Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/52

24 days over the silent dust of her soldier husband, starred with the daisies, and wet with God's showers and diamond dew, under the shadow of his native hills.

I experienced naught but kindness, where I had been warned of a soldier's roughness, and I was very content with my work, so long as the eyes of sick men followed me about and grew brighter at my approach. So still it made my life to feel that some little good was growing out of it, when so much was wasted.

Colonel Tracy and Lieut.-Col. Catlin visited us, and both were interested in everything pertaining to our boys, providing for them as fathers would provide for children. How the nobleness of such souls shone out in the fiery struggle through which they passed. Men were tried as by a fire at red heat, and if dross made up the measure of humanity, there it lay an ashen heap.

These were men who would not ask others to go where they could not lead—men who would divide rations and money to the last with a private soldier, and would not feel their manhood dishonored. Men on whom the dignity of office was in no way cast down by sympathy with the common soldier—whose Democratic spirits recognized the fact, that "All men are created free and equal," and a shoulder-strap had no signification of higher material than earthly dust having been incorporated in the frame, which a shot or shell made as easy prey for worms as though it struck through the coarse blue of the private in the ranks.

I occasionally went from the hospital to visit the