Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/238

196 almost in sight of home, but when I bade the boys "Good bye," knowing that I should never see them again, and that in after years my memory even would fade from the hearts of those over whom I had watched with so much anxious solicitude, I could not keep the tears back, and I would not if I could.

I went up to the peaceful burial-ground on the hill. The fresh earth was uncovered by sod, or flowers, and the white head-boards bore many a name whose owner's soul had gone up into the presence of its Maker, while I stood by the bedside, and saw the struggle with death.

The great field was regularly laid out, each grave marked with name and regiment, and here and there the mournful inscription, "." I thought, in so many homes they had waited long, and waited in vain for tidings from their soldier after the battle. "Not known to have been killed or taken prisoner," the letter said, and then hope struggled a little way, and they thought soon to hear from him in hospital, or from some place where death had not found him.

Meanwhile, too weak to tell his history, he had been brought with the maimed thousands to the hospital, and his life had ebbed away, and God only knew how to comfort those waiting hearts, which, in the uncertainty of his fate, should never know perfect peace again.

Unknown, their bones will be gathered up when years hence they pile these relics of the dead under some huge marble, which, pointing heavenward, shall tell how nobly they died.