battle, as many were carried away as possible. But, during Gregg's engagement, some shells having burst among the ambulances, they had been withdrawn further from the battlefield, and the transport of the wounded went on much more slowly. When the ambulances had carried their sad burdens to a distance, the movement in retreat prevented their return. There remained only the litters which followed the columns in their turn. Many unfortunates had been thus abandoned in the woods. Others lay along the edge of the road, and, suspecting the fate which awaited them, prayed us with moanings to take them with us. I heard soldiers saying, "Do not trouble yourselves; be a little patient. The ambulances are going to return; we are here to wait for them." They well knew that there was nothing of the sort, but they endeavored to spare the poor creatures a few hours of anguish. Perhaps they also wished to spare themselves the painful emotion of hearing their mournful supplications.

Quite near us, a young soldier had dragged himself under a cart, to be sheltered from the rain. He had had his leg shot through or broken by a ball. Whenever any one passed near him, he raised himself up on his elbow, and asked in an injured voice, "Are not the ambulances coming?" "Right away," they answered him; and hurried on in order not to hear any more. Some of the experiences of war are as sad as others are glorious.

The fires continued to burn all along the line. They were carefully kept up in order to deceive the enemy, and to make him believe the troops were still present, where really there was no one. The watches were consulted from time to time. The hours passed slowly; nothing was stirring along the Confederate lines, or, at least, so it appeared to us, for at that hour they were

massing fifteen thousand troops in our front to give us a disagreeable reveille, when Aurora with her rosy fingers but, at that time, they were to find in our lines only the ashes of our extinguished fires.

Not a

. At one o'clock in the morning, the order to retire was sent along the line. One by one, the companies and regiments came out of the woods from different directions, and noiselessly assembled on the road. shot indicated that the movement had been discovered. Every one came out without accident, except one company, of twenty-four men and two officers, who went astray in the woods, and were near entering the enemy's lines. They explained their mistake by saying that they were a part of a detachment sent out to relieve the pickets. The explanation seemed so natural that it turned aside suspicions, to which their capture might have given rise.

It was nearly two o'clock when we withdrew in our turn. Passing the troops massed at the sawmill, we crossed Hatcher's Run a little further along, taking with us a large number of stragglers. At seven o'clock in the morning, we had rejoined the division, and I reported to General Hancock the withdrawal of the pickets without fight or accident. This good result was due in great part to the active and earnest efforts of Colonel Rivers, commanding the Eleventh Massachusetts, who was on duty as officer of the day of the division.

I have related the affair of October 27 with a fulness of detail, because the general commanding does not appear to have appreciated the incidents as I saw them. When a landscape-painter finds his subject for a painting in nature, on transferring it to his canvas, he puts in the lights and shades as pleases him. General Hancock's report was treated somewhat in this

manner, and, in the division of the light and shade, the relief was for the Second Division, and the background for the Third, especially as to what concerned my brigade. The general wished, doubtless, to restore the reputation of the men of Ream's Station, while giving a lesson in modesty to those of the old Third Corps, "who believed they had always done everything." One fact is certain, that the Second Division did not lose half as many men as the Third.

However, it is right, in such case, to bear in mind the lying and exaggerated reports which might lead a corps commander, and even a division commander, to an involuntary error. I had an example of this myself on this occasion. It will be noticed that all my regiments had been engaged excepting one. The Seventeenth Maine, whose colonel was absent that day, had been detached from my command to cover a point of the sawmill road which was thought to be threatened. The next morning, I learned with satisfaction that the regi ment had vigorously repulsed the enemy when he had shown himself. This came from a report addressed to General Mott, by his inspector-general, W., who had been ordered to guide the detachment. He had disposed it in such and such a manner; he had done this and that. He only regretted one thing that he had not had more troops, in order to cut off the rebels from retreating, etc. Some days later, Colonel West having returned, I thought I ought to express to him my satisfaction at the good conduct of his regiment. He looked at me an instant with a surprised air, as if to be sure that I was not rallying him. Then, with frankness, he said, "But, General, my regiment did not see an enemy or fire a cartridge!"

It was true. The author of the report was an officer capable of great bravery; but he was less scrupulous

than brave, and, profiting by a position in which he was out of view, he had represented as facts what was only a might-have-been. His gasconade profited him as he wished. He was only a major; this fine imaginary tale brought him the commission of lieutenant-colonel.

It must be said: these things happened too often in the army. In general, those who are the most boastful are those who do the least, and vice versa. So that rewards are far from being in porportion to merit. Humbug is decidedly more profitable. How many rapid promotions I have seen from no other cause! So that many deserving officers ended by resorting to it in order to have justice rendered to their services, which otherwise would have been overlooked or misconstrued.

General Hancock left the army a few days after the unsuccessful operations against the Boydton road. He was ordered to Washington, to organize a new army corps, which was to be composed entirely of men who had already been in service. But neither the prestige of his name nor the advantages offered were enough to make the project successful. But few regiments were raised, which never entered the field. So that from the month of November General Hancock disappeared, no more to return, from the scene where he had justly achieved a brilliant reputation as general of division and commander of a corps.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

Presidential campaign of 1864 - Cleveland convention- Baltimore convention Platforms Nomination of Mr. Lincoln - Chicago convention - Democratic profession of faith The question of prisoners of war - Barbarities of the rebel government - Nomination of

General McClellan - Desperate manœuvres - Election The army

vote - Counter-stroke by the Confederates - Thanksgiving. WHILE military operations were being carried on in front of Petersburg with an indomitable perseverance, electoral operations were carried on in the North with an indefatigable activity. The nearer the day of election came, the greater the ardor of the two parties in the strife. On their side, the Republicans wished the war to continue until the extinction of the rebellion, and the reëstablishment of a Union consummated by victory and ennobled by the immediate abolition of slavery. The Democrats, on the other hand, demanded the suspension of the war, by a compromise with the rebellion, and the conditional restoration of a Union subject to the pretended rights of the South, implying every reserve in favor of the maintenance of slavery. The first were desirous of reaping the fruits of former sacrifices by means of new sacrifices; the latter wished to accept the total loss of the bloodshed, and the treasure expended, and incur no more. One party would form no alliance with treason; the other would make an alliance with hell itself if it were to their interest. The inspiration of the Republicans was an enlightened patriotism; the moving Democratic idea was a shortsighted egotism.