wood, deployed his skirmishers, advanced them, withdrew them, retreated
but advanced again, ever irresistibly sweeping the board in toward the
base of Louisburg, knight meeting knight, pawn meeting pawn, each side
giving and taking pieces on the red board of war.

The main intrenchments erected in the defences of Louisburg lay at
right angles to the road along which came the Northern advance, and
upon the side of the wood nearest to the town. Back of the trenches
lay broken fields, cut up by many fences and dotted with occasional
trees. In the fields both the wheat and the flowers were now trampled
down, and a thousand industrious and complaining bees buzzed protest at
the losing of their commerce. The defences themselves were but
earthworks, though skilfully laid out. Along their front, well hidden
by the forest growth, ran a line of entangling abattis of stakes and
sharpened interwoven boughs.

In the centre of the line of defence lay the reserves, the boys of
Louisburg, flanked on either side by regiments of veterans, the lean
and black-haired Georgians and Carolinians, whose steadiness and
unconcern gave comfort to more than one bursting boyish heart. The
veterans had long played the game of war. They had long since said
good-bye to their women. They had seen how small a thing is life, how
easily and swiftly to be ended. Yellow-pale, their knees standing high
in front of them as they squatted about on the ground, their long black
hair hanging down uncared for, they chewed, smoked, swore, and cooked
as though there was no jarring in the earth, no wide foreboding on the
air. One man, sitting over his little fire, alternately removed and
touched his lips to the sooty rim of his tin cup, swearing because it
was too hot. He swore still more loudly and in tones more aggrieved
when a bullet, finding that line, cut off a limb from a tree above and