CHAPTER XVIII.
WOUNDED.
The Morning after the Battle of Shiloh. My Return to Camp. A Letter from my Memphis Lady-love. A sad Case. My Boy Bob missing. I start out to Search for him. A runaway Horse, and a long Tramp through the Mud. Return to the Battle-field. Horrible Scenes along the road. Out on a scouting Expedition. Burying the Dead. I receive a severe Wound. A long and painful Ride back to Camp. My Wound dressed by a Surgeon, and my Sex discovered. A Fugitive. Arrival at Grand Junction. Crowd of anxious Inquirers. Off for New Orleans. Stoppages at Grenada, Jackson, and Osyka on Account of my Wound. The Kindness of Friends. Fresh Attempt to reach New Orleans. Unsatisfactory Appearance of the military Situation. The Passage of the Forts by the Federal Fleet. A new Field of Employment opened for me. I resume the Garments of my Sex.
>ESTED, but scarcely refreshed, by a brief slumber on the damp ground, and with thoughts of the most gloomy description filling my mind, I mounted my horse at daybreak and started to ride back to Corinth. I was in rather different spirits from what I was two days before, when, inspired by brilliant hopes, and full of confidence that with this, the first great battle of the spring campaign, the disasters of the winter would be more than repaired, and that our Confederate army was about to enter upon a career of victory which would, most likely, long before the ending of the summer, establish our independence, I had hastened to the field, eager only to be able to join in the fight in time to have a chance of distinguishing myself before the Federals should be completely wiped out. The attack was, indeed, made as brilliantly and as successfully as I had anticipated that it would be, and at the end of a hard day's fighting,
victory was fairly within our grasp. At the end of another day, however, we were a broken and disorganized mass of fugitives, straggling back to our camps, and thinking ourselves lucky that the Federals were not enterprising enough to pursue us before we could reach our intrenchments.
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