t. He was followed, caught,
returned to his command, courtmartialed, and sentenced to death--time,
to-morrow.

During the days and nights that passed since the dread sentence had
been read to him, he lay upon his rude couch in the guard tent all
indifferent to his environments, and on the march he moved along with
the guard in silence, gazing abstractedly at the blue vaults of heaven
or the star-strewn, limitless space. That far away future now to him
so near--that future which no vision can contemplate nor mortal
mind comprehend--is soon to be unfolded. Little heed was paid to the
comforting words of his sympathetic comrades in arms, who bid him
hope, for the condemned man felt inwardly and was keenly conscious
of the fact that he had been caught upon the crest of a great wave
of destiny, soon to be swept away by its receding force to darkness,
despair, death. "Fate had played him falsely."

To witness death, to see the torn and mangled remains of friends and
comrades, are but incidents in the life of a soldier. While all
dread it, few fear it. Yet it is upon the field of battle that it
is expected--amid the din and smoke, the shouts of his comrades, the
rattle of musketry, and the cannon's roar. There is the soldier's
glory, his haven, his expected end; and of all deaths, that upon the
battlefield, surrounded by victorious companions and waving banners,
the triumphant shouts of comrades, is the least painful.

The grounds selected for the carrying out of the court's sentence were
on a broad plateau, gently sloping towards the center on three sides.
So well were the grounds and surroundings adapted to the end in view,
that it seemed as if nature had anticipated the purposes of man.

By 9 o'clock the troops of the division were in motion, all under
the command of Colonel James D. Nance, of the Third South Carolina,
marching for the field of death. Kershaw's Brigade took the lead, and
formed on the left of the hollow square. Wofford's on the right, with
Bryan's doubling on the two, while Humphrey's closed the space at the
west end of the square.

A detail of thirty men were made to do the firing, fifteen guns
being loaded with powder and ball, the others with powder alone, this
arrangement being made, perhaps, with a view to ease the qualms of
conscience, should any of the guards have scruples of shedding the
blood of a former comrade in arms. None could know positively who held
the death-dealing guns. An opening w