In one of the engagements, when our right wing had been forced by the Confederates; when the loud rebel yells were heard so near that the teamsters of the Sixth Corps were frightened into a panic, and, cutting the traces, ran so far and wide that it was two days before they were got together again; when, to many army officers, it seemed the day had been lost,--as lost it had been, save for the stubborn valor of the Sixth Corps; when many a face blanched, Carleton looked at Grant. There was the modern Silent One, tranquil amid the waves of battle. Sitting quietly, with perfect poise, eyes on the ground, and steadily smoking, he whittled a stick, neither flesh nor spirit quailing. "He himself knew what he would do." And he did wait, and, in waiting, won. Carleton's faith in Grant, strong from the first, was now as a mountain, unshakable. CHAPTER XIV. CAMP LIFE AND NEWS-GATHERING. The story of the Wilderness campaign, during which were fought the greatest musketry battles in the history of the world, with their awful slaughter, has been told by hundreds of witnesses, and by Carleton himself in his books; but the life of the camp and how the great army was handled, how the news was forwarded, and how Carleton beat the government couriers and all his fellow historians of the hour, getting the true report of the awful struggle before the country, has not been told, or at least, only in part. Let us try to recall some of the incidents. In the first place, this was the time of the year when the flies and manifold sort of vermin, flying, crawling, hopping, hungry, and ever biting, were in the full rampancy of their young vigor. It was not only spiteful enemies in human form, that sent crashing shells and piercing bullets, but every kind of nipping, boring, sucking, and stinging creatures in the air and on the earth, that our brave soldiers, and especially our wounded, had to face. Even to the swallowing of a mouthful of coffee, or the biting of a piece of hard tack, it was a battle. Flies, above, around, and everywhere, made it difficult to eat without taking in vermin also. Even upon the most careful man, the growth of parasites in the clothing or upon the person was a certainty. Within twenty-four hours the carcass of a horse, left on the field of battle, seemed to move with new and multitudinous life suddenly generated. The stench of the great battle-fields was unspeakable, and the sudden creation of incalculable hosts of insects to do nature's scavenger work was a phenomenon necessary, but to human nerves horrible. The turkey-buzzards gathered in clouds for their hideous banquet.