l at work, but musketry firing had ceased. It had been a
beautiful though very warm day, and the night was brilliantly
moonlight, one of those exceptionally bright nights which almost
equalled daylight. And this had been Sunday--the Lord's day! How
dreadful the work for the Lord's day!

Here I saw the first dead soldier. Two of our artillerymen had been
killed while serving their gun. Both were terribly mangled. They had
been laid aside, while others stepped into their places. There they
still lay, horrible evidence of the "hell of war." Subsequently I saw
thousands of the killed on both sides, which made scarcely more
impression on me than so many logs, but this first vision of the awful
work of war still remains. Even at this writing, forty years later,
memory reproduces that horrible scene as clearly as on that beautiful
Sabbath evening.

It was past midnight when we bivouacked for the little rest we were to
have before resuming the "chase." Being now in the immediate "presence
of the enemy," we rested on "our arms," that is, every soldier lay down
with his gun at his side, and knapsack and accoutrements ready to be
"slung" immediately on the sounding of the "call." We officers did not
unsaddle our horses, but dismounted and snatched an hour's sleep just as
we were. Bright and early next morning we were on our way again. It was
a most beautiful morning.

We soon passed the field where the musketry did its work the night
before, and there were more than a hundred dead rebels scattered over
the field, as the result of it. Two or three were sitting upright, or
nearly so, against stumps. They had evidently been mortally wounded, and
died while waiting for help. All were dressed in coarse
butternut-colored stuffs, very ugly in appearance, but admirably well
calculated to conceal them from our troops.

We rapidly passed over the mountain (South Mountain) and down into the
village of Boonsborough. There was abundant evidence of the rebel
skedaddle down the mountain ahead of our troops in the way of blankets,
knapsacks, and other impedimenta, evidently dropped or thrown away in
the flight. We passed several squads of rebel prisoners who had been
captured by our cavalry and were being marched to the rear under guard.
They were good-looking boys, apparently scarcely more than boys, and
were poorly dressed and poorly supplied.

Some freely expressed themselves as glad they had been captured, as they
were sick of the fight