he 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 lightheartedness 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, and I liked his frequent "'Deed I don't know, sir." better
than I have sometimes relished the large discourse of professors and
other very wise men.

I have not much to say of the road which we were travelling for the
second time. Reaching Middletown, my first call was on the wounded
Colonel and his lady. She gave me a most touching account of all
the suffering he had gone through with his shattered limb before he
succeeded in finding a shelter; showing the terrible want of proper
means of transportation of the wounded after the battle. It occurred to
me, while at this house, that I was more or less famished, and for the
first time in my life I begged for a meal, which the kind family with
whom the Colonel was staying most graciously furnished me.

After tea, there came in a stout army surgeon, a Highlander by birth,
educated in Edinburgh, with whom I had pleasant, not unstimulating
talk. He had been brought very close to that immane and nefandous
Burke-and-Hare business which made the blood of civilization run cold in
the year 1828, and told me, in a very calm way, with an occasional
pinch from the mull, to ref