The boy felt stiff and sore in every bone and muscle, and,
although the cannon and rifles were silent, there was still a hollow
roaring in his ears. His eyes were yet dim from the smoke, and his head
felt heavy and dull. He gazed vacantly at the forest in front of him,
and wondered dimly why the Southern army was not still there, attacking,
as it had attacked for so many hours.
But the deep woods were silent and empty. Coils and streamers of smoke
floated about among the trees, and suddenly a gray squirrel hopped out
on a bough and began to chatter wildly. Dick, despite himself, laughed,
but the laugh was hysterical. He could appreciate the feelings of the
squirrel, which probably had been imprisoned in a hollow of the tree all
day long, listening to this tremendous battle, and squirrels were not
used to such battles. It was a trifle that made him laugh, but
everything was out of proportion now. Life did not go on in the usual
way at all. The ordinary occupations were gone, and people spent most
of their time trying to kill one another.
He rubbed his hands across his eyes and cleared them of the smoke.
The battle was certainly over for the day at least, and neither he
nor his comrades had sufficient vitality yet to think of the morrow.
The twilight was fast deepening into night. The last rosy glow of the
sun faded, and thick darkness enveloped the vast forest, in which twenty
thousand men had fallen, and in which most of them yet lay, the wounded
with the dead.
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