Darkness settled down upon the earth, before the battle was won, by the Confederates withdrawing and leaving the Union forces masters of the field. But what a sacrifice of human life!—three thousand human beings sent into eternity, as the result of one day's conflict.
The loss of life was felt equally by the two opposing forces; but the boys in gray suffered a loss of fifteen hundred, who were taken prisoners.
The night was warm. The stars looked down with kindly gleams upon thousands of worn-out soldiers sleeping as quietly as little children, while the wounded were groaning with pain, as the life-blood slowly trickled over the grass which the hot sun and the trampling of feet and stamping of horses had matted into a tangled and brown mass.
Ralph's captain threw himself down by the side of the boy, as he was trying to shut out the dreadful pictures which were burned upon his brain.
“Is the victory ours?” he asked.
“It is, and a dear one to us,” the captain replied. “We have left over a thousand dead upon the field; but the Johnnies have moved off, and we have orders to push on to the western side of the mountain. They raked us down in terrible fashion, but the men stood their fire like statues. There was some heavy firing over at the other Gap a while back, but it has stopped now. Hallo!” he called to a man in the uniform of an officer, “where are you going in such a hurry? Has anything happened—any new move ahead?”
The man stopped suddenly, and coming up close to them, with features convulsed and pallid, with either pain or fear, he made answer:
“Oh, captain, I'm sure I'll die, I'm in such misery. I'm all doubled up, and can't sleep. I'm in perfect agony. There—there goes that twinge again. I must try and find my regiment, and hunt up the doctor right away.”
Ralph looked incredulous at the man's apparent suffering. He felt sure it was a pretense. “It's strange that he's so far away from his command, and going in an exactly opposite direction. Can it be that he's going to skip?” This was a painful thought, and brought an angry flush to his brow, for he held nothing in such scorn, amounting to abhorrence, as he did cowardice or dishonesty.
“Are you going in the right direction to join your company? If you keep on the way you are faced, you'll be more than likely to find some friendly boy in gray to snap you up.”