And so, with occasional episodes of individual interest, with marches and fightings, with extremes of heat and cold, of triumph and defeat, the long months wore away.  These men were soldiers, each in his place in the great war with the record of which all the world is familiar, a tale written in blood, and flame, and tears,—­terrible, yet heroic; ghastly, yet sublime.  As soldiers in such a conflict, they did their duty and noble endeavor,—­Jim, a nameless private in the ranks,—­Surrey, not braver perchance, but so conspicuous with all the elements which fit for splendid command, so fortunate in opportunities for their display, so eminent in seizing them and using them to their fullest extent, regardless of danger and death, as to make his name known and honored by all who watched the progress of the fight, read its record with interest, and knew its heroes and leaders with pride and love.

In the winter of ’63 Jim’s regiment was ordered away to South Carolina; and he who at parting looked with keen regret on the face of the man who had been so faithful and well tried a friend, would have looked upon it with something deeper and sadder, could he at the same time have gazed a little way into the future, and seen what it held in store for him.

Four months after he marched away, Surrey’s brigade was in that awful fight and carnage of Chancellorsville, where men fought like gods to counteract the blunders, and retrieve the disaster, induced by a stunned and helpless brain.  There was he stricken down, at the head of his command, covered with dust and smoke; twice wounded, yet refusing to leave the field,—­his head bound with a handkerchief, his eyes blazing like stars beneath its stained folds, his voice cheering on his men; three horses shot under him; on foot then; contending for every inch of the ground he was compelled to yield; giving way only as he was forced at the point of the bayonet; his men eager to emulate him, to follow him into the jaws of death, to fall by his side,—­thus was he prostrated; not dead, as they thought and feared when they seized him and bore him at last from the field, but insensible, bleeding with frightful abundance, his right arm shattered to fragments; not dead, yet at death’s door—­and looking in.

May blossoms had dropped, and June harvests were ripe on all the fields, ere he could take advantage of the unsolicited leave, and go home.  Home—­for which his heart longed!

He was not, however, in too great haste to stop by the way, to pause in Washington, and do what he had sooner intended to accomplish,—­solicit, as a special favor to himself, as an honor justly won by the man for whom he entreated it, a promotion for Jim.  “It is impossible now,” he was informed, “but the case should be noted and remembered.  If anything could certainly secure the man an advance, it was the advocacy of General Surrey”; and so, not quite content, but still satisfied that Jim’s time was in the near future, he went on his way.