ford, the road leading, in places, through a deep cut,—great high pine-trees on either side of the road shutting out the little remaining light of day. Here we find the first actual evidences of the great battle that is raging ahead: long lines of ambulances filled with wounded; yonder a poor fellow with a bandaged head sitting by a spring; and a few steps away another, his agonies now over; here, two men, one with his arm in a sling supporting the other, who has turned his musket into a crutch; then more ambulances, and more wounded in increasing numbers; orderlies dashing by at full gallop, while the thunder of the guns grows louder and closer as we step on the pontoons and so cross the gleaming river.
"Colonel, your men have had a hard day's march; you will now let them rest for the night."
It is a staff-officer whom I hear delivering this order to our colonel, and a sweeter message I think I never heard. We cast wistful eyes at the half-extinguished camp-fires of some regiment that has been making coffee by the roadside, and has just moved off, and we think them a godsend, as the order is given to "Stack arms!" But before we have time even to unsling knapsacks, the order comes, "Fall in!" and away we go again, steadily plodding on through that seemingly endless forest of scrub-pine and oak, straight in the direction of the booming guns ahead.
Why whippoorwills were made I do not know; doubtless for some wise purpose; but never before that night did I know they had been made in such countless numbers. Every tree and bush was full of them, it seemed. There were thousands of them, there were tens of thousands of them, there were millions of them! And every one whistling, as fast as it could, "Who-hoo-hoo! Who-hoo-hoo! Who-hoo-hoo!" Had they been vultures or turkey-buzzards,—vast flocks of which followed the army wherever we went, almost darkening the sky at times, and always suggesting unpleasant reflections,—they could not have appeared more execrable to me. Many were the imprecations hurled at them as we plodded on under the light of the great red moon, now above the tree-tops, while still from every bush came that monotonous half-screech, half-groan, "Who-hoo-hoo! Who-hoo-hoo!"
But, O miserable birds of ill-omen, there is something more ominous in the air than your lugubrious night-song! There is borne to our ears at every additional step the deepening growl of the cannon ahead. As the moon mounts higher, and we advance farther along the level forest-land, we hear still more distinctly another sound—the long, unbroken roll of musketry.
Forward now, at double-quick, until we are on the outskirts of the battle-field.
Shells are crashing through the tall tree-tops overhead.