THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



hostile bullets. Maybe it was a nudge from the Old 

 Continental within me that prompted me to make 

 my way out Seventh Street, flanking and eluding 

 the guards and sentinels of the Sixth Corps just up 

 from Petersburg, taking a roundabout course 

 through fields and woods, till just before dark I 

 found myself amid the rifle-pits in front of one of 

 the forts, fraternizing with the war-worn veterans 

 who had been hurried up from Grant's army. 



I had really made myself believe that if there was 

 to be a battle I would have a hand in it and see what 

 it was like. I was unarmed, but the soldiers assured 

 me that they could quickly put a gun in my hand 

 when the enemy appeared. There was some firing 

 in front on a hill a mile away, and now and then I 

 heard the ping of a rifle bullet overhead, and a 

 few times the thud it makes when it strikes the 

 ground. They were ugly sounds to me, and to the 

 amusement of Grant's veterans who lay about on 

 the ground, as if they were on a picnic, I presently 

 took to the shelter of the rifle-pits and remained 

 there. Later, when I saw a company of soldiers 

 being hurried off into the darkness toward the line 

 of rifle-flashes along the horizon in front, I had a 

 sudden and vivid conviction that the stuff of a good 

 soldier was not in me, not at that moment, at 

 any rate. 



If I had been ordered to join those soldiers and 

 face that unseen and unknown danger out there in 

 8 



