He led the way out into the back yard, and there, side by side, stood the seven cot bedsteads that held the seven dead men that had been carried out the night before. He pointed out his cot, and left me alone with the dead. The bed-spreads were drawn up over their faces, and that was all that was between the dead faces and the sky.
I drew down the bedspread to look upon his face. I never can express the emotions of that moment. My heart was thrilled; for there upon the dead soldier’s face was the very same look of joy and peace that was on his face when he said, “I have the Comforter,” and I knew that the Comforter had been with him till the last. I wrote to his mother, telling her the sad story of his sufferings, and the sweet, sweet story of his Christian triumph.
After a while an answer came back to me. She did not know that he was wounded or dead until she received my letter.
His death was a heavy blow; but she rose in Christian triumph above her great sorrow, and in closing her letter said,—
“My son may not come back to me, but I shall go to him, and it is just as near heaven from Iowa as it was from Corinth; and the same Comforter that comforted my son when wounded and dying among strangers comforts me now.”
What a glorious Christianity we have! A religion that can keep under the sorest trials, that can comfort in the deepest agonies, and that can give joy and peace in the presence of death, and leave its divine stamp upon the dead clay.
BLOWING UP OF FORT HILL.
ALONG the lines of Vicksburg during the siege, there was no stronger point than Fort Hill. The land stood high, and the approach was almost perpendicular at some points. In the assignment of troops to positions, General John A. Logan’s division was placed in front of Fort Hill. General Logan was a man of energy, and a great fighter. With the consent of his superiors in command, he planned to mine Fort Hill. The work was begun at a distance in the rear, behind a bluff, so as to hide the operation from the Confederates. General Logan’s engineers, with scientific precision, directed the tunnel toward Fort Hill. There were weary days and nights of digging before they reached the foundation of the fort. But there came to the ears of the Confederates at last, even amid the thunder of the cannon and the screaming of shells, the sounds of the mining. Night after night they listened with their ears to the ground to the sound of the Union picks. The Confederates soon began to countermine, and it was not long before the toilers in the Union tunnel heard the thud of the Confederate picks nearly over their heads. They were too high to strike the Union tunnel, but it was evident that no time must be lost in blowing up the fort. Tons of powder were carried in, and one bright afternoon about two o’clock the slow fuse was lighted and the tunnel was cleared. The regular firing of the battle was going on. There was nothing in the movements of the army to indicate that anything unusual was about to occur.
As I was driving around the lines that day, I met General McPherson and his staff, riding at full speed. Halting, he said,—