At midnight the Big Black River was reached. Oh, the reinforcements for Bowen were tired and worn! The night was inky, damp, and hot. The ——th Virginia, closing Tracy’s column, must wait and wait for its turn at the crossing. There was a long, old-type ferryboat, and many men and horses swam the stream, but it took time, time to get the whole brigade across! Broken and decaying wood was gathered and a tall fire made. Burning at the water’s edge, it murkily crimsoned landing and stream, the crowded boat slow passing from shore to shore, and the swimming, mounted men. Above it, on the north side, the waiting regiments threw themselves down on the steaming earth, in the rank and wild growth. The ——th Virginia, far back on the road, had a fire of its own. Behind it yet were the guns accompanying Tracy. As the fire flamed up Artillery drew near, drawn by the genial glow. “May we? Thank you! If you fellows are as wet as we are, you are wet, indeed. That last bayou was a holy terror!” “In our opinion this entire night’s a holy terror. Haven’t we met you before? Aren’t you the Botetourt Artillery?” “Yes. We’ve met a lot of people in this war, some that we liked and some that we didn’t! You look right likable. Where—” “Going out to Chickasaw Bayou. Pitch black night like this, only it was raining and cold. Your mules couldn’t pull—” “Oh, now we remember!” said Artillery. “You’re the ——th Virginia that helped us all it could! Glad to meet you again. Glad to meet anything Virginian.” “You’ve been out of Virginia a long time?” “Out of it a weary year. Tennessee, Cumberland Gap, Kentucky, and so forth. We sing ’most everything in this army, but the Botetourt Artillery can’t sing ‘Carry me back to Old Virginny’! It chokes up.—What’s your county?” Company by company, regiment by regiment, Tracy’s brigade got over the Big Black. Foot by foot the troops in the rear came nearer the stream; minute by minute the dragging night went by. Half seated, half lying on the fallen trunk of a gum, Edward Cary watched the snail-like crossing. When one dead tree burned down, they fired another. There was light enough, a red pulsing in the darkness through which the troops moved down the sloping bank to the ferryboat. The bank was all scored and trampled, and crested by palmetto scrub and tall trees draped with vines. The men stumbled as they went, they were so stiff with fatigue. Their feet were sore and torn. There was delay enough. Each man as he passed out of the shadow down to the boat had his moment of red light, a transitory centre of the stage.