. I picked
up a Rebel canteen, and one of our own,--but there was something
repulsive about the trodden and stained relics of the stale
battle-field. It was like the table of some hideous orgy left uncleared,
and one turned away disgusted from its broken fragments and muddy
heel-taps. A bullet or two, a button, a brass plate from a soldier's
belt, served well enough for mementos of my visit, with a letter which
I picked up, directed to Richmond, Virginia, its seal unbroken. "N.C.
Cleaveland County. E. Wright to J. Wright." On the other side, "A few
lines from W.L. Vaughn," who has just been writing for the wife to her
husband, and continues on his own account. The postscript, "tell John
that nancy's folks are all well and has a verry good Little Crop of corn
a growing." I wonder, if, by one of those strange chances of which I
have seen so many, this number or leaf of the "Atlantic" will not sooner
or later find its way to Cleveland County, North Carolina, and E.
Wright, widow of James Wright, and Nancy's folks get from these
sentences the last glimpse of husband and friend as he threw up his arms
and fell in the bloody cornfield of Antietam? I will keep this stained
letter for them until peace comes back, if it comes in my time, and my
pleasant North-Carolina Rebel of the Middletown Hospital will, perhaps,
look these poor people up, and tell them where to send for it.

On the battle-field I parted with my two companions, the Chaplain and
the Philanthropist. They were going to the front, the one to find his
regiment, the other to look for those who needed his assistance. We
exchanged cards and farewells, I mounted the wagon, the horses' heads
were turned homewards, my two companions went their way, and I saw them
no more. On my way back, I fell into talk with James Grayden. Born in
England, Lancashire; in this country since he was four years old. Had
nothing to care for but an old mother; didn't know what he should do, if
he lost her. Though so long in this country, he had all the simplicity
and childlike light-heartedness which belong to the Old World's people.
He laughed at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great white
English teeth; he took a joke without retorting by an impertinence; he
had a very limited curiosity about all that was going on; he had small
store of information; he lived chiefly in his horses, it seemed to me.
His quiet animal nature acted as a pleasing anodyne to my recurring fits
of anxiety, a