They wait with the certain knowledge that in a few minutes the advancing army will throw men forward, and thus convert its skirmish line into a line of attack; while on their own side they know that their skirmish line, after making all of discovery that temporary resistance can accomplish, will fall back, and that then the crucial conflict will begin. Then comes the uproar of battle,--the dust, the blood, the advance, the retreat, the shock of arms, the murderous volleys of the infantry, the thunder storm of artillery; in short, the final desperate conflict of determined men for the mastery, all of them directed by cool-headed commanders, sitting on their horses at points of vantage for observation, and directing a reinforcement here, a withdrawal of men there, the hurrying of artillery to one point, an onset of cavalry at another, and at a critical moment an up-and-at-them charge with the bayonets. That usually ends matters one way or the other at the point involved. For only two or three times in any war do men with fixed bayonets on one side actually meet in physical shock men armed with fixed bayonets on the other. Wherever there is advantage on either side, the general commanding that side throws troops forward in as heavy masses as possible to make the most of it. If one line or the other be broken, every conceivable effort is made to convert the breach into victory. And if victory comes, the cavalry thunder forward in pursuit and in an endeavor to convert the enemy’s defeat into rout. This is only a general description. I hope that no old soldier on either side will read it. It is not intended for such as they. It is written _virginibus puerisque_, and for other people who don’t know anything about the subject. It is printed here in the hope that it may enable such persons a little better to understand these stories of strenuous conflict. JOE Joe was very much in earnest at Pocotaligo, South Carolina, where a great little battle was fought on the 22d of October, 1862. That is to say, Joe was not quite seventeen years old, was an enthusiastic soldier, and was as hot headed as a boy well can be. We had two batteries and a few companies of mounted riflemen--three hundred and fifty-one men all told--to oppose the advance of five thousand. We had only the nature of the country, the impassability of the marshes, and the long high causeways to enable us to make any resistance at all. Before the battle of Pocotaligo proper began, we went two miles below to Yemassee and there made a stand of half an hour. Our battery, numbering fifty-four men, received the brunt of the attack. Joe had command of a gun. His men fell like weeds before a scythe. Presently he found himself with only three men left with whom to work a gun.