In striking contrast to the picture thus presented, was one in the room adjoining. Another trooper also fatally wounded, suffered so keenly from shock and pain that his fortitude gave way. He could not bear the thought of death. His nerve appeared to have deserted him and his anguish of mind and body, as he saw the relentless approach of the grim monster and felt his icy breath, will haunt my memory till I myself shall have joined the great army of union veterans who are beyond the reach of pain and the need of pensions.
My own wound gave little annoyance except when the surgeon ran an iron called a probe into it, which attempt met with so vigorous a protest from his patient that he desisted and that form of treatment stopped right there, so far as one cavalryman was concerned. The wound was well bandaged and plentiful applications of cold water kept out the inflammation.
Many of the officers and men came in to express their sympathy. Some of them entertained me with the usual mock congratulations on having won a "leave" and affected to regard me as a lucky fellow while they were the real objects of sympathy.
But the circumstances were such as to repress mirth or anything of that semblance. The regiment was in mourning for its bravest and best. The Sixth, having been the first regiment to get into the fight, had suffered more severely than any other. The losses had been grievous, and it seemed hard that so many bright lights of our little family should be so suddenly extinguished.
At daylight I was still wide awake but, even amidst such scenes as I have described, fatigue finally overcame me and I sank into dreamland only to be startled, at first, by the fancied notes of the bugle sounding "to horse" or the shouts of horsemen engaged in the fray. At last, however, "tired nature's sweet restorer" came to my relief and I fell into a dreamless sleep that lasted for several hours.
When I awoke it was with a delightful sense of mind and body rested and restored. The wounded foot had ceased its pain. A gentle hand was bathing my face with cold water from the well, while another was straightening out the tangled locks which, to tell the truth, were somewhat unkempt and overgrown from enforced neglect. Two ladies full of sympathy for the youthful soldier were thus kindly ministering to his comfort. As soon as fully awake to his surroundings, he opened his eyes and turned them with what was meant for a look of gratitude upon the fair friends who seemed like visiting angels in that place of misery and death.
It was an incongruous picture that presented itself—a strange blending of the grewsome sights of war with the beautiful environments of peace. The wonted tranquility of this rural household had been rudely disturbed by the sudden clangor of arms. A terrible storm of battle—the more terrible because unforeseen—had broken in upon the quietude of their home. In the early hours of the morning it had raged all around them. At the first sound of its approach the terrified inmates fled to the cellar where they remained till it passed. They had come forth to find their house turned into a hospital.
The kindness of those ladies is something that the union trooper has never forgotten, for they flitted across his pathway, a transient vision of gentleness and mercy in that scene of carnage and suffering.
It was with a melancholy interest that I gazed upon the pallid face of my dead comrade of the First, who lay, a peaceful smile upon his features which were bathed in a flood of golden light, as the hot rays of the July sun penetrated the apartment. The man in the hall was also dead. Others of the wounded were lying on their improvised couches, as comfortable as they could be made.
In the afternoon the ambulance train arrived. The wounded were loaded therein, and started for Hagerstown, bidding farewell to those who remained on duty, and who had already received marching orders which would take them back into "Old Virginia."