Welcome back, everyone to 1001 classic short stories and tales.

Today, a Stephen Crane story, one of my favorite.

It's set during a Civil War battle.

But it's really a romance.

A group of Union soldiers come up on a house and think they see a gray sleeve at the window and so attempt to search the house. A young girl, however, distracts them. A young Southern

girl, a Union captain, and a very believable and tense short story.

It's called A Gray Sleeve by Stephen Crane. Hope you enjoy it.

Part 1.

It looks as if it might rain this afternoon, remarked the lieutenant of artillery.

So it does.

The infantry captain assented.

He glanced casually at the sky.

When his eyes had lowered to the green-shadowed landscape before him, he said fretfully,

I wish those fellows out yonder would quit pelting at us. They've been added since noon.

At the edge of a grove of maples, across wide fields, there occasionally appear little puffs

of smoke of a dull hue in this gloom of sky which expressed an impending rain.

The long wave of blue and steel in the field moved uneasily at the eternal barking of the faraway

sharpshooters, and the men, leaning upon their rifles, stared at the grove of maples.

Once a private turned to borrow some tobacco from a comrade in the rear rank,

but, with his hands still stretched out,

he continued to twist his head and glance at the distant trees.

He was afraid the enemy would shoot him at a time when he was not looking.

...