Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/240

198 coffin and lay back the sheet, and wipe away the dust which accumulated on his hair and face, brushing his hair again to its old natural position.

I thought much of the comfort which it must be to those who loved him, to see him again with the look of life on his pale dead face.

Bodies were brought here to be deodorized, previous to transportation home—bodies which perhaps had been buried for months, retaining no sign of the comeliness which in living they wore. My own brother might have lain before me, and I could not have told him—no look which you remembered would be found on those blackened features, and it would seem poor consolation to take such a token from the hands of one who did not positively know the grave from which it was exhumed.

There was so much room for fraud—so many unscrupulous persons eager to prey even on the anxious credulity of sorrowing friends, and willing to do unholy deeds to gratify their lust for gain. I would rather let the remains of a friend rest in the grave wherein he first reposed, than to feel the uncertainty which such imperfect recognition must always produce.

The wish to be taken home after death was a feeling strong as life with some. I never felt the neglect to conform to this wish as I did in the case of one member of our regiment, who had repeatedly expressed his desire not to be left there when the war was over. We knew where he was buried. I wrote to his friends stating the embalmer's terms, and