Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/156

120 She came with his brother, and only God and those who have felt it can tell the agony with which she caught his dying look, and knew that the man she loved was so near his death. No efforts to save him availed, and all we could do after the spirit was gone, was to make the poor lifeless body ready for the silent journey homeward.

One man from a Michigan regiment, who was wounded through the brain, I cared for myself, shaving his head, and dressing the wound carefully. He seemed quite comfortable, and was rational at times; but they had told me from the first it was of no use to waste strength and time on a dead man, and on the third day he died.

He was a noble-looking fellow—somebody's pride; and I wished that those who loved him could see the peaceful look which his features wore, and take him to the dear old spot to sleep his last sleep, afar from the din of battles.

A woman came from Pennsylvania to our hospital to see her husband, who was reported as badly wounded through the head, with no hopes of his recovery. When she arrived, with a little tender babe in her arms, how my heart ached for her, and for the little one who should never look upon its father's living face, for he had been dead and buried three days.

The old father came with his daughter-in-law, and the last act they could render to his lifeless remains, was to remove them from the scene of his death, back to the sacred soil wherein each and every one of us desires to repose, when life's fitful dream