Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/182

144 and the incessant nibbling which sends me wild with its monotonous tones.

I am not alone, two soldiers are making free with their onions and johnny-cake here, and enjoying themselves hugely in their freedom from restraint. I cannot check them when I know how near they may be to the river's brink down which so many have plunged with no warning cry.

The poor wounded are now being brought in from the Fifth Corps—the loss is said to be heavy—and yet they call it "victory." Oh! this cruel, cruel war, when will it end, and these men, so precious to somebody's heart, cease to be brought here with bleeding wounds, maimed, helpless—dying?

God, let thy vengeance fall speedily on those at whose door this carnage may be laid—let the rope and the bullet do their work, till the land shall be rid of the evil which wrought this sin, and our brave, noble soldiers be set free.

The greed for ambition and gain has reached this awful climax. Do not those who ventured no risk in the chaos never shrink back from the yawning hell right at their feet? Death, in a speedy form, would seem a punishment too light for them to bear, rather I would doom them to long-lingering decay,—deprived of human society, the four bare walls of an iron cell should enclose them, and not even a glimpse of Heaven's own blue should drift before their vision, for have they not desecrated its semblance in the glorious old flag which floats over our loyal country?

North or South—friend or foe, I care not on