Favored by the darkness, battery after battery was quietly withdrawn, their respective Army Corps accompanying in Regiments of two abreast.
The movement was in painful contrast to the spirited order that gave such a merry May-day to our hope upon the first of the month. In blouses that smoked that wet night around camp fires kept up for the purpose of misleading the enemy, our men stood discussing the orders, and the counter-orders, and what had happened, and what might happen, from the step. Hooker had credit for the successful execution of his part of the programme. What was wrong below was conjecture then, and does not yet appear to be certainly understood.
"Where is Old Pigey?" said one of a group of officers, suddenly turning to a comrade, as they
stood about one of their camp fires. "He has not been near our Brigade during the day."
"No! nor near the other, except to damn it in such a style as to draw down the rebuke of a superior officer," replied the man addressed. "Follow me, if you desire to see how a 'cool, courageous man of science,' one, whose face, as the Reporters say of him, 'indicates tremendous power in reserve,' meets this crisis."
The two retired, and on a camp stool, with cloak wrapped closely about him, in front of a fire whose bright blaze gave him enormous proportions upon the dark background of pines, surrounded by his Staff, his hat more pinched up and askew than usual, and receiving frequent consolation from a long, black bottle, evidently his power in reserve upon this occasion, the General was discovered in a pensive mood.
"Do you know," continued the officer, "that he reports, as a reason for his absence to-day, that he did not consider it prudent to be near our Brigade during the loading and firing exercise."
"The torturing of a guilty conscience," was the reply. "Our men, as true soldiers, know but one enemy in the field."