of them, and could hear the
soldiers talk and laugh, as soldiers will, over the incidents of the
day, when we discerned that we were riding straight into the enemy's
line. Instantly wheeling our horses, we drove the spurs into them and
lay down on their backs. We had been discovered, and a dozen or more
shots were sent after us; but we escaped unharmed. The man we met in the
unused field had mistaken us for Confederate officers. Two or three
shots were fired at us as we approached our own line, but the darkness
saved us.

Near eight o'clock in the evening I ascertained, from General Wood, that
the army had been ordered to fall back to Rossville, and I started at
once to inform Colonel Stoughton and others on the ridge; but I found
that they had been apprised of the movement, and were then on the road
to the rear.

The march to Rossville was a melancholy one. All along the road, for
miles, wounded men were lying. They had crawled or hobbled slowly away
from the fury of the battle, become exhausted, and lay down by the
roadside to die. Some were calling the names and numbers of their
regiments, but many had become too weak to do this; by midnight the
column had passed by. What must have been their agony, mental and
physical, as they lay in the dreary woods, sensible that there was no
one to comfort or to care for them, and that in a few hours more their
career on earth would be ended.

At a little brook, which crossed the road, Wilson and I stopped to
water our horses. The remains of a fire, which some soldiers had
kindled, were raked together, and laying a couple of ears of corn on the
coals for our own use, we gave the remainder of what we had in our
pockets to the poor beasts; they, also, had fasted since early morning.

How many terrible scenes of the day's battle recur to us as we ride on
in the darkness. We see again the soldier whose bowels were protruding,
and hear him cry, "Jesus, have mercy on my soul!" What multitudes of
thought were then crowding into the narrow half hour which he had yet to
live--what regrets, what hopes, what fears! The sky was darkening, earth
fading; wealth, power, fame, the prizes most esteemed of men, were as
nothing. His only hope lay in the Saviour of whom his mother had taught
him. I doubt not his earnest, agonizing prayer was heard. Nay, to doubt
would be to question the mercy of God!

A Confederate boy, who should have been at home with his mother, and
whose leg had been fearf