National Republican., 1883-04-12
Written for The Republican.

the head of excitement Pursuing this occu.
patton in the jungle of the Wilderness, with
no knowledge of the precise point from which
the blow would come, yet knowing absolutely
that It must come from somewhere, we pushed
deeper into the forest.
Mein, Gott Vat q countriesl"
Turning at the exclamation saw Ger.
man member of the company extricating his
long yellow hair from bunch of briers, which
held him up as Absalom was held up when
Joab punctured him with his spear. He be.
longed to my small command of fankers, and
as it was my duty TO carry him along with
the remainder of the commando forced q pas.
sage to the place of his suspension.
"What the devil is the matter with you p
inquired. How did you get hung up like
thatT
shteps me upon Won dree und catches
init mein hettw
l should think you had struck n box Of
fshhooks," remarked. "I guess I'll have
to cut off few of those amber locks. How
do you like that, Dutchyp
"Vell, gut him ~ replied tho phlcgmatiC
Teuton, and l soon relieved him from duress.
Leaving him to find his gun, which had dis
appeared in the dense underground, hurried
on after the command.
Of to the left rose tho ceaseless roar of the
fight so near now that the cracking of indi-
vidual pieces could be distinguished, but rs
yet nothing was visible In front but q mass Of
foliage, low on the grolnd, with here and there
the gnarled trunk of a tree rising like the
shaft of column to support the canopy above.
The advance of our line was indicated by null
nf tho urcn nf
the matted underground, as one can trace on
grassy plain the progress of q mole under
meath.
At length, when we penetrated to a point
on a line with the firing word was passed along
to halt, and so far as appearances indicated the
forest was untenanted, save by the creatures
whose natural home it was A few birds were
visible, hopping about among the branches in
daZed sort of fashion, as if what little sense
they had was benumbed by the awful voice of
battle that rolled along the air in a great, un-
broken wave.
This begins to get interesting" said Capt.
d., seating himself ON an old log beside me.
I'VE are up to the line of firing and every
thing here looks as peaceful as country grave
yard Have you seen anything on the rightf"
Nothing but brush and briers and"
"Chug!-a-rug !-chug !-bang! whir-r-r-r-r!"
and shell went flying through the trees, ex-
ploding with tremendous report just behind
the line and sending the jagged fragments
whirling in all directions
"Gott in himmel! vas ish das?" exclaimed
my German friend, who had just come up.
"Only a she'll, Dutchy," replied the cap
tain, laughing outright at the look of pure
amazement on the face of the man. :" Lie
down, or the next one may grind you up into
sausage meat"
"Hey, captain here's road" called out
one OF the men who had gone forward to do
little scouting on his own account, "and
here's dead Johnny he's been slashed
over the head with a saber."
l lin this ocean of shrubbery both the road
and the man were eflectually concealed from
our view until we reached the margin of the
highway. 1t was one of the wood roads
which afford the only convenient means of
traversing the knotted and tangled surface of
this section of Gods foot stool. Originally
but little more than a trail, it was now cut
up and indented with hoof and wheel tracks.
There were no impressions of human feet so
IL was evident that the force which had left
these well-defned traces of their passage
were cavalry and artilley. On the further
side of the track, with his feet and lower
limbs partly hidden in the bushes and his
mangled head resting on the pulverized red
soil of the roadway, lay the poor relic of the
fight. A powerful blow of a saber had riven
a horrid cash in the top and back part of his
head, and pool Of blood that glistened duly
the matted hair. His story of life was ended.
In his dead brain the rattle and crash of the
fierce struggle, ON the verge of which he lay,
awoke no answering echo. Prayers and tears
may have followed him from some southern
home into the maelstrom of baitle-and this
was the only answer.
1t mattered not to us that almost within n
stones throw the earth was Uttered with the
fruitage of the fight and the dropping leaves
were clammy with blood that was out of our
sight, and we gave IL no heed as we clustered
about this lone, mute witness of the little
tragedy that had been enacted here before the
curtain was rung up on the great act now be-
ing played out so near us.
In this desperate campaign human lives
were expended with liberality that was
simply frightful. Human bodies, fresh and
In all stages of decomposition, could be found
almost anywhere in the eastern counties of
the Old Dominion, and one wandering about
in the soft moonlight might at any moment
be confronted by grinning skull or the dim
tracery of bleached human skeleton.
At the close of this same battle of the Will
derness my regiment marched over part of
the field ON which some of the ferccst fight
ing had been done. 1t was ut night and we
were compelled to pick our way through q
body of troops who were stretched at full
length in brief rest among the unburied
dead. As we passed along, here and there q
head was raised from the ground to view the
silent column moving by, and occasionally Il
curse was thrown at the owner of foot which
had inadvertently disturbed one of the ex-
hausted sleepers, Beyond these evidences of
life there was nothing to distinguish the liv-
ing from the dead. 1t reminded me of ex-
peditions had undertaken with boyish COM
rades after wild plums, when, after having
shaken the over-ripe fruit upon the ground,
we culled the sound from the rotten, and
found that what we took was but small pro-
portion of what we left.
The slaughter of whole battle field is too
large for the expenditure of a proportionate
amount of the horror we experience on view
ing the mangled remains of one individual.
In the one case it is too great for concentra-
tion in the other the view is smaller and the
appeal more direct. From this cause
imagine, proceeded the feeling with which
we gazed upon the now nameless waif of
humanity stretched in its blood at our feet.
reb cayalryman cut down on the rum"
said Capt. ID. Look out boys! there comes
another shell ~
He had heard the report of the gun, and
knew the iron messenger would be but mo-
ment later than the herald which announced
1t. We threw ourselves fat ON the dust of the
narrow road as the missile, with harsh
shrek, passed directly over our heads and
dashed into the underground, where il ex-
ploded with sharp crack.
"They are getting our range, but | don't
think they can see us in this brush" observed
the captain.
Its mighty short range" said Lieut.. X.
"that gun can't be moro than 800 yards
away"
"0h, suppose their line runs out over
here to let us know they're ON the look out
fnru ne -