It was a dark and starless night.  Tattoo-beat had long been heard, and Hay’s Brigade, weary after a long day’s march, rested beneath the dewy boughs of gigantic oaks in a dense forest near the placid Rappahannock.  No sound broke the stillness of the night.  The troops were lying on nature’s rude couch, sweetly sleeping, perhaps, little dreaming of the awful dawn which was soon to break upon them.  The camp-fires had burned low.  The morrow’s rations had been hastily cooked, hunger appeased, and the balance laid carefully away; but that which was most essential to life had, unfortunately, been neglected.  No provision for water had been made.  The springs being somewhat distant from the camp, but few had spirit, after the day’s weary march, to go farther.  The canteens were, for the most part, empty.

Though thirsting, the tired soldiers slept, oblivious to their physical sufferings.  But ere the morning broke, the distant sound of musketry echoed through the woods, rudely dispelling the solemn silence of the night, and awakening from their broken dreams of home and kindred the whole mass of living valor.

The roll of the drum and the stentorian voice of the gallant chief calling to arms mingled together.  Aroused to duty, and groping their way through the darkness, the troops sallied forth in battle array.

In a rifle-pit, on the brow of a hill overlooking the river, near Fredericksburg, were men who had exhausted their ammunition in the vain attempt to check the advancing column of Hooker’s finely equipped and disciplined army, which was crossing the river.  But owing to the heavy mist which prevailed as the morning broke, little or no execution had been done.  To the relief of these few came the brigade in double-quick time.  But no sooner were they intrenched than the firing on the opposite side of the river became terrific, and the constant roaring of musketry and artillery became appalling.

Undismayed, however, stood the little band of veterans, pouring volley after volley into the crossing column.

Soon many soldiers fell.  Their agonizing cries, as they lay helpless in the trenches, calling most piteously for water, caused many a tear to steal down the cheeks of their comrades in arms, and stout hearts shook in the performance of their duty.

“Water!” “Water!” But, alas! there was none to give.

Roused as they had been from peaceful dreams to meet an assault so early and so unexpected, no time was left them to do aught but buckle on their armor.

“Boys!” exclaimed a lad of eighteen, the color-bearer of one of the regiments, “I can’t stand this any longer.  My nature can’t bear it.  They want water, and water they must have.  So let me have a few canteens, and I’ll go for some.”

Carefully laying the colors, which he had conspicuously borne on many a field, in the trench, he leaped out in search of water, and was soon, owing to the heavy mist, out of sight.