In the pit of his stomach a minute. But, after that, it was just like a man falling down. It was all so calm except for their guns and the distant Shake in the air of cannon. No more men were hit, And, after a while, they all got up and marched on. If Rebels had been by the bridge, the rebels were gone, And they were going on somewhere, you couldn’t say where, Just marching along the way that they always did. The only funny thing was, leaving the man Who had made that cough, back there in the trampled grass With the red stain sopping through the blue of his coat Like the stain on a duck’s breast. He hardly knew the man But it felt funny to leave him just lying there.

The wreckage of Bee, Bartow and Evans’ commands streams back into a shallow ravine below a little wood⁠—broken blocks hammered into splinters by war⁠—two thousand confused men reeling past their staggering flags and the hoarse curses and rallying cries of their officers, like sheep in a narrow run.