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[271]
Then I fell back further to the old battery.
The column was pretty well closed up that morning; everybody seemed to feel it well to be so. I was strongly attached to the old company and particularly to the captain, who was a magnificent fellow.
It was early on a beautiful spring morning, and we were again passing through a tract of undesolated, undesecrated country-greenness, quiet, the song of birds, the scent of flowers, all about us. Captain McCarthy was on foot, walking among his men, his great arms frequently around the necks of two of them at once — a position which displayed his martial, manly figure to great advantage.
I dismounted, one of the fellows mounting my horse, and walked and talked and chatted with the men, and particularly with the captain.
He was altogether an uncommon person, marked by great simplicity, sincerity, kindliness, courage, good sense, personal force, and a genius for commanding men. He had been rather a reckless, pugnacious boy, difficult to manage, impatient of control.
The war had proved a real blessing to him. It let off the surplus fire and fight.
Its deep and powerful undertone was just what was needed to harmonize his nature.
His spirit had really been balanced and gentled and sweetened by it. He was not essentially an intellectual man, nor yet a man of broad education, and he had under him some of the most intellectual and cultivated young men I ever met, yet he was easily their leader and commander; in the matter of control and for the business in hand, “from his shoulders and upward, taller than any of the people.”
And these intellectual and cultivated men freely recognized his supremacy and admired and loved him. He seemed to be somewhat subdued and quiet that morning; even more than ordinarily affectionate and demonstrative, but not cheerful or chatty.
Several of us noticed his unusual bearing and speculated as to the cause.
As the morning wore on and we were leaving our infantry further and further behind, my uneasiness returned; and besides, I had been away long enough from the colonel, so I remounted and rode forward to the head of the column.
He had been very emphatic in repelling my suggestions, but
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