Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/74

44 would work out wounds, and sickness, and death for many a one now flushed with ambitious hopes, and eager for the fray.

But the order came, and soldiers must obey. I went down to see them for the last time before they joined Burnside's Ninth Corps, but I felt that the shadow of death was over them, as I looked upon them, clad in new bright uniforms, so many, alas! which would prove their shrouds.

As one by one said, "Good bye, Aunt Becky," I knew there were those amidst them whom I should never see again, or seeing them, it might be, in the crowded hospital, with wounds, and dying sighs to make the place a house of horror.

My brothers seemed going from me forever, and I tried to reason with the uprising in my heart that this was why they had taken their lives in their hands, leaving peaceful pursuits behind them to fight the battles of their country. They had been spared very long the attendant hardships of active warfare—they did not shrink—why should I?

Perhaps it was because a woman's heart beat in my bosom, and woman, you know, cannot brave the battle shock only as she goes in to minister to those who fall,—she could not give those dreadful wounds.

Lieut. Barton said as he shook my hand, "Good bye, Aunt Becky, good bye forever." And he fell the first in the fight at Spotsylvania Court House.

How many such a foreboding hung round those men—how many saw the close black shadow which even then flung its blackness across their way from