When we went down to the river that day, Captain D----'s company led the line and filled the first boat. The enemy's fire was at its hottest when they were shoved off. Caring always for others more than for himself, he commanded his men to lie down and shelter themselves, but his perilous duty was to direct the rowers and guide the course of the fleet. He stood up to do it better. The risk was fatal; his commanding figure became the mark for many rifles, and he fell before we were half way across. Such a death for such a man was nothing less than martyrdom, all the harder because he knew that hundreds of hearts were eagerly counting the hours that lay between him and a joyful welcome home. But our dear captain was a type. There were hundreds like him in our army who never reached home. In the same boat with the heroic captain was a man from the other regiment who had been a deserter. His conduct in action was to determine his fate. How he managed to get into that first boat I do not know. He must have run far ahead of his own company, but when we neared shore he sprang out where the water was waist deep and, waiting for no one, charged alone up the bank. It looked like sure death; but he escaped unhurt, and I believe was the very first to enter the enemy's works. Of course he secured his pardon. In every battle there are a few heroes of the type with which Stephen Crane has made us familiar, whose ingenuity in finding safe places is amusing, and whose antics make life a burden to officers and file-closers. When we reached the boat-landing the ground was absolutely bare; there was not a bush, or tree, or rock; the only possible shelter from the leaden hail was a spring,--a mere mud hole, perhaps three feet in diameter. By lying down and curling himself up in the mud and water a man might fit into it. If the desirability of land is the measure of its value, then that mud hole was priceless, for it was occupied every minute and each occupant was envied by other would-be tenants. As I came down the hill I saw one of these fellows who had just been routed out. A bullet had pierced his arm as he rose from his muddy bed, and he was dancing with pain, clasping his wounded arm with his unhurt hand and muttering angry curses upon the officer who had disturbed his repose. The vacant place was instantly taken by an old gray-bearded fellow from my own company. Over him stood the major, punching the man with his sword, and accentuating each prod with an appropriate remark. "Come, Peter [a prod], get out of this [prod]; your life is not worth any more than mine!" (final prod). And Peter slowly arose. It makes me laugh now, as it did then, to see his white, scared face gazing agape at the major, the mud and water dripping in festoons from his hair, his beard, and his clothes.