Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/157

Rh reached and relieved the nearest sufferer, pouring down his parched throat the life-giving fluid, putting him in a more comfortable position, and leaving him a canteen filled with water. His purpose now being apparent, the Federals ceased to fire on him, and for an hour and a half, amid the plaudits of both armies, this angel of mercy went on his mission from man to man of the wounded enemy his comrades gladly filling his canteens for him and being prevented from joining him in his labor of love only by the orders against their crossing the line—until all on that part of the field were relieved. It needs only to be added since "the bravest are the tenderest and the loving are the daring"—that Sergeant Kirkland so greatly distinguished himself at Gettysburg that he was promoted for "conspicuous gallantry," and that he fell on the victorious field of Chickamauga, bravely doing his duty. But he will be known in the annals of the war as "The humane hero of Fredericksburg," and as he had but a short time before found "Christ in the camp," I doubt not that he wears now a bright crown bestowed by Him who promises that a cup of cold water given in the right spirit shall not lose its reward.

I well remember that at Winchester, on the Gettysburg campaign, one of our men came for me after midnight to see a dying prisoner, whom he had been nursing, and that I had with him a solemn and a very satisfactory interview; several of our boys doing the singing and leading in the tender prayers. Just in the rear of the "bloody angle" at Spottsylvania Court House, I found a Federal soldier dreadfully wounded but happy in his simple trust in Christ and loud in his praises of the kindness with which he had been treated by some of "the Johnnies," who had tenderly borne him to their hospital, had his wounds attended to, and provided, as far as they could, for all his wants.

The conduct of our soldiers in the enemy's country after the outrages perpetrated in ours is among the