upon their backs, tossing even
in sleep. They listened peevishly to the wind whistling through the
chinks of the barn. They followed one with their rolling eyes. They
turned away from the lantern, for it seemed to sear them. Soldiers sat
by the severely wounded, laving their sores with water. In many wounds
the balls still remained, and the discolored flesh was swollen
unnaturally. There were some who had been shot in the bowels, and now
and then they were frightfully convulsed, breaking into shrieks and
shouts. Some of them iterated a single word, as, "doctor," or "help," or
"God," or "oh!" commencing with a loud spasmodic cry, and continuing the
same word till it died away in cadence. The act of calling seemed to
lull the pain. Many were unconscious and lethargic, moving their fingers
and lips mechanically, but never more to open their eyes upon the light;
they were already going through the valley and the shadow. I think,
still, with a shudder, of the faces of those who were told mercifully
that they could not live. The unutterable agony; the plea for somebody
on whom to call; the longing eyes that poured out prayers; the looking
on mortal as if its resources were infinite; the fearful looking to the
immortal as if it were so far off, so implacable, that the dying appeal
would be in vain; the open lips, through which one could almost look at
the quaking heart below; the ghastliness of brow and tangled hair; the
closing pangs; the awful _quietus_. I thought of Parrhasius, in the
poem, as I looked at these things:--

"Gods!
Could I but paint a dying groan----."

And how the keen eye of West would have turned from the reeking cockpit
of the _Victory_, or the tomb of the Dead Man Restored, to this old
barn, peopled with horrors. I rambled in and out, learning to look at
death, studying the manifestations of pain,--quivering and sickening at
times, but plying my avocation, and jotting the names for my column of
mortalities.

At eleven o'clock there was music along the high-road, and a general
rushing from camps. The victorious regiments were returning from
Hanover, under escort, and all the bands were pealing national airs. As
they turned down the fields towards their old encampments, the several
brigades stood under arms to welcome them, and the cheers were many and
vigorous. But the solemn ambulances still followed after, and the red
flag of the hospitals flaunted bloodily in the blue mid