"'Well, good luck to them!' said the Captain as we came away; and so say I," finished Jack.
"And I,"--"And I," responded some of the men. "We must see this man when they come over here."
"I'll bet you a shilling," said Jim, pulling out a bit of currency, "that he'll make his mark to-night."
"Lend us the change, Given, and I'll take you up," said one of the men.
The others laughed. "He don't mean it," said Jim: which, indeed, he didn't. Nobody seemed inclined to run any risks by betting on the other side of so likely a proposition.
This talk took place late in the afternoon, near the head-quarters of the commanding General; and the men directly scattered to prepare for the work of the evening: some to clean a bayonet, or furbish up a rifle; others to chat and laugh over the chances and to lay plans for the morrow,--the morrow which was for them never to dawn on earth; and yet others to sit down in their tents and write letters to the dear ones at home, making what might, they knew, be a final-farewell,--for the fight impending was to be a fierce one,--or to read a chapter in a little book carried from some quiet fireside, balancing accounts perchance, in anticipation of the call of the Great Captain to come up higher.
Through the whole afternoon there had been a tremendous cannonading of the fort from the gunboats and the land forces: the smooth, regular engineer lines were broken, and the fresh-sodded embankments torn and roughened by the unceasing rain of shot and shell.
About six o'clock there came moving up the island, over the burning sands and under the burning sky, a stalwart, splendid-appearing set of men, who looked equal to any daring, and capable of any heroism; men whom nothing could daunt and few things subdue. Now, weary, travel-stained, with the mire and the rain of a two days' tramp; weakened by the incessant strain and lack of food, having taken nothing for forty-eight hours save some crackers and cold coffee; with gaps in their ranks made by the death of comrades who had fallen in battle but a little time before,--under all these disadvantages, it was plain to be seen of what stuff these men were made, and for what work they were ready.
As this regiment, the famous Fifty-fourth, came up the island to take its place at the head of the storming party in the assault on Wagner, it was cheered from all sides by the white soldiers, who recognized and honored the heroism which it had already shown, and of which it was soon to give such new and sublime proof.