The suffering of the wounded had been terrible. Some of them had fallen
on Friday, thousands on Saturday, and it was now Monday. All through the
blood-soaked tangled woods they lay groaning and dying. And everywhere
the flap of black wings. The keen-eyed vultures had seen from the sky
where they fell.
John found a brave old farmer from Northern New York lying beside his
son. He had met them in the fight at Fredericksburg in December.
"Well, here we are, Vaughan," the father cried feebly. "My boy's dead,
and I'll be with him soon--but it's all right--it's all right--my
country's worth it!"
They were lying in a bright open space, where the warm sun of May had
pushed the wood violets into blossom in rich profusion. The dead boy's
head lay in a bed of blue flowers.
Some of the bodies further on were black and charred by the flames that
had swept the woods again and again during the battles. Some of them had
been wounded men and they had been burned to death. Their twisted bodies
and the agony on their cold faces told the hideous story more plainly
than words. The odor of burning flesh still filled the air in these
black spots.
With a start John suddenly came on the crouching figure of a Confederate
soldier kneeling behind a stump, the paper end of the cartridge was in
his teeth and his fingers still grasped the ball.
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