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haversack where we put them down before we formed up,” Nelson said. “Would you see that it gets mailed back to my folks in Deerwood? And tell them, if you see them, that I died with my face to the enemy, will you?”
    Charley nodded and was surprised to find that he was crying. He did not think he could cry any longer but the tears were sliding down his cheeks. “Do you have water?”
    Nelson nodded.
    â€œJust take small sips,” Charley said. “They say to just take small sips.”
    â€œThank you for this—after I snotted back at you that way.”
    â€œThat was nothing.”
    â€œThank you anyway.”
    â€œIt’s nothing.” Charley took a breath. The sergeant was coming back across the meadow toward him. One of the rules, he knew, was that you didn’t stop for the wounded. When a man went down he was alone, even if he was your brother. “You want me to stay with you?”
    Nelson shook his head. “They might be ready for another attack.”
    Charley stood and waved the sergeant back. “Well, then …”
    â€œYes—you’d better go.”
    Charley nodded but his feet didn’t want to move. He had to force them, think about them moving, and with that he walked slowly. It was strange, he thought, the crying. I don’t evenrightly know him—still don’t know his first name—and here I am crying. With all the men I’ve seen drop and I don’t even know him and—
    The sound of the shot stopped him. He stood for a moment, the tears working down his face, stood for a long moment and then started walking again. He did not look back.
    Second battle.

CHAPTER SEVEN
TOWN LIFE
    T hey went into camp again and this time they sat for three months. They were there so long they thought of the camp as a town and gave the paths between the tents street names based on Minnesota towns. Soon signs were stuck on poles: Winona Avenue, Taylor Falls Street …
    It went from summer into fall and they cut trees and made log shanties and drilled in the rain and then snow, but spent most of their time in the log huts plugging leaks, keeping outcold wind and trying to get their clothes dry. They were rarely successful.
    Disease spread through the camp like fire as the weather worsened, and with the disease came the rumors.
    It was said that McClellan was afraid to fight. Almost all the men—including Charley—loved the new commander and felt that he was only trying to be easy on the men by avoiding a winter campaign. But the rumors said that Lincoln—most of the men also loved the president and called him Old Rail Splitter—was very dissatisfied with McClellan’s “lack of bite” and wanted some attack made on the Rebels, somewhere, at some time soon.
    This did not translate into action and the men sat another month, getting sicker and sicker, both physically and in their spirits.
    Rumor said that a whole regiment from New York had deserted and gone home. It turned out not to be true—four men had desertedfrom a New York regiment and had been caught and tried and shot by firing squads—but it showed the lack of morale.
    Another rumor said that a young general named Grant out west in Tennessee had fetched the Rebels such a hit that he’d whipped their western army and that Grant was a drunk and that Lincoln had said, “Find out what kind of whiskey he’s drinking and send a case to
all
the generals.” This proved to be the truth, but none of it really mattered to Charley.
    Like most of the men, he worked at taking care of himself. It kept him busy. The camp was worse than a pigsty. Men from the country—most of the Minnesota volunteers—knew of country living. They dug holes for latrines, kept their areas cleaner than others and worked at getting good shelter. Men from cities—New Yorkers were the worst—had little concept of living with the land and no idea howto