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[135]

‘The shadowy forms of horses’ These scenes from a bivouac of McClellan's army, in 1862, reveal, in much the same spirit as Whitman's poem, the actual life of the soldier. At the end of a hard day's march, officers and men were tired, and horses and mules were willing to be unhitched and to nibble on the fodder by the wagon-tongue, or in the rear of the vehicle. The teamsters, meanwhile, were gathered about the twinkling camp-fires that Whitman brings before our eyes. Night will soon fall, and the army will pass into the land of dreams. Little it realizes the dangers of the road to Richmond.

 

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