near the "Roulette house" towards Sharpsburg. For
some distance it had been cut through the opposite side of the knoll
upon which we fought, and had the appearance of a sunken road. It was
literally filled with rebel dead, which in some places lay three and
four bodies deep. We afterwards saw pictures of this road in the
illustrated papers, which partially portrayed the horrible scene. Those
poor fellows were the Fifth[C] Georgia regiment. This terrible work was
mostly that of our regiment, and bore testimony to the effectiveness of
the fire of our men.

The position was an alluring one: the road was cut into the hill about
waist high, and seemed to offer secure protection to a line of infantry,
and so no doubt this line was posted there to hold the knoll and this
Sharpsburg road. It proved, however, nothing but a death-trap, for once
our line got into position on the top of this crescent-shaped ridge we
could reach them by a direct fire on the centre and a double flanking
fire at the right and left of the line, and only about one hundred yards
away. With nothing but an open field behind them there was absolutely no
escape, nothing but death or surrender, and they evidently chose the
former, for we saw no white flag displayed. We could now understand the
remark of their lieutenant-colonel, whom our boys brought in, as already
mentioned: "You have killed all my poor boys. They lie there in the
road." I learned later that the few survivors of this regiment were sent
South to guard rebel prisoners.

[Illustration: SECTION OF FAMOUS SUNKEN ROAD IN FRONT OF LINE OF 132D P.
V., NEAR ROULETTE LANE

The dead are probably from the Sixth Georgia Confederate troops]

The lines of battle of both armies were not only marked by the presence
of the dead, but by a vast variety of army equipage, such as blankets,
canteens, haversacks, guns, gun-slings, bayonets, ramrods, some whole,
others broken,--verily, a besom of destruction had done its work
faithfully here. Dead horses were everywhere, and the stench from them
and the human dead was horrible. "Uncle" Billy Sherman has said, "War is
hell!" yet this definition, with all that imagination can picture, fails
to reveal all its bloody horrors.

The positions of some of the dead were very striking. One poor fellow
lay face down on a partially fallen stone wall, with one arm and one
foot extended, as if in the act of crawling over. His position attracted
our attention, and we found hi