These suddenly hushed, when the song was completed, and one poor boy, determined to rouse the drooping spirits of his comrades, was heard trying to sing "Annie Laurie."
This was soon interrupted by some wild fellow, who broke out with:
"Raccoon up a gum-stump, opposum up a holler"—
Next came "Rally round the flag, boys," roared out by half a hundred throats, and all the popular songs of the day were sung as solos, duets or choruses—all, except "Dixie," for this was not a "Dixie" crowd.
"Poor fellows!" sighed Abner, as he lay back on his couch in the wagon. "Enjoy your jokes and songs if you can; it is small comfort that awaits you. Your only beds will be wet earth to-night, your only covering the lowering clouds of heaven."
Night was fast approaching, and the division commander sent men ahead to determine a suitable location for encampment. A field, with wood and water close by, was selected, and the soldiers soon spread over it. Camp-fires gleamed bright in the darkness, pickets were stationed and guards thrown around the camp.
Abner, who was unable to walk without the aid of a crutch, gave his instructions for the night and then returned to the wagon, where he was to sleep. It was not an ambulance wagon, but simply a baggage-wagon, with a couch arranged within for the captain.
The wide, desolate field, with its hundreds of blackened stumps, gnarled snags, and drenched and matted grass, soon presented an exciting and not an uncheerful scene. The artillery and ammunition wagons were drawn up in a hollow square in the centre of the camp, and the baggage-wagons formed a circle about them. Then over all the broad acres of the field, from its farthest hilly border to the ravines beyond, hundreds of camp-fires blazed. The fences for miles disappeared, and roots and snags vanished as if by magic.
Abner was a patient sufferer, and, when the regimental surgeon came with his lantern on one arm and his box of instruments, medicines, and plasters on the other, he underwent, without a groan, the dressing and bandaging, firmly resolving not to have any more sprained ankles to be dressed, if he could avoid it.