Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/190

 182 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Here I stopped my horse to gaze on the sweet face of a mere boy, in rebel uniform, who had been shot through the heart. I never saw a lovelier smile than that which death had imprinted on his face. His eyes, moist and blue as in life, were wide open, and expressed an excited state, if ever I saw it in human face. His lips were parted by a winning smile. I have seen pleasure on the faces of the slain before, but never anything that was so unequivocally happy. The dead boy could not have been more than fifteen. He was enveloped rather than dressed in a loose gray uniform, as neatly kept as it was clumsy. His loose stockings had fallen around his worn shoes, re- vealing a white and slender leg. What mother was robbed of her tender child when this poor boy fell ?

Not far off reclined a German Federal artilleryman, with a patriar- chal beard and a face as composed in death as if modeled after Socrates' own. He had bled to death from a wound in the neck, and his features wore the placid look of all who die from that cause. One arm was thrown under his head; the other lay loosely by his side. His fingers had almost clasped a delicate mimosa that ran near, but its fragile leaves had opened with the morning. An in- fant's breath would shut up its tender foliage it would almost shrink together from the touch of the wild bee's foot but its stem twined between the dead soldier's fingers, with leaves as open and bloom- ing as if it loved the cold carcass.

Turning again to the rear, I passed into a hospital. Here I found a number of the Woodward boys, one of the first companies to leave Cincinnati. It had taken twenty-eight men into Saturday's fight; of that number two were killed and eleven wounded. There was little Jesse De Beck, who once discharged from service as a minor against his will, ran off from home with his company, went to West- ern Virginia and re-enlisted. He lay shot in three places leg, right arm, and a hideous wound through the mouth. He extended his left hand to me, with an apology for not giving me his shattered right the little hero. "I am nearly shot to pieces, ain't I," he said, as well as he could utter the words through his torn palate and jaw, but not a word of complaint, not a sigh of pain or discomfort would he utter.

Sorrowfully I turned from the place, and next found myself where Van Cleve was stationed as a reserve. Here was Sam Beatty with what he brought out of his brilliant charge of the day before; 390 men- were all that were left of the 1,400 our regiments in all av- eraging less than 100 men each. These figures I took from his