Page:Nurse and spy in the Union Army.djvu/113

Rh of the hour, only broken by the occasional booming of the enemy's cannon, all combined to make the scene awfully impressive. I felt that I was not alone. I was in the presence of that God who had summoned my friend to the eternal world, and the spirit of the departed one was hovering near, although my dim eyes could not penetrate the mysterious veil which hid him from my view. It was there, in that midnight hour, kneeling beside the grave of him who was very dear to me, that I vowed to avenge the death of that christian hero. I could now better understand the feelings of poor Nellie when she fired the pistol at me, because I was " one of the hated Yankees who was in sympathy with the murderers of her husband, father and brothers."

But I could not forgive his murderers as she nad done. I did not enjoy taking care of the sick and wounded as I once did, but I longed to go forth and do, as a noble chaplain did at the battle of Pittsburg Landing. He picked up the musket and cartridge-box of a wounded soldier, stepped into the front rank, and took deliberate aim at one rebel after another until he had fired sixty rounds of cartridge ; and as he sent a messenger of death to each heart he also sent up the following brief prayer : "May God have mercy upon your miserable soul."

From this time forward I became strangely interested in the fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians