d. The shells from the gunboats had crashed through
some of the buildings. The soldiers had cut down the orchards and the
shade-trees, and burned the fences. All was desolation. There were sad
groups around the camp-fires, with despair upon their countenances. O
how many of them thought of their friends far away, and wished they
could see them again!

The ground was strewed with their guns, cartridge-boxes, belts, and
knapsacks. There were bags of corn, barrels of sugar, hogsheads of
molasses, tierces of bacon, broken open and trodden into the mud.

I went into the fort, and saw where the great shells from the gunboats
had cut through the embankments. There were piles of cartridges beside
the cannon. The dead were lying there, torn, mangled, rent. Near the
intrenchments, where the fight had been fiercest, there were pools of
blood. The Rebel soldiers were breaking the frozen earth, digging
burial-trenches, and bringing in their fallen comrades and laying them
side by side, to their last, long, silent sleep. I looked down the slope
where Lauman's men swept over the fallen trees in their terrible charge;
then I walked down to the meadow, and looked up the height, and wondered
how men could climb over the trees, the stumps, the rocks, and ascend it
through such a storm. The dead were lying where they fell, heroes every
one of them! It was sad to think that so many noble men had fallen, but
it was a pleasure to know that they had not faltered. They had done
their duty. If you ever visit that battle-field, and stand upon that
slope, you will feel your heart swell with gratitude and joy, to think
how cheerfully they gave their lives to save their country, that you and
all who come after you may enjoy peace and prosperity forever.

How bravely they fought! There, upon the cold ground, lay a soldier of
the Ninth Illinois. Early in the action of Saturday he was shot through
the arm. He went to the hospital and had it bandaged, and returned to
his place in the regiment. A second shot passed through his thigh,
tearing the flesh to shreds.

"We will carry you to the hospital," said two of his comrades.

"No, you stay and fight. I can get along alone." He took off his
bayonet, used his gun for a crutch, and reached the hospital. The
surgeon dressed the wound. He heard the roar of battle. His soul was on
fire to be there. He hobbled once more to the field, and went into the
thickest of the fight, lying down, because he could not