ut their loss was nearly double our own,
and nearly the same ground was occupied by the combatants at night,
which each held in the beginning of the fight. The cavalry was not
conspicuously engaged in this bloody fray, except such portions of it as
were escort or body-guard to officers in command, and among these some
were killed. The main cavalry force watched the flanks, doing good
service there.

_August 10._--At an early hour of the day the Harris Light was ordered
to report at Culpepper Court House, and we were soon on the march. On
arriving at our destination we found the place well nigh filled with our
wounded from the battle of yesterday. It is estimated that not less than
fifteen hundred of our men were killed and wounded, about a thousand of
the latter having found a refuge here. The seventh part of the
casualties of a battle, on an average, will number the killed and
mortally wounded; the others claim the especial attention of their
comrades. It is heart-sickening to witness their bloody, mangled forms.
All the public buildings and many private residences of this village are
occupied as hospitals, and the surgeons with their corps of hospital
stewards and nurses are doing their work, assisted by as many others as
have been detailed for this purpose, or volunteer their services. The
Rebel wounded who have fallen into our hands receive the same attention
that is bestowed upon our own men, many of them acknowledging that they
are far better off in our care than they would be among their
confederates.

These hospitals are all much more quiet than one would naturally
suppose. How calmly the brave boys endure the wounds they have received
in defence of their beloved country! Only now and then can be heard a
subdued sob, or a dying groan; while those who are fully conscious,
though suffering excruciating pain, are either engaged in silent prayer
or meditation, or reading a Testament or a last letter from loved ones,
and patiently awaiting their turn with the surgeon or the nurse.

In the most available places tables have been spread for the purpose of
amputations. We cannot approach them, with their heaps of mangled hands
and feet, of shattered bones and yet quivering flesh, without a shudder.
A man must need the highest style of heroism willingly to drag himself
or be borne by others to one of these tables, to undergo the processes
of the amputating blade. But thanks be to modern skill in surgery, and
to the dis