"Certainly, corporal!" the fine open countenance of the General relaxing into a smile.
"Gineral! didn't we beat the Rebs yesterday?"
"So they say, corporal."
"Don't the river surround them, and can they cross at more than one place, and that a bad one, as an ould woman whose pig I saved to-day tould me?"
"The river is on their three sides, and they have only one ford, and that a bad one, corporal."
"Thin why the Divil don't we charge?"
"Corporal!" said the General, laughing, "I am not in command of the army, and can't say."
"Bad luck to our stars that ye aren't, Gineral! there would be somebody hurt to-day thin, and it would be the bluidy Butthernuts, I'm thinking." The corporal gave this ready compliment as only an Irishman can, and withdrew.
At dusk orders were received for the men to sleep by their arms. But there was no sleep to many an eye until a late hour that night. Never while life lasts will survivors forget the exciting conversations of that day and night. "Tired nature," however, claimed her dues, and one by one, officers and privates at late hours betook themselves to their blankets. The stars, undisturbed by struggles on this little planet, were gazed at by many a wakeful eye. Those same stars will look down as placidly upon the future faithful historian, whose duty it will be to place first in the list of cold, costly military mistakes, the blunder of the day after the battle of Antietam.