ome earth over him but his last bed-clothes were too short, and his legs
stuck out stark and stiff from beneath the gravel coverlet. It was a
great pity that we had no intelligent guide to explain to us the position
of that portion of the two armies which fought over this ground. There
was a shallow trench before we came to the cornfield, too narrow for a
road, as I should think, too elevated for a water-course, and which
seemed to have been used as a rifle-pit. At any rate, there had been
hard fighting in and about it. This and the cornfield may serve to
identify the part of the ground we visited, if any who fought there
should ever look over this paper. The opposing tides of battle must have
blended their waves at this point, for portions of gray uniform were
mingled with the "garments rolled in blood" torn from our own dead and
wounded soldiers. I picked up a Rebel canteen, and one of our own,--but
there was something repulsive about the trodden and stained relics of the
stale battle-field. It was like the table of some hideous orgy left
uncleared, and one turned away disgusted from its broken fragments and
muddy heeltaps. A bullet or two, a button, a brass plate from a
soldier's belt, served well enough for mementos of my visit, with a
letter which I picked up, directed to Richmond, Virginia, its seal
unbroken. "N. C. Cleveland County. E. Wright to J. Wright." On the
other side, "A few lines from W. L. Vaughn." who has just been writing
for the wife to her husband, and continues on his own account. The
postscript, "tell John that nancy's folks are all well and has a verry
good Little Crop of corn a growing." I wonder, if, by one of those
strange chances of which I have seen so many, this number or leaf of the
"Atlantic" will not sooner or later find its way to Cleveland County,
North Carolina, and E. Wright, widow of James Wright, and Nancy's folks,
get from these sentences the last glimpse of husband and friend as he
threw up his arms and fell in the bloody cornfield of Antietam? I will
keep this stained letter for them until peace comes back, if it comes in
my time, and my pleasant North Carolina Rebel of the Middletown Hospital
will, perhaps look these poor people up, and tell them where to send for
it.

On the battle-field I parted with my two companions, the Chaplain and the
Philanthropist. They were going to the front, the one to find his
regiment, the other to look for those who needed his assi