"I saw it."
"And did they go to their death?" said Daisy, awe-stricken, for Captain Drummond's look said that he was thinking of something it had been grave to see.
"Why yes. Look here, Daisy—here were cannon; there were cannon; there were more cannon; cannon on every side of them but one. They went into death they knew, when they went in there."
"How many of them went there?"
"Six hundred."
"Six hundred!—were they all killed?"
"No. There were a part of them that escaped and lived to come back."
Daisy looked at the pebbles and the guns in profound silence.
"But if the officer knew the order was a mistake, why must he obey it?"
"That's a soldier's duty, Daisy. He can do nothing but follow orders. A soldier can't know, very often, what an order is given for; he cannot judge; he does not know what his General means to accomplish. All he has to think of is to obey orders; and if every soldier does that, all is right."