ulius was not present. He had kept the river
between him and the roar of contending hosts.

The suffering of the wounded had been terrible. Some of them had fallen
on Friday, thousands on Saturday, and it was now Monday. All through the
blood-soaked tangled woods they lay groaning and dying. And everywhere
the flap of black wings. The keen-eyed vultures had seen from the sky
where they fell.

John found a brave old farmer from Northern New York lying beside his
son. He had met them in the fight at Fredericksburg in December.

"Well, here we are, Vaughan," the father cried feebly. "My boy's dead,
and I'll be with him soon--but it's all right--it's all right--my
country's worth it!"

They were lying in a bright open space, where the warm sun of May had
pushed the wood violets into blossom in rich profusion. The dead boy's
head lay in a bed of blue flowers.

Some of the bodies further on were black and charred by the flames that
had swept the woods again and again during the battles. Some of them had
been wounded men and they had been burned to death. Their twisted bodies
and the agony on their cold faces told the hideous story more plainly
than words. The odor of burning flesh still filled the air in these
black spots.

With a start John suddenly came on the crouching figure of a Confederate
soldier kneeling behind a stump, the paper end of the cartridge was in
his teeth and his fingers still grasped the ball. He was just in the act
of tearing the paper as a bullet crashed straight through his forehead.
A dark streak of blood marked his face and clothes. His gun was in his
other hand, the muzzle in place to receive the cartridge, the body cold
and rigid in exactly the position death had called him.

A broad-shouldered, bearded man in blue had just fallen asleep nearby.
The body was still warm, the blue eyes wide open, staring into the
leaden sky. On his breast lay an open Bible with a bloody finger mark on
the lines:

"The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures--
He restoreth my soul."

A hundred yards further lay a dead boy from his own company. The stiff
hands were still holding a picture of his sweetheart before the staring
eyes. Near him lay a boy in grey with a sweetheart's letter clasped in
his hand. They had talked and tried to cheer one another, these dying
boys--talked of those they loved in far off villages as the mists of
eternity had gather