assure you that the long lines and dense masses of cavalry made a splendid and imposing appearance. It was nearly night before we filed off towards Falmouth. The night was dark and misty and the roads broken and wild. Sometimes we would plunge down into a deep gully, at others scramble up the slippery and frozen sides of a steep hill. Every now and then horse and rider would be down, to the great merriment of all witnesses. But the joke became too serious when a horse fell and broke one poor fellow's leg.

"Seen through the mist and darkness, the long extended column, winding among the broken hills, now coming out in bold relief on the brow of one of them, and then descending again into the valley or the gloom of some forest, had a shadowy and phantom-like appearance, and seemed more like a procession in a dream than a goodly number of well armed troopers on a march. Especially was this spectral effect heightened when a distant part of the column would pass within the lurid glare of some brilliant camp-fire. After floundering through streams and quagmires, and filing through gorges that reminded one of the old Indian ambuscades, we turned off into a forest to encamp for the night. Selecting a tree from under which the snow had partially melted away, a few of us built a fire, then spread our blankets and slept on the ground in the clear, frosty starlight as well as on the softest couch our limbs had ever pressed. Long before daylight, the bugle sounded 'boots and saddles,' and the woods soon resounded with the customary martial clamor of an encampment.

"Suddenly every sound was hushed, for the distant boom of the two guns that opened the battle of Fredericksburg broke upon our ears. The silence was succeeded by wild shouts of enthusiasm, and soon we were on our way to the scene of action. The sharp rattle of musketry now began to mingle with the report of cannon. As we approached the river the roar of the artillery was truly grand and awful. I can only compare it to a very violent thunder-storm, wherein you hear, at one and the same time, the rumble and mutter of some peal dying away in the distance, the heavy, jarring roll more near, and the loud stunning explosion from the flash overhead. Our cavalry was crowded on a plain in the rear of our batteries. We did not know that the rebels were not replying to our guns, and expected every minute they would get our range. As we remained undisturbed, I concluded that our distance from the river was much greater than I had first supposed; but when the order came to march, and we filed off, by twos, down towards the river, past our batteries, I expected every moment to see the head of our column broken and shattered by shot and shell. I have heard much about "lazy soldiers and large pay," but I thought at that time that the soldier who marches steadily and determinedly forward on such occasions earns in five minutes all the pay he ever gets. But the heavy cannonading was only from our own guns, for the rebels were reserving their fire. We soon found that our orders were not to cross, but to go down the river and do picket duty on the extreme left flank. As we marched along, a shell from one of our batteries on a hill above me passed directly over my head. As it hissed by, it gave me an idea of the infinitely short space of time in which many of our poor boys are dashed into eternity.

"The early dawn of Saturday morning saw us returning to the battlefield. About nine o'clock we mounted the hill, and formed upon the plain on the opposite side of the river. As we were taking our position, I heard a whizzing sound, and saw the earth torn up by a solid shot quite near me. They soon screamed over our heads and fell all around us; but, as a general thing, the enemy fired too high. A few hundred yards to our front, the shells were bursting constantly. We remained on the plain all that day and night, the fire in front of us sometimes slackening, and sometimes ceasing altogether. We often cast anxious glances at some rebel batteries quite near us on the right, and often wondered why they did not open upon us, for if they did, they could have swept us from the plain in a few moments. Either our batteries occupied them, or they reserved their fire for some purpose. A little after noon, we heard that General Bayard, our division commander, was mortally wounded. Soon after word came that cavalry was needed. Two regiments of the enemy were running, it was said, and the Harris Light Cavalry was wanted to follow them up. Off dashed our men in close column, at full gallop, to the place designated, the surgeon and myself going to the hospital to prepare for our wounded. As we started, the road over which the regiment had just passed, and directly in front of us, was torn up by a solid shot. Whose earnest prayers were heard that day, and the Harris Light Cavalry saved from almost a massacre? The order for cavalry had to pass through three different hands before it reached us, and by the time our men arrived at the spot it was discovered that the enemy's retreat was only a feint, and that batteries were so arranged as to place the party who should follow them between two fires. Our regiment approached near enough to the trap, and were exposed to a sufficiently hot fire, for a few minutes, to be satisfied that if they had charged, as was intended, but few would have returned.

"At the hospital we found poor Bayard. Of all the ghastly wounds I saw that day his was the most awful. It needed but a glance to see, as he calmly stated to those who visited him, "that his days on earth were numbered." If his wound had been a mere scratch, he could not have been more cool, quiet, and collected. He talked calmly of his death as of a settled thing, and only inquired particularly how much time he had left on earth. He was told, 'perhaps forty-eight hours.' He did not live twenty-four. My heart sank within me as he gave me his hand in farewell, and I almost murmured, 'Why are the best taken?' The large house to which the wounded were brought was now filled with mutilated and dying men. Cries and groans resounded from every apartment. Ghastly and bloody wounds met the eye in every direction. Some had their eyes shot out; the tongues of some were swollen out of their mouths; some had their bodies shot through; others were torn and mangled by shell and solid shot, and all were crowded wherever there was any space. The surgeons were hacking off limbs and arms by the dozen. The odor of blood was oppressive. One man called me to him, thinking I was a surgeon, and said that one of his wounds had been dressed, but he found that he had another, which was bleeding rapidly. Another poor fellow held up his arm to me, with a great bulging hole in it, and asked with an expression of pain and anxiety that I could scarcely endure, whether I thought he would have to lose it? Such is the horrid reality of war behind the painted scenes of honor, glory, and romance. However cold an ear the poor fellows may have turned to the story of the Cross when in health, as a general thing they were ready enough now to listen to the offers of mercy. One wounded boy had his leg taken off just as he was entering the hospital, which building was under fire all day, and was repeatedly struck. The scene from the windows of the hospital was truly splendid as night came on. Innumerable camp-fires gleamed from the hillsides, and occasionally the darkness was lighted up by the flash of cannon. But weariness, and the knowledge that our own regiment might be engaged the next day, caused me to seek a place of rest. The medical department of our brigade had been rendered small by the absence of some of its members, and it might be that our duties on the morrow would be very arduous. The ground outside the hospital was so tramped up, muddy, and filled with horses, that it was impossible to sleep there. But there was a stone alley-way under the hospital, filled with tobacco in the leaf, part of it lying on the ground, and part drying overhead. One end of this place was already filled with wounded men, but the surgeon in charge said that the other