Let us pass over five or six months, and follow Paul Blecker to Fredericksburg, the night after that bloodiest day for the Federal forces, in December. It was the fourth battle in which he had taken part. Now a man grows blasé, in a manner, even of wholesale slaughter; he plodded his way quietly, indifferently almost, therefore, over the plateau below the first range of hills, his instrument-case in hand, drinking from his brandy-flask now and then, to keep down nausea. The night was clear,—a low, wan moon peering from the west, a warm wind from the river drifting the heavy billows of smoke away from the battle-field. He picked his steps with difficulty, unwilling to tread upon even the dead: they lay in heaps here, thrown aside by the men who were removing the wounded. The day was lost: he fancied he could read on even the white upturned faces a bitter defeat. Firing had ceased an hour ago; only at long intervals on the far left a dull throb was heard, as though the heart of the Night pulsed heavily and feverishly in her sleep: no other sound, save the constant, deadening roll of ambulances going out from this Valley of Death. The field where he stood was below the ridge on which were placed Lee's batteries; for ten hours the grand division of Sumner had charged the heights here, the fog shutting out from them all but the impregnable foe in front, and the bit of blue sky above, the last glimpse of life they were to see,—charging with the slow, cumulative energy of an ocean-surf upon a rock, and ebbing back at last, spent, leaving behind the drift of a horrible wetness on the grass, and uncounted murdered souls to go back to God.
The night now was bright and colorless, as I said, except where a burning house down by the canal made a faded saffron glare. The Doctor had entered a small thicket of locust-trees; the moonlight penetrated clearly through their thin trunks, but the dead on the grass lay in shadow. He carried a lantern, therefore, as he gently turned them over, searching for some one. It was a Pennsylvania regiment which had held that wood longest,—McKinstry's. Half a dozen other men were employed like the Doctor,—Irish, generally: they don't forget the fellows that messed with them as quickly as our countrymen do.
"We're in luck, Dan Reilly," said one. "Here's the Docthor himself. Av we hed the b'ys now, we'd be complate,"—turning over one face after another, unmistakably Dutch or Puritan.
"Ev it's Pat O'Shaughnessy yez want," said another, "he'd be afther gittin' ayont the McManuses, an' here they are. They're Fardowners on'y. Pat's Corkonian, he is; he'll be nearer th' inemy by a fut, I'll ingage yez."
"He's my cousin,"—hard tugging at the dead bodies with one arm;—the other hung powerless. "I can't face Mary an' her childher agin an' say I lift her man widout Christian burial.—Howld yer sowl! Dan Reilly, give us a lift; here he is. Are ye dead, Pat?"
One eye in the blackened face opened.
"On'y my leg. 'O'Shaughnessy agin th' warld, an' the warld agin th' Divil!'"—which was received with a cheer from the Corkonians.
"Av yer Honor," insinuated Dan, "wud attind to this poor man, we'd be proud to diskiver the frind you're in sarch of."
Blecker glanced at the stout Irishmen about him, with kind faces under all the whiskey, and stronger arms than his own."
"I will, boys. You know him,—he's in your regiment,—Captain McKinstry. He fell in this wood, they tell me."