"To see the battle."
"You will run right into the Rebels if you keep on."
"That is what I want to do. I want to see the battle from their side."
"Let me advise you not to go. I was in their clutches yesterday. They threatened to take me to Richmond. They stole my horse and my money, and I am glad enough to get clear. Let me advise you again not to go. You had better go down to Boonesboro', and see the battle from our side."
It was good advice, and I was soon upon the Boonesboro' road.
I came across a Rebel soldier lying at the foot of an oak-tree. He was weak with sickness, worn down by long marches, and had dropped from the ranks. He belonged to Longstreet's corps. He was too weak to speak. His breathing was short and quick and faint. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunken. Two kind-hearted farmers came and took him into a house.
"I am sorry I came up here to fight you," he whispered. He had lain beneath the oak a day and a night, waiting death, expecting no help or mercy from any one. The unexpected kindness filled his eyes with tears.
Striking off from the turnpike I galloped across the fields, through woods, over hills and hollows, reached the Antietam, crossed it by a ford, and ascended the hill to Hoffman's farm.
Sedgwick and Williams were fighting to hold their ground. It was a terrific fire. There were heavy surges, like breakers upon the sea-beaches, like angry thunder in the clouds,—ripples, rolls, waves, crashes! It was not like the voice of many waters, for that is deep, solemn, sweet, peaceful; the symbol of the song of the redeemed ones, which will ascend forever before the throne of God, when all war shall have ceased.