I once supposed that battles were fought on open plains, with soldiers confronting one another in plain sight, as we set out toy regiments of wooden warriors to fight for children’s amusement.  But since then, in my later years, I have seen the old battlefields of our Civil War and I know better.  Soldiers fight behind trees and barns and fences, and in the shelter of hedges and ditches, and a timbered mountain side makes a fine place for a battle ground.

Now I will quote a passage or two from a certain old book, which tells this part of the story in much finer style than I can.  The old book is a familiar one, and is full of splendid stories for all the year round.  I wish the young people who read this holiday book would make a point hereafter of looking every day in that treasure-house, the Bible.

     And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines,
     named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.

     And he had a helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a
     coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels
     of brass.

     And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass
     between his shoulders.

     And the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and his
     spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron:  and one bearing a
     shield went before him.

And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me.

     If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be
     your servants:  but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then
     shall ye be our servants, and serve us.

     And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give
     me a man, that we may fight together.

     When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they
     were dismayed, and greatly afraid.

     Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem-judah, whose
     name was Jesse; and he had eight sons:  and the man went among men
     for an old man in the days of Saul.

And the three eldest sons of Jesse went and followed Saul to the battle:  and the names of his three sons that went to the battle were Eliab the first-born, and next unto him Abinadab, and the third Shammah.

     And David was the youngest:  and the three eldest followed Saul.

     But David went and returned from Saul to feed his father’s sheep at
     Beth-lehem.

     And the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented
     himself forty days.

     And Jesse said unto David his son, Take now for thy brethren an
     ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves, and run to the
     camp to thy brethren;