scoros of living and dead men ta fragments! And into this hell of slaughter newsregimonts charging, in lincs four doop! And squad after squad of the enemy striving to aurrendor, and shot to pieces by their own comrudea as they clambored over the blood-soaled walls! And heavy ‘timbers in the defences shot ko splinters! Hugo oak trees—one of them twenty-four inches in diameter—crashing down upon the com- batanis, gnawed through by rifle-bullots 1 Since the world began had men eyor fought like that ? |
Then tho Colovel told of his own wound in the shouldor, and how, toward dusk, he had crawled away ; ond how ho besame lost, and strayed into the snomy’s lino, and was thrust into a batch of prisoners and marched to tho roar. And thon of the night that he spent besido hospital camp in the Wilderness, whoro hundreds of wounded and dying mon lay about on the rain-soaked ground, moaning, soreaming, praying te be killod. Again the prisoners wero moved, having boon ordored to maroh to tho railroad >and on the way the Colonel went blind from aufiering and exhaustion, and stagesred and foll in the road, You vould have hoard & pin drop in the room, in the pause botween sentonces in his atery, as ho told how tho guard arguod with him to persuade him to go on. It was thoir duty to kill him if he refused, but they could not bring themselves to do it. In the ond they left the job to ono, and he stood and ouraod the officer, trying to got up hia courage ; and finally fired hia gun inso the air, and wont off and lef} him,
‘Thon he told how an old negro hed found him, and how he Jay doliriouy; and how, at last, the amy marched his way. He ended his narrative with tho simple avntence: “It was not watil the
