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“What is it, Harris?” said the Colonel to the man with the paper, who bore remnants of the chevrons of a sergeant on his stained and faded jacket.

“If you please, sir,” he said, with a salute, “we have been talking it over, and we’d like this paper to go in along with that you’re writing.” He held it out to the lieutenant, who was the nearer and had reached forward to take it. “We s’pose you’re agoin’ to bury it with the guns,” he said, hesitatingly, as he handed it over.

“What is it?” asked the Colonel, shading his eyes with his hands.

“It’s just a little list we made out in and among us,” he said, “with a few things we’d like to put in, so’s if anyone ever hauls ’em out they’ll find it there to tell what the old battery was, and if they don’t, it’ll be in one of ’em down thar ’til judgment, an’ it’ll sort of ease our minds a bit.” He stopped and waited as a man who had delivered his message. The old Colonel had risen and taken the paper, and now held it with a firm grasp, as if it might blow away with the rising wind. He did not say a word, but his hand shook a little as he proceeded to fold it carefully, and there was a burning gleam in his deep-set eyes, back under his bushy, gray brows.

“Will you sort of look over it, sir, if you think it’s worth while? We was in a sort of hurry and we had to put it down just as we come to it; we didn’t have time to pick our ammunition; and it ain’t written the best in the world, nohow.” He waited again, and the Colonel opened the paper and glanced down at it mechanically. It contained first a roster, headed by the list of six guns, named by name: “Matthew”, “Mark”, “Luke”, and “John”, “The Eagle”, and “The Cat”; then of the men, beginning with the heading:

“Those killed”.

Then had followed “Those wounded”, but this was marked out. Then came a roster of the company when it first entered service; then of those who had joined afterward; then of those who were present now. At the end of all there was this statement, not very well written, nor wholly accurately spelt:

“To Whom it may Concern: We, the above members of the old battery known, etc., of six guns, named, etc., commanded by the said Col. etc., left on the 11th day of April, 1865, have made out this roll of the battery, them as is gone and them as is left, to bury with the guns which the same we bury this night. We’re all volunteers, every man; we joined the army at the beginning of the war, and we’ve stuck through to the end; sometimes we aint had much to eat, and sometimes we aint had nothin’, but we’ve fought the best we could 119 battles and skirmishes as near as we can make out in four years, and never lost a gun. Now we’re agoin’ home. We aint surrendered; just disbanded, and we pledges ourselves to teach our children to love the South and General Lee; and to come when we’re called anywheres an’ anytime, so help us God.”

There was a dead silence whilst the Colonel read.

“‘Taint entirely accurite, sir, in one particular,” said the sergeant, apologetically; “but we thought it would be playin’ it sort o’ low down on the Cat if we was to say we lost her unless we could tell about gittin’ of her back, and the way she done since, and we didn’t have time to do all that.” He looked around as if to receive the corroboration of the other men, which they signified by nods and shuffling.

The Colonel said it was all right, and the paper should go into the guns.