Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/60

30 to dig the grave for a horse's festering carcass, and bury it within.

Such was the tale, however true it might be, and those hands unused to labor, in that hot July sun, must have blistered with the heavy work. The relics, if they were retained, have a weightier meaning for them, no doubt, than the bare fact of being gathered from the battle-field of Gettysburg.

I went to Annapolis Junction to see the wounded, who, five hundred in number, were lying in the hospitals at that place.

It was the first sweep of battle-harvest which I had seen—yet, there was nothing at that late day to offend the senses, all was clean and neatly kept,—the wounds carefully hid. I heard but few groans telling of anguished suffering from those white lips.

Dr. Wheeler, afterwards in charge of the Division hospital, was in charge here.

I returned almost surprised and disappointed that my feelings had received no shock. Conjuring up in fancy the scenes which attended each removal from the bloody ground on which they fell,—the dusty uniform dyed with patches of gore—the faces blackened with powder smoke, and the life stream slowly ebbing away on to the trampled grass—but nothing of this appeared. So little one can tell who visits a hospital after the wounded are cared for, as I found months after, when I stood watching the gory procession brought into the tents, for our hands to minister unto.

Perhaps it was better for me that none of these