Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/80

48 on the Wilderness; the bloody ground on which the May blossoms were springing up, telling no tale in their sweet freshness of the gory stains which only the spring before wet their tangled roots.

Again, over that dreadful spot, the tragedy of death was enacted. Again, through the tangles of underbrush almost impenetrable, where years of undisturbed growth had woven the mass into one intricate thicket, taking no heed how men should die there by thousands, there our gallant men fought their way, contending for mastery over the dead bodies of the fallen.

In the lull of the crash of battle, when a hundred giants seemed to be falling in the forest, men listened in horror to the groans of comrades suffocating, burning alive in the woods which had been fired by hot shot and shell, and they were powerless to aid them.

Rumors of these terrors came flying thick and fast. Faces grew white with apprehension, when the heart remembered that in the ranks of that fighting host were some whom they loved as life itself. So to me came the tidings of the dreadful May battles, and receiving my orders, I prepared to go to do the work which the carnage had rendered a necessity.

I was to go to Fredericksburg; and on the 12th of May I went on board the "Lizzie Baker," bound to Belle Plain, on my way there.

A number of officers were on board, going to join their commands, and several women, amongst which was one who was "going on her own hook" to nurse our poor fellows. The bloom of youth had long since