The rest shuddered and grew pale at this horrible prospect.
"That looks like a brigade headquarters over there," said Si, pointing to the left. "And I believe that's our old brigade flag. I'm goin' over there to see."
"I don't believe that's any brigade headquarters at all," said Shorty. "Up there, to the right, looks ever so much more like a brigade headquarters. I'm goin' up there to see. You boys stay right there, and don't move off the ground till I come back. I won't be gone long."
As he left, the boys began to feel more lonely and hopeless than ever, and little Pete Skidmore had hard work to restrain his tears.
A large, heavy-jowled man, with a mass of black whiskers, and wearing a showy but nondescript uniform, appeared.
"That must be one o' the big Generals," said Harry Joslyn. "Looks like the pictures o' Grant. Git into line, boys, and salute."
"No, it ain't Grant, neither," said Gid Mackall. "Too big. Must be Gen. Thomas."
The awed boys made an effort to form a line and receive him properly.
"Who are you, boys?" said the newcomer, after gravely returning the salute.
"We're recruits for the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry," answered Harry Joslyn. "Kin you tell us where the rijimint is? We're lost.
"Used to know sich a regiment. In fact, I used to be Lieutenant-Colonel of it. But I hain't heared of it for a long time. Think it's petered out."
"Petered out!" gasped the boys.
"Yes. It was mauled and mummixed to death. There's plenty o' mismanagement all around the army, but the 200th Injianny had the worst luck of all. It got into awful bad hands. I quit it just as soon's I see how things was a-going. They begun to plant the men just as soon's they crossed the Ohio, and their graves are strung all the way from Louisville to Chickamauga. The others got tired o' being mauled around, and starved, and tyrannized over, and o' fighting for the nigger, and they skipped for home like sensible men."
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