The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-21
AFTER THE BATTLE.
fl VETERANS SPORT OF 4 TAS-
 SELED TURKISH FEZ.

l Tho GrewsOme Incident in Which H
 Participated at the Second Battle of
 Munassas-A Braue Boy and His Dy-
 ing Request.
 Whenever I see a tasseled Turkish
 fez," said a Confederate veteran whose
 attention had been attracted by a | smoking cap of that pattern in a Canal
 street window, T am reminded of cu-
 lious and rather greWsome incident of
 my campaigning days. It was on the morning after the second battle of Ma | nassas," he continued in response to a
 request for the story, and several of us from my company had gone over to the field in the hope Of picking up a
 few things that we badly needed and for which the dead had no further use waterproofs, for instance, and sound Canteens.
 During the previous days engage ment you may remember that a regi-
 ment of freshly recruited New York
 zouaves held the crest of hill and
 were charged and almost annihilated
 by Hoods brigade. They were moved
 down like ripened grain and fell so thickly that their corpses literally car
 peted the earth I dare say it was as awful slaughter, considering the num- Der engaged, as occurred anywhere in the course of the war
 Well, we hadn't gone very far when we came to this hill and began to get among the dead men. The poor fellows had been mustered into service less than a week before, and they were said to be the most gorgeously uniformed military troop ever organized. They wore scarlet Turkish trousers, blue tickets embroidered with gold bullion braid and purple fezes with long pend ent tassels.
 Being just from the outfitters, all this fine regalia was perfectly fresh and new, and somehow or other it added to the ghastliness of the spectacle on the hillside. The corpses were in all sorts of strange pastures, and their fantastic costumes gave them an air of hirrible grotesqueness that I couldn't begin to describe in words.
 However, to come to my point I had picked up a fez to carry away as rel ic and was about to leave the spot when I happened to notice a much handsomer specimen on the head of a little zouave stretched out, stiff and stark, few yards away, with hand kerchief over his face I stepped up to make a swap but had barely touched | the tassel when a low, sweet toned voice under the handkerchief said, Please don't'
 For moment" continued the vete ran, that unpleasant protest, coming from what I supposed to be corpse, | made my hair bristle on my head. | Then I lifted the handkerchief and was to see the delicate, refined fea- lures of a boy not over fifteen. He was | pale as death and evidently desperate | ly wounded but he looked at me calm l ly My God I exclaimed, What a lad | you are to be here!' I'm afraid I'm | dying unless I have help he replied. | Do you think the surgeons will be around pretty soon" The Lord | knows' 1 groaned, for the boys cour- age touched me to the heart Your surgeons have all run away, and we only have few, with more wounded than they can attend to- Then I guess all can do is to lie here quietly and die,' he said in the same gentle voice. Can you get me a little water before you go?'
 q took his canteen and hurried down to branch at the foot of the hill, where the first thing I saw, by the way, was the corpse of a zouave floating in d pool. I went up the stream far enough to get out of the horrible death zone @.a--s@@