Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/73

 different points, apparently neither advancing nor receding, until late in the afternoon the artillery became silent, and a mighty Union cheer filled the air. Then his hope rose that something favorable to us had happened. Still, he was disquieted again by the continued presence of the rebel infantry around him, until late in the night he heard something like the passing around of an order among them in a low voice, whereupon they seemed quietly to slink away. Then perfect stillness. At break of day he ventured his head out of the pig-sty, and finding the kitchen garden completely deserted, he went into the house, the inhabitants of which greeted him first with some apprehension, but then, upon better knowledge of the situation, with great glee. A happy moment it was to me when I could telegraph to Mrs. Schimmelfennig, who was, with my family, at Bethlehem, Pa., that her husband, who had been reported missing after the first day's battle, had been found, sound and safe!

No contrast could have been gloomier than that between the light-hearted hilarity of our breakfast and my visit to the battlefield immediately following it. The rebels had removed many if not most of their dead, but ours lay still in ghastly array on the ground where they had fallen. There can be no more hideous sight than that of the corpses on a battlefield, after they have been exposed a day or more to the sun in warm weather—the bodies swollen to monstrous size, the faces bloated and black, the eyes bulging out with a dead stare, all their features puffed out almost beyond recognition, some lying singly or in rows, others in heaps, having fallen over one another, some in attitudes of peaceful repose, others with arms raised, others in a sitting posture, others on their knees, others clawing the earth, many horribly distorted by what must have been a frightful death-struggle. Here I stood on the ground