Whole brigades and regiments were cut to pieces or thrown in confusion.
Nor were the needs of his own bodily machine neglected; football, rowing, and the tennis court kept him in condition, and his athletics served to strengthen his appeals to the London boys whom he enrolled in the brigades.
He and Grant had reckoned that the decimated brigades of the South could not stand at all before him, but just as on the first day they came on with the fierce rebel yell, hurling themselves upon superior numbers, taking the cannon of their enemy, losing them, and retaking them and losing them again, but never yielding.
With plenty of work to the fore, as a hospital interne, the ruling spirit still asserted itself, and the young doctor became an inspiration among the waifs of the teeming city; he was one of the founders of the great Lads' Brigades which have done much good, and fostered more, in the example that they have set for allied activities.