Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 28.djvu/28

 22 Southern Historical Society Papers.

shot away at the shoulder-joint, and the quivering, bleeding flesh soiled with dust, stained with powder and filled with shreds of the gray sleeve that had been hurriedly cut off. Something moved me as the bearers halted, to uncover the face, over which some rude but kindly hand had thrown a piece of dirty blanket. Great God! There lay before me a friend of my earliest boyhood! Years had passed by since we parted I had known him as the gentlest, most lovable of men, living in a quiet country home, amidst a simple- hearted, peace-loving people, an Arcadia, in which war was not even a dream. But he did not know me. His honest, brave life was fast ebbing away, and the mist was gathering over his eyes, which could only be swept off in the sunlight of that country where the nations shall learn war no more.

As I turned away, heart-sick, from this scene, a poor woman caught me by the hands: " Doctor, will you not order somebody to help me to carry my poor husband home. I can take care of him and nurse him better than any one else there he is." And there, lying only a few feet away in the hospital yard, where with many others he had been hurriedly brought in and put down anywhere that space could be found, was a private belonging to the second- class militia, an humble citizen not subject to regular military serv- ice, who had been summoned to the defence of the city, when our lines grew so thin. He had fallen not very far away from the little cottage, where, in days of peace, he had lived with his wife and little ones and now there he lay, a fourth part of his skull carried away with a fragment of shell, exposing his brain, leaving him with some little automatic life, but, of course, without conciousness, whilst his poor wife was striving to get from him some sign of recognition and begging that he might be carried home. I could only stop to tell her that my right to order was at an end, and that if a thousand men were at my beck none could help her now. I could see no more, and mounting my horse I slowly followed my little party, crossed the river and on the heights at Ettricks took one last look at Peters- burg as it was. Here I overtook my cortege, and mustering them found one absentee. This was a yellow, bob-tailed, bob-eared, rough-haired, Scotch-terrier, about twelve years old, who had seen no little service, and who showed it. He was irritable, selfish, self- asserting, frail as to virtue, his name disagreeably associated with any number of scandals, but full of faith in his master, and irrevo- cably attached to his master's fortunes, or misfortunes. I had given my chief of ambulance orders that whoever should be left behind,