our fallen comrades, while many more
had been captured by the enemy. But we were now able to hold the ground.
The temporary disorder had arisen, and had been mostly confined to the
new troops, and even these, when rallied from their momentary confusion,
had fought with heroic valor. Although, for a time, forced back by the
surprise of the rebel onset, the old troops of the corps had shown no
want of courage. _The Sixth corps proper had not lost its pristine
glory._ Something of a panic had been created among the teamsters in the
rear, and before dark the trains were hurrying toward Chancellorsville.

Leaving the excitement of the battle, let us now turn where the results
of this carnage are seen in their sober reality. While we stand in line
of battle we see little of the frightful havoc of war. The wounded drop
about us, but, except those left on disputed ground and unable to crawl
away, they are carried instantly to the rear. The groans and cries of
the wounded and dying, of which we so often read as filling up the grand
discord of sounds on the battle-field, are things scarcely known in
actual war. Rarely, as in the present battles, wounded men, unable to
get away, are left between the lines in such numbers that, when the
musketry dies away, their groans become heart-rending. But this is not
usual.

But at the field hospitals, the work of destruction is seen in all its
horrors. There, wounded men by thousands are brought together, filling
the tents and stretched upon every available spot of ground for many
rods around. Surgeons, with never tiring energy, are ministering to
their wants, giving them food, dressing their wounds or standing at the
operating table removing the shattered fragments of limbs. Men wounded
in every conceivable way, men with mutilated bodies, with shattered
limbs and broken heads, men enduring their injuries with heroic
patience, and men giving way to violent grief, men stoically
indifferent, and men bravely rejoicing that it is _only a leg_. To all
these the surgeons are to give such relief as lies in their power, a
task the very thoughts of which would overcome physicians at home, but
upon which the army surgeon enters with as much coolness and confidence
as though he could do it all at once. He has learned to do what he can.
Contenting himself with working day and night without respite, and often
without food, until, by unremitting but quiet toil, the wants of all are
relieved. No class of