ous assaults,
and the most obstinate struggle. The quaint little hamlet--reminding you
of a Dutch village--looked cheerful enough now, as the sun shimmered
over the dark-red bricks, and glistening roofs grouped round a more
glittering chapel-cupola; but one could not help remembering, that
thither, on a certain afternoon, in just such pleasant weather, came
maimed men by hundreds, crawling or being carried in; and that for weeks
after, scarce one of those cozy houses but sheltered some miserable
being moaning his tortured life away. The undulating champaign between
the Catoctin and South Mountains, that forms the broad Middletown
valley, seems to invite the manoeuvres of infantry battalions; but,
climbing the steep ascent in the teeth of musketry and field-batteries,
must have been sharp work indeed, though the assailing force doubtless
far outnumbered the defenders. I think the carrying of those heights one
of the most creditable achievements in the war.

The terrible handwriting of the God of Battles is still very plainly to
be discerned; all along the mountain-side trees--bent, blasted, and
broken--tell where round-shot or grape tore through; and scored bark,
closing often over imbedded bullets, shows where beat most stormily the
leaden hail. Near the crest of the mountain, there are several patches
of ground, utterly differing in color from the soil around, and
evidently recently disturbed. You want no guide to tell you that in
those Golgothas moulder corpses by hundreds, cast in, pell-mell, with
scanty rites of sepulture. Besides these common trenches, there are
always some single graves, occasionally marked by a post with initials
roughly carved. It is good to see that, after the bitter fight, some
were found, not so weary or so hurried, but that they could find time to
do a dead comrade--perhaps even a dead enemy--one last kindness.

Descending from the ridge, we rode some way up a narrow valley--where
overhanging pine-woods and soft green pastures, traversed by rapid
streams, reminded me often of the Ardennes--and then climbed the Elk
Range, beyond which lies the field of Antietam. We soon crossed the
creek, along whose banks was waged that fierce battle that made men
think as lightly of the South Mountain fight as if it had been but a
passing skirmish, and I rode up to the appointed meeting-place in
Sharpsburg just a few minutes in advance of the appointed hour.

My first question, after making myself known t