a hand on it without covering several punctures.  None had escaped.  How the human body survives a storm like this must be explained by the fact that it is exposed to it but a few moments at a time, whereas these grand old trees had had no one to take their places, from the rising to the going down of the sun.  Angular bits of iron, concavo-convex, sticking in the sides of muddy depressions, showed where shells had exploded in their furrows.  Knapsacks, canteens, haversacks distended with soaken and swollen biscuits, gaping to disgorge, blankets beaten into the soil by the rain, rifles with bent barrels or splintered stocks, waist-belts, hats and the omnipresent sardine-box—­all the wretched debris of the battle still littered the spongy earth as far as one could see, in every direction.  Dead horses were everywhere; a few disabled caissons, or limbers, reclining on one elbow, as it were; ammunition wagons standing disconsolate behind four or six sprawling mules.  Men?  There were men enough; all dead, apparently, except one, who lay near where I had halted my platoon to await the slower movement of the line—­a Federal sergeant, variously hurt, who had been a fine giant in his time.  He lay face upward, taking in his breath in convulsive, rattling snorts, and blowing it out in sputters of froth which crawled creamily down his cheeks, piling itself alongside his neck and ears.  A bullet had clipped a groove in his skull, above the temple; from this the brain protruded in bosses, dropping off in flakes and strings.  I had not previously known one could get on, even in this unsatisfactory fashion, with so little brain.  One of my men, whom I knew for a womanish fellow, asked if he should put his bayonet through him.  Inexpressibly shocked by the cold-blooded proposal, I told him I thought not; it was unusual, and too many were looking.

VIII

It was plain that the enemy had retreated to Corinth.  The arrival of our fresh troops and their successful passage of the river had disheartened him.  Three or four of his gray cavalry videttes moving amongst the trees on the crest of a hill in our front, and galloping out of sight at the crack of our skirmishers’ rifles, confirmed us in the belief; an army face to face with its enemy does not employ cavalry to watch its front.  True, they might be a general and his staff.  Crowning this rise we found a level field, a quarter of a mile in width; beyond it a gentle acclivity, covered with an undergrowth of young oaks, impervious to sight.  We pushed on into the open, but the division halted at the edge.  Having orders to conform to its movements, we halted too; but that did not suit; we received an intimation to proceed.  I had performed this sort of service before, and in the exercise of my discretion deployed my platoon, pushing it forward at a run, with trailed arms, to strengthen the skirmish line, which I overtook some thirty or forty yards from the wood.  Then—­I