Show AFTER THE BATTLE BY BENJAMIN F TAYLOR A battle and a furnace are alike it is wonderful how bow dull natures brighten and grow costly in the glow of battle how bow the sterling worth and wealth there are in them shine out and the common man stands transfigured trans figured bis his heart in bib bis band and his bis foot in the realm of heroic grandeur but ab when the fire is out and the scarred earth earb earh is heaped with rigid clay the black mouths of the guns speechless mighty hammers and no bands hands the nags flags furled the wild hurrah burrah died away and all the splendid action of the charge vanished from the rugged field like a flash of 0 sunshine and you yon ou walder among the dull dun remainders the dead embers of the in tensest life and gio glow gion N that swept your jour squi saul out only yesterday and drifted it on with the skirmish line you begin to know what those words mean after the battle bable it is days since great waves of gallant life dashed against mission ridge and swept up ant ani and over it in surges days since I 1 tried to tell you how bow it all looked so many day days a that it is eve even n now indu rating into history and yet I 1 feel like taking up the story just juat where I 1 left it on wednesday nib nig night at sunset when our flags flapped like earea eagles wings and the wild cry of triumph quivered along the mountain standing on the edge of the field in the moonlight calm aa as gods arrery arre acre stretches the rough val vai valey ey that but an hour before jarred with the rush and whirl of the battie battle from away beyond the ridge indeed three miles out to chickamauga station the dropping shots from Sheri dans guns faintly punctuate the silence but here listen as you will you c can bear no sound but the click of ce wheels bt e 1 sio blo slowly wiy aly rolling in with their mangled bur burdens lens no sieb no nothing but the bobbing lapse of the tennessee 1 can bait never nevor tell fell you yon with what a warm feeling at the heart I 1 looked up and saw the federal tires fires kin kinding binding ding like a new constellation upon mission ridge they were aa as welcome aa as dawning day to effa eyes that have watched the night out the old baleful glare from rebel c mp amp and ignal signal light was with srm orm sr ething t thicker icker than water and chattanooga was at peace it is strange that a battle almost allays lles lies between two breadths of elep the dreamless aulle aulie slumber into which men always fall upon its eve the cam calm repose they sink in at its end night ight fairly held its breath above the camp the wing of silence was over them all then the came thursday morning bright and beautiful you go out to the field and you keep saying over and over after the battle after the battle 2 men prone upon their faces in deaths deep abasement here one his head pillowed billowed pill owed upon n his folded arm there one hib bis I 1 cheek presed pre re sed upon a stone as was jacobs at I 1 bethel bet hel yonder one his bis fingers stiffened round his musket now you yota pats pabs pas where a butter butler 1 nut arld and a true bue have gone down together I 1 the arm of the one flung over the other where a y young boy of fifteen lies face upward both ba bands hands duina clasped la sped over his bis heart the sun has tou lou touched child thild the trost frost that whitened hig his hair bair as if he haa baa rown krown town old od li lit a nl ht and it bangs like I 1 tears freeh fresh fallen upon his hla cheeks where a lieutenant grasps a bush as if be died died vainly fee feeling lini for a littfe little hoid hold up n eart earth h and life where a stained trail leads leada you to a shelter bebic d a rock and there a dead captain who had bad crept away out of sight eight anc ani fallen asleen asleen where rebels le and true brur hearts lie ile in short abort wina nind rows as if death bad begun the harvea barve t and had bad wearied of the work and so go through the valley and up tile the ridge in fit every altitude lie the t unburied inbi ined dead lie just juat as they fell in the glow plow of battle and those faces are biot i ot as you would think hardly one distorted with any r passion as almost all white and calm as ben adroma dream of peace many brightened att w th some thir thug g like a am smile ile lle a few strangely beautiful wounded ones that have escaped the moonlight search have lain silently wait walt ing for morning alive not grieved they are wounded for did we not take the ridge they say thus did the old soldierly so Bo dierly spirit fit rit of one alash flash up tike ike an expiring ing catale cai dle die ai elygo d go out right there on the field aa as be spoke be died tied lied N with ith the last word on his bis lips and wint up higher 1 I 1 said something of taking ibe the backward step and ng the gro ground U nd made classic by a thousand deeds of valor it is a work bayord the narrow erge verge of a writer of letters I 1 iut tut ut while abile abandoning it to more ambitious an bilious hands I 1 cannot deny dany byset the arm ege of record ing two or three t 4 coor coot co 01 el wiley of the th gojlo fell rell terribly wounded at the first line of eifle pits and general rode up 1 I with the cords w orris 1 I hie h pe re you are not bary badly wounded do you thlik thick thir k well make ity it aked asked the colonel 11 1 1 I 1 do 2 was the ir reply ep I 1 y eri cri enough ough pall the gallant gallart t officer 1 I ean can stand wind trally and there he lie lay bleed rg and content and the tide of battle rolled on A division general turned abruptly to me in the course of a desultory coave bation with stif jf you ou write anything about wednesdays affair as you will dont ont forget colonel aeller Al mil mii ller lier er of the 11 lili nois one of the tie most gallant little fellows that ever drew a sword v I 1 did not need that injunction for colonel silas miller rode through the storm to the summit of the ridge at the head bead of his bis regiment like a veteran inspiring his bis men till the little was a phalanx of heroes colonel fraik fra k T sherman of chicado city who commanded general Ste edmans brigade displayed displaced a cool courage and clear judgment worthy the name and fame of illinois in truth all the colonels on that day were fit to be named with him of contant continental con tint memory lithe the old ola fashioned colonel 21 who galloped through the white infernal powder cloud indeed and indeed death loves a chining mark 2 and the roll of officers for hom whom their comrades aby say today to day dead on the field of or honor 12 will lend a spend spen dir r to the sto eto y of mission ridge forever clothed be the ath ohio in mourning and glory that lost thirteen of its seventeen officers Sheri sherl danys I 1 lost at stone river seventy two uga ninety six while at mission biege riege one oce hundred and twenty two bars single and double leaves silver and gold and a x spread eagles lay bloody and blent the total loss in the two divisions of wood and sheridan alore alora was between twenty three hundred bundred and arid forty four they cried in the white heat beat of tit wednesday afternoon elthe the rebels mass their bat batteries teries they converge their fi e and ard yet taking our divisions through and alid through the dreadful rain fell as evenly as it if it ishad had been shed by the clouds of heaven spots all along that rough and terrible ter nibe ribe mountain route are waiting breath to blossom with flowers immortal here by this gray rock lay the soldier one shoulder shattered like a piece of potters cia clay elay cla baited and thus urged two comrades who had bad batted to bear him to the rear dont stop for ire im lm of no account for gods goda sake push right up with the boys and on they want and left lett him walteri g in bis big bloody vestments doye talk taik oe of 5 3 dur our royal purple and tyrian dyes beside that hero bero tying were lucre those tints grow dull as gray november hurd by that litte oak colonel coi onel ohel harker crowding up the hill bill saw two brothers one wounded unto death the other bending over dver him the colonel nou not seeing the fallen man ordered the other to move on but this is my brother brot her ber 12 he pleadingly eaid the poor stricken fellow on the ground rallied an instant yes that s right george go on go george turned a piteous it bl look upon hla hia dying brother grastat hla hia musket and clambered on and that was his last farewell for the tle summit reached tc le hastened has bas bened back and here beside the little oak the soldier lay in that sleep without a dream between the first and second ranges of rebel works right in the flush flueh of the charge a captain fell and two men came to bib bis aid dont wait walt here he be said go back to joun jour company one useless man la Is enough dont make it three just then a cheer floated doan down the mountain as they thy took the rifle pit it dont you bear that be cried cried f ama march r and away they we wet t such incidents as thebe these strew all the way from base to crest happening in an instant lost and forgotten in the whirlwind worthy every one ot of them of a place in loyal hearts with buch such a spirit inspiring rank and file a spirit as lofty as the alpine traveler breathed whose burden as he went was still ds excelsior 1 who can wonder that mission aidee was waa carried in a giove ia ni ber afternoon As I 1 think of it all I 1 seem to have the poets quickened ear and to meg met me 11 standing in the tie tle valley below from hundreds of lips now white and still I 1 a voice flows down the adges R deys d eyb eys side in grand accord A voice volee comes cornea like a tiling stir star is IT TO END new york york tork city is surpassing itself in profligate expenditure dress display and pleasure it is alrig singular ula uia r indeed that the most trying and perhaps critical period of our exhausting 11 war aboul should d b a a carnival of fashionable rivalry rioting and ana giddy dissipation the new york herad says saye the hotels in all parts of the city benefit by the universal prosperity and are overcrowded boarding houses bouses are filled to repletion while hosts of families are on the verge of deb dee desperation pera from fear that on the first of may blay they will be turned homeless into the streets there are no houses for rent and but few for sa e our great restaurants are nightly filled with guess gues s grand dinners are the order of the day coys coyd coa magn magh dicent rooms are redolent dolent ic with floers flowers and the fumes of nich rich I 1 wines tle INI maison malson alson aison doree has its share ebare of patronage A stranger must wonder where all tle le money that is needed to defray th a 9 immense expenditure for pleasure comes fioco we are not prepared pie pic pared to answer au juste 1 I this ol 01 of dissipation aad pleasure the cassea are carried along unresistingly the m more ore wise shake jbf hur bur ir heads and board their greenbacks green backs but their dismay or rears fears cann carin t stem the th popular current nott le e de vre ure is the acost universal though A crash may do doubtless must come ere eye iong long b t until it does dues new york v will ill lil continue to be the gay gayest eat most brilliant of cities attract it rg 21 va bat rat st crowds from the em am iler her and more indig rifi carit darit a DR HOLMES bay eay in the jSU antic air mr beecher is a strong healthy man in mind aud and body his nerves ha hae bae e never neier it en corrugated with alcohol al cobo his ins thinking marow mairow is not brown with tobacco fumes like a meerschaum as are the grains of so maity malty unfortunate amer amaer can be he is tle same lusty warmhearted strong fineff biner finer fd d brate brat e beai bear ted bright clear eyed eed creature that be was when the college boys at amherst acknowledge acknowledged i him the ch chiefs chie lefes fen fes their thein football lick er |