The misty darkness around them was filled with noise and motion. Men who had become separated from their regiments were wandering around trying to find them, in the bewildering maze of men, wagons and animals. Officers were calling aloud the names of regiments to bring together stragglers. Aids were rushing around to find Generals and Colonels to give and receive orders and instructions. Regiments and batteries were marching hither and yon to get into position and complete the formation of the line for the morrow's battle. The 200th Ind., which had fallen back in good order with its brigade, was well together, and made an island around which a restless sea of humanity flowed and eddied. Cheer less as was its bivouac in the cold mud, yet it was infinitely preferable to being lost in the inextricable confusion that reigned over those cottonfields on that sorrowful night of Dec. 31, 1862.
"I'm not goin' to freeze to death," said Si, starting up, at last. "I'm going to look around and see if I can't find something to make us more comfortable. Shorty, hold on to that hole in the ground. It's all that we've got left in the world, and if we lose that I don't know what'll become of us."
"Better stay here, and not go wanderin' off into that mob," remonstrated Shorty. "You'll git lost entirely, and never find your way back."
"I'll not get lost," responded Si. "I've got the lay o' the ground in my mind. If I did," he continued proudly, "it'd be easy to find you agin. Everybody knows where the 200th Ind. is."
He went only a little ways, and carefully, at first.
He was rewarded by kicking against an object which upon examination proved to be a well-filled haver sack, which someone had flung away in his hurry. He carried it back, rejoicing, to Shorty.
"Finders is keepers," said Shorty, unbuckling the knapsack. "We'll just call this fair exchange for what we've throwed away in to-day's hustle. Let's open her up."
"Some new recruit's," said Si, as they examined the inside. "Looks like the one I packed from Injianny. What's this? I declare if it ain't a pair o' new shoes, and about my size; and some socks. I tell you, Shorty, I'm in luck."