tions
would fill him with abhorrence.

Men fight from mingled motives. Pride, the fear of disgrace, ambition,
the sense of duty--all contribute to keep the courage up to the sticking
point. Few fight because they like it. The bravest are those who, fully
alive to the danger, are possessed of that sublime moral heroism which
sustains them in emergencies that daunt weaker men.

But, when the excitement is over, when the pomp and circumstance are
eliminated, when the unnatural ardor has subsided, when the tumult and
rush have passed, leaving behind only the dismal effects--the ruin and
desolation, the mangled corpses of the killed, the saddening spectacle
of the dying, the sufferings of the wounded--the bravest would, if he
could, blot these things from his sight and from his memory.

The night in the field hospital at Falling Waters did more to put out
the fires of my military spirit and to quench my martial ambition than
did all the experiences of Hunterstown and Gettysburg, of Boonsborough
and Williamsport. And, as the ambulance train laden with wounded wound
its tortuous way through the theater of many a bloody recent
rencounter, it set in motion a train of reflections which were by no
means pleasing. The abandoned arms and accouterments; the debris of
broken-down army wagons; the wrecks of caissons and gun-carriages; the
bloated carcasses of once proud and sleek cavalry chargers; the mounds
showing where the earth had been hastily shoveled over the forms of late
companions-in-arms; everything was suggestive of the desolation, nothing
of the glory, of war.

It was nearly dark when the long train of ambulances halted in the
streets of Hagerstown. Some large buildings had been taken for hospitals
and the wounded were being placed therein as the ambulances successively
arrived. This consumed much time and, while waiting for the forward
wagons to be unloaded, it occurred to me that it would be a nice thing
to obtain quarters in a private house. Barnhart, first sergeant of the
troop, who accompanied me, proposed to make inquiry at once, and ran up
the stone steps of a comfortable-looking brick house opposite the
ambulance and rang the bell. In a moment the door opened and a pleasant
voice inquired what was wanted.

"A wounded officer in the ambulance yonder wants to know if you will
take him in for a day or two until he can get ordered to Washington. He
has funds to recompense you and does not like to go to the hospita