sun purples
the clouds in the West, and the sultry evening steals on as if there had
been no battle, and the furious shout and the cannon's roar had never
shaken the earth. And how look these fields? We may see them before
dark--the ripening grain, the luxuriant corn, the orchards, the grassy
meadows, and in their midst the rural cottage of brick or wood. They
were beautiful this morning. They are desolate now--trampled by the
countless feet of the combatants, plowed and scored by the shot and
shell, the orchards splintered, the fences prostrate, the harvest
trodden in the mud. And more dreadful than the sight of all this,
thickly strewn over all their length and breadth, are the habiliments of
the soldiers, the knapsacks cast aside in the stress of the fight, or
after the fatal lead had struck; haversacks, yawning with the rations
the owner will never call for; canteens of cedar of the Rebel men of
Jackson, and of cloth-covered tin of the men of the Union; blankets and
trowsers, and coats and caps, and some are blue and some are gray;
muskets and ramrods, and bayonets, and swords, and scabbards and belts,
some bent and cut by the shot or shell; broken wheels, exploded
caissons, and limber-boxes, and dismantled guns, and all these are
sprinkled with blood; horses, some dead, a mangled heap of carnage, some
alive, with a leg shot clear off, or other frightful wounds, appealing
to you with almost more than brute gaze as you pass; and last, but not
least numerous, many thousands of men--and there was no rebellion here
now--the men of South Carolina were quiet by the side of those of
Massachusetts, some composed, with upturned faces, sleeping the last
sleep, some mutilated and frightful, some wretched, fallen, bathed in
blood, survivors still and unwilling witnesses of the rage of
Gettysburg.

And yet with all this before them, as darkness came on, and the
dispositions were made and the outposts thrown out for the night, the
Army of the Potomac was quite mad with joy. No more light-hearted guests
ever graced a banquet, than were these men as they boiled their coffee
and munched their soldiers' supper to-night. Is it strange?

Otherwise they would not have been soldiers. And such sights as all
these will be certain to be seen as long as war lasts in the world, and
when war is done, then is the end and the days of the millenium are at
hand.

The ambulances commenced their work as soon as the battle opened--the
twinkling