We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
The Battle
(Biograph)
By ROY MASON
Dancing was more informal in the early sixties. You balanced to your partner then, and if you cut an extra caper or two, you were merely put down as a rollicking blade, and it added to the fun. This was what Lieutenant Harry Chalmers was doing with a will. Resplendent in his bright, new full-dress uniform, he was exaggerating his steps grotesquely opposite Grace Ewing, who swayed gracefully before him. Her eyes shone with laughter, but her only recognition of his ebullition of spirits was to drop a curtsy of exaggerated depth at the conclusion of their dance together. She demurely consented to stroll out into the fields, for this was an afternoon dance. No such revelries could be held at night under such a splendid disciplinarian as McClellan, who had welded an army from the frightened groups of men who streamed off the field of Bull Run the year before. At night the soldiers had to sleep, and obtain the rest which would enable them to take Richmond. The time was just previous to the Seven Days during which Lee gave the North the first taste of what daring, generalship and enthusiasm could do in combination with troops who knew how to shoot and who were accustomed to an outdoor life.
Never was there a stauncher Union patriot than little Grace Ewing. She had recently come down into the Federal lines with the newly formed Christian Commission, and made their headquarters a haven of delight for the young officers off duty. Harry's new coat and bright buttons and the splendid military bearing which months of hard drill in the camps around Washington had given him made an earnest appeal, therefore, to her loyal sensibilities, and when his wooing commenced with that im
petuosity which befits a soldier, she hung back charmingly for only a few brief moments. Then she was enwrapped in his stalwart arms, and blushingly lifted her rosy mouth to his. There was no time to listen to his fervid utterances, which bade fair to consume the entire afternoon. Other partners waited, and they would be missed. Once again he clasped her in his arms, and they turned back to the dance.
Harry stepped out on the porch for a breath of the sweet air of the day which would henceforth be signalized in his life's calendar. Erect and glowing, he expanded his great lungs in the peaceful sunshine. A sudden crash shattered the air, and a shell from the concealed Confederate battery went shrieking over his head. Almost instantaneously, a bugle rang out in proof of McClellan 's thoro discipline. Long lines of men in blue appeared from nowhere. A caisson whirled by on the gallop, struck a rock, overturned, and the body of an artilleryman shot from his seat and struck the house with a sickening thud. Harry plunged forward to where he knew his company must be. The edge of the woods was now blazing with fire, and he found the
THE FAREWELL
33