Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1885-01-30

painful posture, to give coolng draught to
fevered lips, to compress severed artery, as
we had learned to do, though in bungiing
fashion; to apply rude bandage, which
might yet prolong the life to saving; to take
a token or farewell message for some stricken
home; it was but little, yet it was an endless
task. We had moved to the right and rear
of own position-the part of the field
Immediately above the city. The further we
went the more need and the calls multiplied.
Numbers, half-awakening from the lethar-
gy of death or of despair by sounds of sue
cor, begged us to take them quickly to sur
geon and, when we could not do that, i'm
ploring us to do the next most merciful SER
vice and give them quick dispatch out of
their misery. Right glad were we when, af-
ter midnight, the shadowy ambulances came
gliding along and the kindly hospital stew
ards, with stretchers and soothing applian-
ces, let us feel that we might return to our
proper duty.
And now we were aware of other figures
wandering, ghost-ike, over the field. Some
errands like our own, drawn by COM
peliing appeals; some seeking a comrade
with uncertain steps amid the unknown, and
ever and anon bending down to scan the pale
visage closer, or, it may be, by the light of
brief match, whose blue Pickering flame
could scarcely give the features a more rec
ognizable OF human look: some man desper-
ately wounded, yet seeking with faltering
step, before his fast ebbing blood shall have
left him too weak to move, some quiet or
sheltered spot out of sound of the terrible
appeals he could neither answer nor endure,
or out of reach of the raging battle coming
with the morning; one creeping. yet scarcely
moving from one lifeless form to another,
if, perchance, he might find a swallow of wa
ter in the canteen which still swung from the
dead soldiers side; OF another, as with Just
returning or last remaining consciousness,
vainly striving to rise from a mangled heap,
that he may not be buried with them while
yet alive, or some man yet sound OF body,
but pacing feverishly his ground because in
such a bivouac his spirit could not sleep.
And so we picked our way back amid the
stark, upturned faces of our little living line.
The night chill had now woven q misty
veil over the field. Fortunately, a picket
fence we had encountered in our charge from
the town had compelled us to abandon our
horses, and so had saved our lives on the
crest; but our ove1coats had been strapped
to the saddles, and we missed them now.
Most of the men, however had their over
coats or blankets-we were glad of that.
Except the few sentries along the front, the
men had fallen asleep-the living with the
dead. At last, outwearied and depressed
with the desolate scene, my own strength
sank, and l moved two dead men little and
lay down between them, making pillow of
the breast of a third. The skirt of his over
coat drawn my face helped also to shield
me from the bleak winds. There was some
comfort even in this companionship. But it
was broken sleep The deepening chill drove
many forth to take the garments of those
who could no longer need them that they
might keep themselves alive. More than
once was startled from my unrest by some
turning back the coat skirt from my
face, peering, half-vampire like, to my fan
cy, through the darkness to discover if it,
too, were of the silent and unresisting; turn
ing away more disconnected at my living
dead.
Having held our places all the night we
had to keep to them all the more closely the
next day; for it would be certain death to
attempt to move away. As it was, it was
only by making breastworks and barricades
of the dead men that covered the field that
we saved any alive We did what we could
to take a record of these men. A Testament
that had fallen from the breast pocket of the
soldier who had been my pillow [ sent soon
after to his home-he was not of my COM
mand-and it proved to be the only clew his
parents ever had of his fate
The next midnight, after thirty-six hours
of this narrowing work, we We're hidden to
withdraw into the town for refreshment and
rest. But neither rest motion was to be
thought of till we had paid fitting honor to
our dead We laid them on the spot where
they had won, on the sheltered edge of the
crest, and committed their noble forms to
.
keeping.
1--WE buried them darkly, at dead of night,
The sod with our bayonets turning
Splinters of boards, torn by shot and shell
from the fences we had crossed, served as
headstones, each name hurriedly carved I'M
der brief match lights, anxiously hidden
from the zoe. 1t was strange scene around
that silent and shadowy sepulchre. ''We
will give them a starlight burial" it was
said; but heaven ordained a more sublime
illumination. AS we bore them in dark and
sad procession their own loved north took up
the escort, and, lifting all her glorious lights,
led the triumphal march over the bridge that
spans the worlds-an aurora borealis of mar
velous majesty. Fiery lances and banners of
blood and flame, columns of pearly light,
garlands and wreaths of gold, all pointing
upward and reckoning on. Who would not
pass on as they did, dead for their country's
life, and lighted to burial by the meteor
splendors of their native sky?
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