for the higher
law. I must make a good offer for an extra couple of hours, such as
would satisfy the owners of the wagon, and enforce it by a personal
motive. I did this handsomely, and succeeded without difficulty. To
add brilliancy to my enterprise, I invited the Chaplain and the
Philanthropist to take a free passage with me.

We followed the road through the village for a space, then turned off
to the right, and wandered somewhat vaguely, for want of precise
directions, over the hills. Inquiring as we went, we forded a wide creek
in which soldiers were washing their clothes, the name of which we did
not then know, but which must have been the Antietam. At one point we
met a party, women among them, bringing off various trophies they had
picked up on the battlefield. Still wandering along, we were at last
pointed to a hill in the distance, a part of the summit of which was
covered with Indian corn. There, we were told, some of the fiercest
fighting of the day had been done. The fences were taken down so as to
make a passage across the fields, and the tracks worn within the last
few days looked like old roads. We passed a fresh grave under a tree
near the road. A board was nailed to the tree, bearing the name, as well
as I could make it out, of Gardiner, of a New Hampshire regiment.

On coming near the brow of the hill, we met a party carrying picks and
spades. "How many?" "Only one." The dead were nearly all buried, then,
in this region of the field of strife. We stopped the wagon, and,
getting out, began to look around us. Hard by was a large pile of
muskets, scores, if not hundreds, which had been picked up, and were
guarded for the Government. A long ridge of fresh gravel rose before us.
A board stuck up in front of it bore this inscription, the first part
of which was, I believe, not correct: "The Rebel General Anderson and 80
Rebels are buried in this hole." Other smaller ridges were marked with
the number of dead lying under them. The whole ground was strewed
with fragments of clothing, haversacks, canteens, cap-boxes, bullets,
cartridge-boxes, cartridges, scraps of paper, portions of bread and
meat. I saw two soldiers' caps that looked as though their owners had
been shot through the head. In several places I noticed dark red patches
where a pool of blood had curdled and caked, as some poor fellow poured
his life out on the sod. I then wandered about in the cornfield. It
surprised me to notice, that, though th