Four months after he marched away, Surrey's brigade was in that awful
fight and carnage of Chancellorsville, where men fought like gods to
counteract the blunders, and retrieve the disaster, induced by a stunned
and helpless brain. There was he stricken down, at the head of his
command, covered with dust and smoke; twice wounded, yet refusing to
leave the field,--his head bound with a handkerchief, his eyes blazing
like stars beneath its stained folds, his voice cheering on his men;
three horses shot under him; on foot then; contending for every inch of
the ground he was compelled to yield; giving way only as he was forced
at the point of the bayonet; his men eager to emulate him, to follow him
into the jaws of death, to fall by his side,--thus was he prostrated;
not dead, as they thought and feared when they seized him and bore him
at last from the field, but insensible, bleeding with frightful
abundance, his right arm shattered to fragments; not dead, yet at
death's door--and looking in.
May blossoms had dropped, and June harvests were ripe on all the fields,
ere he could take advantage of the unsolicited leave, and go home.
Home--for which his heart longed!
He was not, however, in too great haste to stop by the way, to pause in
Washington, and do what he had sooner intended to accomplish,--solicit,
as a special favor to himself, as an honor justly won by the man for
whom he entreated it, a promotion for Jim.
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