s body literally riddled with
bullets--there must have been hundreds--and most of them shot into him
after he was dead, for they showed no marks of blood. Probably the poor
fellow had been wounded in trying to reach shelter behind that wall, was
spotted in the act by our men, and killed right there, and became
thereafter a target for every new man that saw him. Another man lay,
still clasping his musket, which he was evidently in the act of loading
when a bullet pierced his heart, literally flooding his gun with his
life's blood, a ghastly testimonial to his heroic sacrifice.

We witnessed the burying details gathering up and burying the dead. The
work was rough and heartless, but only comporting with the character of
war. The natural reverence for the dead was wholly absent. The poor
bodies, all of them heroes in their death, even though in a mistaken
cause, were "planted" with as little feeling as though they had been so
many logs. A trench was dug, where the digging was easiest, about seven
feet wide and long enough to accommodate all the bodies gathered within
a certain radius; these were then placed side by side, cross-wise of the
trench, and buried without anything to keep the earth from them. In the
case of the Union dead the trenches were usually two or three feet deep,
and the bodies were wrapped in blankets before being covered, but with
the rebels no blankets were used, and the trenches were sometimes so
shallow as to leave the toes exposed after a shower.

No ceremony whatever attended this gruesome service, but it was
generally accompanied by ribald jokes, at the expense of the poor
"Johnny" they were "planting." This was not the fruit of debased natures
or degenerate hearts on the part of the boys, who well knew it might be
their turn next, under the fortunes of war, to be buried in like manner,
but it was recklessness and thoughtlessness, born of the hardening
influences of war.

Having now given some account of the scenes in which I participated
during the battle and the day after, let us look at another feature of
the battle, and probably the most heart-breaking of all, the field
hospital. There was one established for our division some three hundred
yards in our rear, under the shelter of a hill. Here were gathered as
rapidly as possible the wounded, and a corps of surgeons were busily
engaged in amputating limbs and dressing wounds. It should be understood
that the accommodations were of the rudest