Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1896-07-22
EAhI III.
CHAPTER I.

IA great night over. Even the excite
ment that had swept this portion of
the battlefield-only IA small section of
vaster area of struggle-into which
brigade had marched held its own.
been beaten back, recoveredits ground.
and pursuing, had passed out of il for
ever, leaving only its dead behind and
knowing nothing more of that strur-
gle than its own impact and mom~n-
tum-eyen this wild excitement LAD
long since evaporated with the stingi az
smoke of gunpowder, the acrid spell
of burning .-Sfs from the clothing of
dead soldier fired by bursting shell.
or the heated reek of sweat and leather.
Acool breath, that seemed to bring back
once more the odor OF the uptnraed
earthworks along the now dumb .uc
OF battle, began to move from the suQ-
gestiye darkness beyond.
But into that awful penetralin of
death and silence there was now no in
vasion-there had been no retreat. A
few of the wounded had been brought
out, under fire, but the others had been
left with the dead for the morning light
and succor. For il was known that In
that horrible obscurity riderless horses,
frantic with the smell of blood, gal
loped wildly here and there, or, mad
dened by wounds, plunged furiously
at the intruder, that the wounded sol
der, still armed, could not always dis
tipguish friend from foe or from the
ghouls of camp followers who stripped
the dead in the darkness, and struggled
with the dying. A shot or two heard
somewhere in that obscurity counted
as nothing with the long fusillade that
had swept it in the daytime; the pass
ing of single life, more or less,
amounted to little in the long rollcall
of the days slaughter.
But with the first beams of the morn
ing sun-and the slowly moving "relief
detail from the camp-came n weird
half resurrection of that CHASTITY field.
Then 1t was that the long rays of sun
light, streaming many mile beyond
the battle line, first pointed out the
harvest of the dead where the reserves
had been posted. There they lay in
heaps and piles, killed by solid shot or
bursting shells that had leaped the
battle line to plunge into the waiting
ranks beyond. AS the sun lifted higher
its beams fell within the range of mus
kerry fire where the dead lay thicker
even as they had fallen when killed
outright-with arms extended, and feet
at all anglesto the field. AS it touched
these dead upturDed faces, strangely
enough it brought out no expression of
pain nor anguish, but rather as il
death had arrested them only with sur
prise and awe. 1t revealed on the lips
of those who had been mortalIy
wounded and had turned upon their
side the relief which death had brought
their suffering, sometimes even with a
smile. Mounting higher, it glanced
upon the actual battle line, curiously
curyiDg for the shelter of walls, fences
and breastworks-and here the dead
lay, even as when they had lain and
fired, their faces prone in the grass,
but their muskets still resting across
the breastworks. Exposed to grape
and canister from the battery on the
ridge, death had come to them merci-
fully also-through the head and
throat. And now the whole field lay
bare in the sunlight-broken with gro
tesque shadows cast from sitting,
crouching, half-recumbent, but always
rigid, figures, that might have been
effgies of their own monuments. One
half-kneeling soldier, with head bowed
between his stiffened hands, might
have stood for n carven figure of grief
at the feet of his dead comrade. A
captain shot through the brain in the
act of mounting n wall lay sideways
half across it, his lips parted with the
word of command, and the sword still
pointing over the barrier the way that
they should go.
But IL was not until the sun had
mounted higher that it struck the CEN
trail horror of the field and seemed to
linger there in dazzling persistence, now
and then returning to IL in startling
flashes, that it might be seen of men
and those who brought succor. a tiny
brook had run obliquely near the battle
line. II was here that the night before
the battle friend and foe had filled their
canteens side by side with solderly
recklessness, or perhaps n higher in
stinet, purposely ignoring each Others
presence; IL was here that the wounded
had afterwards crept, crawled and
dragged themselves, here they had
pushed, wrangled, striven and fought
for draft of that precious fluid which
assTaged the thirst of their wounds-or
happily put them out of their misery
forever; here. overborne. crushed, suffo-
Gated by numbers, pouring their own
blood into the flood and tumbling after
il with their helpless bodies, they
damned the stream, until, recoiling, red
and angry. IL had burst its banks and
overfowed the cotton field in brave
pool now sparkling in the sunlight.
But below this human dana mile
away-where the brook still crept slug
gishly, the ambulance horses shifted and
started from it,
The detail moved on slowly, doing
their work expeditiously and apparent
ly callously. but really only with that
mechanical movement that saves emo
ton. Only once were they moved 20 an
outbreak Of indignation-th the discovery
OF the body Of an officer whose pockets
were turned inside out, but whose hand
was still tightly grasped on his but
toned waistcoat, as II resisting the out
rage that had been done while still in