"Too hard, Colonel, too hard," says the Major.
"Too hard! when results are developing before our eyes, so that every servant, even, in the regiment can read them. Mark my word for it, Major; Lee commenced crossing last evening, and by the time we creep to the river at five hundred yards a day, if at all, indeed, he will have his army over, horse, foot, and dragoons, and leave us the muskets on the field, the dead to bury, farm-houses full of Rebel wounded to take care of, and the battle-ground to encamp upon—a victory barely worth the cost. Why not advance, as the Col. says. The worst they can do in any event is to put us upon the defensive, and they can't drive us from this ground."
"If old Rosecranz was only here," sang out a Captain, who had been itching for his say, and who had seen service in Western Virginia, "he wouldn't let them pull their pantaloons and shirts off and swim across, or wade it as if they were going out a bobbing for eels. When I was in Western Virginia——"
"If fighting old Joe Hooker could only take his saddle to-day," chimed in an enthusiastic company officer, completely cutting off the Captain, "he'd go in on his own hook."
"And it would be," sang out a beardless and thoughtless Lieutenant—
"Old Joe, kicking up ahind and afore
And the Butternuts a caving in, around old Joe."
The apt old song might have given the Lieutenant a little credit at any other time, but the matter in hand was too provokingly serious. Coffee and crackers were announced, the field officers commenced their meal in silence, and the company officers returned to their respective quarters.
The troops rested on their arms all that afternoon, at times lounging close to the stacks. Upon the face of every reflecting officer and private, deep mortification was depicted. It did not compare, however, with the chagrin manifested by the Volunteer Regiments who had been engaged in the fight, and whose thinned ranks and comrades lost made them closely calculate consequences. Not last among the reflecting class was our little Irish corporal.
"Gineral," said he, advancing cap in hand, to our always accessible Brigadier, as he sat leisurely upon his bay—"Gineral! will you permit a corporal, and an Irishman at that, to spake a word to ye?"