I was of the school of Hope, and Love yielded courage.
I looked back down the long hill, so silent and deserted that gray morning when we were driving together, but now dark with the solid masses of marching troops.

It was a stirring scene to soldier eyes, knowing these men were pressing sternly on to battle.

They seemed like a confused, disorganized mob, filling the narrow road, and streaming out through the fields; yet I could read the meaning of each detached movement, as cavalry, artillery, infantry, staff and wagon trains, met and separated, swinging into assigned positions, or making swift detour.
Hoarse voices shouted; bugles pealed; there was the rumble of wheels, the pounding of hoofs, the tramp of feet, and over all the cloud of dust, through which the sun shone redly.

The intense vividness of the picture gave me a new memory of war.

Suddenly a battery of artillery, out of sight on the distant crest, opened fire, the shrieking shells plunging down into the ploughed field at our left, and casting the soft dirt high in air.