Shiloh by Shelby Foote Page B

there whimpering with the captain's blood all over him. So I brought him
back here with me to see could he get himself together again. But he don’t seem
to be doing so good, does he?"
    He reached down and stroked the dog on the muzzle, but Bango
didn’t pay him any heed. He just lay there, belly close to the sand, breathing
quick Little breaths up high in his throat, eyes all rimmed with red. I could see
his hide quiver under the dried blood.
    I said, “ Whyn’t you take him down
to the river and wash him off?"
    "Well, I Don’t know," the Ohio man said. "I
think maybe if he gets another shock he might start snap-
    Seeing the size of those jaws, I couldn’t blame him. After
all, when you came right down to it, he was a Rebel dog anyhow. There was no
telling what he'd do.
    The other three men had told their stories, and they were
all three pretty much the same. They told how they had stayed in line and
fought till they saw it was no use staying, and went. I told how it had been
with me, how I hung on till things came to pieces that third time, and then
walked off the same as the others had done. I told them what Sergeant
Buterbaugh had said about the men that were walking away, that they weren’t
necessarily cowards; they were just demoralized from losing their confidence.
That was when this Michigander said it was all hogwash. We were all cowards back here, he said—and then wouldn’t
get up and fight.
    When it began we were in position on the right of the
Corinth road at the edge of a strip of woods where our tents were pitched.
There was a big open field on the left of the road. Captain Hickenlooper's Ohio
battery was advanced into the field. The infantry was in camp along our front
and some more were in our rear. We'd been there two days.
    At three o’clock that morning I lay warm in my blankets and
heard the advance party going out on a scout. I knew the time for I took out
granddaddy's watch and looked at it. This party was going out because General
Prentiss had had a feeling all the day before that something spooky was going
on out front. I went back to sleep then, feeling glad I was in the artillery
and didn’t have to be up beating the bushes for rebs at blue o’clock in the
morning. Almost before I had time to know I was asleep I heard them coming back
and the long roll sounding.
    By sunup we were posted at the guns, watching the infantry
come past. They had a serious look on their faces but they still could Joke
with us. "You easy-living boys had better get set," they said.
"There's johnnies out there thicker than fleas on a billy goat in a barnlot."
    We didn’t see them, though, for a long time. This was what
we'd been training for all those weeks of rollcall and drill, greasing caissons
and gun carriages, tending the horses and standing inspection, cleaning limber
chests and sorting ammunition. We were downright glad
it had come, and all the fellows began making jokes at one another about who
was going to funk it. The Hickenlooper boys would call over to us, wanting to
know how Minnesota was feeling today, and we'd call back, telling them they’d
better be worrying about Ohio; Minnesota was all right; Minnesota could take
care of herself.
    All this time there was a ruckus over on the right. It
rolled back and forth, getting louder and more furious with yelling mixed up in
it. But still they didn’t come. We kept expecting word to limber and move in
the direction of the firing. We didn’t like it, waiting that way. It was the
same old story—hurry up; wait —while the sound of the shooting swelled and died
and swelled again. Everybody began asking questions:
    "Ain’t they coming this way, Butterball?"
    "Yair, sergeant: when are they coming this way?"
    "Bide your time," he said. "They’ll be here
all right."
    "I wish if they was coming they’d come on."
    "They’ll be here," Sergeant Buterbaugh said.
    He was a college man, up for a commission, and to tell the
truth I never liked him. But he had a