The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1894-08-29
A DOUBLE GRAVE.
How Two Old People Lost Their Lives on
the Battlefield.

AS the sun went down and darkness
came the roar OF the cannCnade began to
slacken and the crash of musketry to lose
its spite. In another half our it was a
scattering fire all along the front, and by
and by night brought a strange silence.
Cannon and musket ceased to echo and
regiments and Origades to march, and
that made silence, but yet that silence
was broken by a continuous sound such
as you must hear with your own ears to
understand. 1t was like the murmur Of a
mol Of men coming from a long way off.
1t was the cries and grOans Of wounded
mCn-thOusandS Of them-left on the field
between the two armies. Mingled with
their cries were the pitiful groans of
wounded horses as they tried to get on
their feet, or, being already up, limped
painfully about.
Men left wounded on a field Of battle do
not cry out or shout. They groan and
curse or pray. Sometimes they are silent,
as if dumb. They have looked into the
eyes Of death, as it were, and feel awcd
and stricken. The noise which comes up to
you off a battlefield on the air Of night
has no ficrCcncsS about it-nO ~harshn"sS.
1t is a sObbing, murnuring chorus com
ing from lips parched with thirst, and you
pity them and curse the very name of war
as you listen.
At 10 o'clock we of Company \ were
pushed to the front as pickcts. We scat
tered along the edge of a cornlicld anC
crouchcd down. On the other side Of the
field, and hardly pistol shot away, were
the pickets of the enemy. We had come
up as a reinforcement just at dark anC
had not looked over the ground and die
not know Of the farmhouse q few rods dis
tant. At II o'clock, when the men on the
battle lines were asleep and muttering as
they dreamed, l heard footsteps in the
darkness. Some one was coming along
| down the edge Of the cOrnfiCld. l chal-
lcngcd, and the footsteps ceased. l chal-
lcnged again, and the voice Of q woman
called to me through the darkness:
PLEASE let me come. l want to speak
to you"
She came forward and stood close beside
me in the gloom. | saw that she was old
and gray and bent, and tina she leaned
heavily on a stick. The farmhouse was
almost the center of battle. From noon
to shutdown it had been exposed to every
missile Of war, and that it had not been
burned as well as rent and shattered was
a wonder. No one lived there except an
old man and his equally aged wife, and
10 time had been given them for flight.
For hours their lives had been spared while
hundreds Of others had been taken, but
as the sun hung low the poor old man re
cciVCd a mortal wound and died in her
arms. She had hObbled down to me past
the dead and wounded to ask help to bury
him. She would go away if we would as
sist her, but he must be buried first.
I passed the word back, and a corporal
and two men were sent forward. They had
been aroused from sleep, and l feared they
would speak gruffly to the poor old wife
and widow, but they did not. They called
her ''grandma' and gave her words OF
sympathy, and the corporal gave her his
arm to lean upon as they made their way
to the house. There lay the old maj dead,
and while she knceled to weep and pray
beside the corpse the men dug a grave in
the garden behind the house. 1t Was q
grave among the dead. In that quaint old
| garden, where the pinks and hollyhocks
and lilacs shared the ground with the let
tucc and onions and cuculnbers, were a
| score of men whose eyes would never Open
again.
Now, grandma, come on, and please
| don't cry!" said the corporal as he helped
her to her feet. Men, get sheets from
the bed. We will give him better han a
soldiers burial"
With the strange murmur rising from
the wounded, with the face of the dead
looking up into the black night, with
200, 900 living men asleep to renew their
strength for the morrow's battle, they
made ready to lower the gray haired dead
to his resting place. Hank! Away down
on the left there is the echo of a single
muskct, fired by accident perhaps. There
is another and another, and the reports
come rapidly nearer. 1t was always so.
| The discharge of one muskCt meant the
| discharge of perhaps 500. The piCNct@
simply fired into the darkness in front. 1t
was a signal that they were alert. The
reports come ripping along the line. | fire
with the rest of them, and the pop, pop,
pop runs to the right. One single bullet,
fired from across the COrntield, reached a
human life. 1t cut through the branche-
of the cherry tree, WhiZZcd over the tai
stalked h0llyhocks and struck that poor
old woman in tho side, as she sobbed and
gricved, and laid her dead, with the tears
yet yelling from her eyes. She san down
and died without a cry-with only u sOt
in her throat. The firing died away a
minute later rs the men bent over her &c
see if she were dead. One dead in his
winding shcrt-the other dead and wait
ing.
The corporal motioned with his hand,
and the men began to widen the grave.
He entered the house and brought out 9th,
er sheets. and when the grave was ready
two bodies were lowered into it side by
side. So were they covered in and left t.
their eternal sleep. At midnight a group
of men, looking for a missing officer, en-
tered the garden and stumbled over the
newmadc grave.