The record-union., 1897-06-11

fingers, and his waxen face, washed by
the rains of the night before, was that
of one who had fallen asleep, dreaming
of loved ones who waited his coming
in some anxious home. He was about
my age. He may have been a drum
meri At the sight of that poor boys
corpse l burst into a regular boo-hoo,
and started on. Here beside a great
oak tree 1 counted the corpses of fifteen
men. One of them sat stark against
the tree, and the others lay about as
though during the night, suffering
from wounds, they had crawled to-
gether for mutual assistance and there
had died The blue and the gray were
mingled together. This popularity 1
observed all over the field. 1t was no
uncommon thing to see the bodies of
Federal and Confederate lying side by
side as though they had bled to death
while trying to aid each other In
one spot / saw an entire battery of
Federal artillery which had been dis
mantled in Sundays fight, every horse
of which had been killed in his harness,
every tumbrel Of which had been brok-
en-, every gun of which had been dis
mounted, and in this awful heap of
noneers. One dismantled gun was alb
solutely spattered with the blood and
brains of the men who had served it.
Here and there in the field, standing
in the mud, were the most piteous
sights of all the battlefield-poor
wounded horses, their heads dropping,
their eyes CLASSY and gummy, waiting
for the slow coming of death, or for
some friendly hand to end their misery.
How those helpless brutes spoke in
pleading testimony of the horror, the
barbarism and the uselessness of war;
No painter ever did justice to battle
field such as this. I am sure.
AS I pushed onward to the front.
passed the ambulances and the wagons
bringing back the wounded, and talk
ed with the poor bleeding fellows who
We're hobbling toward the river along
the awful roads or through the dismal
chaparral. They all brought news of
victory. Toward evening I found my
self in the neighborhood of the old Shi-
loh Church, but could get no tidings of
the Seventieth Regiment. Night
came ON, and I lay down and fell asleep
at the foot of a tree, having gathered
up a blanket soaked with water, which 1
could only use for a pillow. 1t rained
all night. The battle had practically
ended at o'clock that evening, and the
enemy had slowly and silently with
drawn toward Corinth. Next morning
learned that my fathers regiment had
been sent in pursuit of the enemy, and
nobody could tell when it would return
found the camp, and oh, What desc
lation reigned there. Every tent had
been pillaged, and in my fathers head
quarters the gentlemen of the enemy
fore had left a duplicate of nearly
everything they had taken. They had
exchanged their dirty blankets for our
clean ones and had left their old worn
out brogans in the place of boots and
shoes, which they had appropriated,
and all about were the evidences of the
feasting that had gone on during that
one night of glorious possession. I re-
manned there during the day, and late
came back to its deserted quarters after
three days and two nights of most ter
rible fighting and campaigning.
AT it's head rode my father, whom I
supposed to be dead, pale and un-
scathed. He had not seen me nor heard
from me for sixty hours. He dismount-
ed, and taking me in his arms, gave me
the most affectionate embrace that my
life had ever known, and realized then
how deeply he loved me. That night
We stayed in the old bullet-ridden and