hs, and follow Paul Blecker to
Fredericksburg, the night after that bloodiest day for the Federal forces,
in December. It was the fourth battle in which he had taken part. Now a
man grows _blase_, in a manner, even of wholesale slaughter; he plodded
his way quietly, indifferently almost, therefore, over the plateau below
the first range of hills, his instrument-case in hand, drinking from his
brandy-flask now and then, to keep down nausea. The night was clear,--a
low, wan moon peering from the west, a warm wind from the river drifting
the heavy billows of smoke away from the battle-field. He picked his steps
with difficulty, unwilling to tread upon even the dead: they lay in heaps
here, thrown aside by the men who were removing the wounded. The day was
lost: he fancied he could read on even the white upturned faces a bitter
defeat. Firing had ceased an hour ago; only at long intervals on the far
left a dull throb was heard, as though the heart of the Night pulsed
heavily and feverishly in her sleep: no other sound, save the constant,
deadening roll of ambulances going out from this Valley of Death. The
field where he stood was below the ridge on which were placed Lee's
batteries; for ten hours the grand division of Sumner had charged the
heights here, the fog shutting out from them all but the impregnable foe
in front, and the bit of blue sky above, the last glimpse of life they
were to see,--charging with the slow, cumulative energy of an ocean-surf
upon a rock, and ebbing back at last, spent, leaving behind the drift of a
horrible wetness on the grass, and uncounted murdered souls to go back to
God.

The night now was bright and colorless, as I said, except where a burning
house down by the canal made a faded saffron glare. The Doctor had entered
a small thicket of locust-trees; the moonlight penetrated clearly through
their thin trunks, but the dead on the grass lay in shadow. He carried a
lantern, therefore, as he gently turned them over, searching for some one.
It was a Pennsylvania regiment which had held that wood
longest,--McKinstry's. Half a dozen other men were employed like the
Doctor,--Irish, generally: they don't forget the fellows that messed with
them as quickly as our countrymen do.

"We're in luck, Dan Reilly," said one. "Here's the Docthor himself. Av we
hed the b'ys now, we'd be complate,"--turning over one face after another,
unmistakably Dutch or Puritan.

"Ev it's Pat O'Shaughnessy yez want," sai