ut in regular
operation.

I was busy in one of the wards, when a messenger drove up, and a note
was handed me from Dr. McAllister,--"Some of our men too badly wounded
to be moved right away. Come out at once. Bring cordials and
brandy,--soup, if you have it,--also fill the enclosed requisition at
the drug-store. Lose no time."

The battle-field was not three miles away. I was soon tearing along
the road at breakneck speed. At an improvised field-hospital I met the
doctor, who vainly tried to prepare me for the horrid spectacle I was
about to witness.

From the hospital-tent distressing groans and screams came forth. The
surgeons, both Confederate and Federal, were busy, with coats off,
sleeves rolled up, shirt-fronts and hands bloody. But _our_ work lay
not here.

Dr. McAllister silently handed me two canteens of water, which I threw
over my shoulder, receiving also a bottle of peach brandy. We then
turned into a ploughed field, thickly strewn with men and horses, many
stone dead, some struggling in the agonies of death. The plaintive
cries and awful struggles of the horses first impressed me. They were
shot in every conceivable manner, showing shattered heads, broken and
bleeding limbs, and protruding entrails. They would not yield quietly
to death, but continually raised their heads or struggled half-way to
their feet, uttering cries of pain, while their distorted eyes seemed
to reveal their suffering and implore relief. I saw a soldier shoot
one of these poor animals, and felt truly glad to know that his agony
was at an end.

The dead lay around us on every side, singly and in groups and
_piles_; men and horses, in some cases, apparently inextricably
mingled. Some lay as if peacefully sleeping; others, with open eyes,
seemed to glare at any who bent above them. Two men lay as they had
died, the "Blue" and the "Gray," clasped in a fierce embrace. What had
passed between them could never be known; but one was shot in the
head, the throat of the other was partly torn away. It was awful to
feel the conviction that unquenched hatred had embittered the last
moments of each. They seemed mere youths, and I thought sadly of the
mothers, whose hearts would throb with equal anguish in a Northern and
a Southern home. In a corner of the field, supported by a pile of
broken fence-rails, a soldier sat apparently beckoning to us. On
approaching him we discovered that he was quite dead, although he sat
upright, with open eyes