An Episode of the American Civil War
 
  Chapter 1

    The cold
          passed reluctantly from the earth,
           and the retiring
               fogs revealed an army
                  stretched out on the hills,
         resting.

    As the landscape
           changed from brown to green,
         the army awakened,
         and began
              to tremble
                   with eagerness
                 at the noise of rumors.

    It cast its eyes
           upon the roads,
         which were
              growing from long troughs
                   of liquid mud
                 to proper thoroughfares.

    A river,
           amber-tinted in the shadow
               of its banks,
         purled at the army's feet;
        and at night,
           when the stream had
             become of a sorrowful blackness,
         one could see
               across it the red,
           eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires
              set in the low brows
                   of distant hills.

    Once a certain tall soldier
          developed virtues
        and went resolutely
              to wash a shirt.

    He came flying
           back from a brook
               waving his garment bannerlike.

    He was
        swelled with a tale
         he had
              heard from a reliable friend,
           who had
              heard it
                   from a truthful cavalryman,
         who had
              heard it
                   from his trustworthy brother,
           one of the orderlies
               at division headquarters.

    He adopted the important air
           of a herald
         in red and gold.

    "We're goin' t' move t'morrah
          --sure," he said
               pompously to a group
                   in the company street.

    "We're goin'
          'way up the river,
               cut across,
             an' come
                   around in behint 'em."

    To his attentive audience
         he drew a loud
               and elaborate
             plan of
                   a very brilliant campaign.

    When he had finished,
           the blue-clothed men
              scattered into small arguing
                   groups between the rows
                       of squat
                     brown huts.

    A negro teamster
         who had been dancing
               upon a cracker box
                   with the hilarious
                     encouragement
                        of twoscore soldiers
            was deserted.

    He sat mournfully down.

    Smoke drifted lazily
           from a multitude
               of quaint chimneys.

    "It's a lie!

    that's all it is
          --a thunderin' lie!"

    said another private loudly.

    His smooth face was flushed,
           and his hands were
             thrust sulkily
                   into his trouser's pockets.

    He took the matter
           as an
          affront to him.

    "I don't believe
           the derned old army's ever
          going to move.

    We're set.

    I've got ready
          to move eight times
               in the last two weeks,
           and we ain't moved yet."

    The tall soldier felT
          called upon
        to defend the truth
               of a rumor
         he himself had introduced.

    He and the loud one
        came near
               to fighting over it.

    A corporal began to swear
         before the assemblage.

    He had just
          put a costly board floor
               in his house,
           he said.

    During the early spring
         he had refrained
               from adding extensively
                   to the comfort
                       of his environment
         because he had felt
             that the army
                might start
                       on the march
                     at any moment.

    Of late,
           however,
         he had been impressed
             that they
                were in a sort
                       of eternal camp.

    Many of the men
          engaged in a spirited debate.

    One outlined
           in a peculiarly lucid manner
               all the plans
                   of the commanding general.

    He was opposed by men
         who advocated
             that there were
                   other plans of campaign.

    They clamored at each other,
           numbers making futile bids
               for the popular attention.

    Meanwhile,
           the soldier
             who had
                  fetched the rumor bustled
                       about with much importance.

    He was continually
          assailed by questions.

    "What's up,
           Jim?"

    "Th'army's goin' t' move."