marked as a silver line the glittering
current of the Tennessee, which flowed through
one of the loveliest valleys in America. As
I topped the ridge and plunged into the
dark avenues of wood, amidst which
the battle had been fought, I left even the
whispering of life that stole up from
Chattanooga behind me: all was now silent,
for I was in the presence of the dead.
Those of the wounded who could be found
had been moved during, and immediately
after, the action to the ambulances in the
extreme rear, and a wide strip of forest,
five miles in width, and more than twice
that in length, was given up to the stiffening
corpses of thousands who that morning
had been full of life and hope. As I
laboured over the rocky and uneven path,
I soon came upon the ghastly traces of the
engagement, every rift in the foliage above
me sending down the pallid moonlight on
the more pallid, upturned features of the
dead. Scattered about on open patches,
and amidst the trees, lay innumerable bodies,
in all the eccentricity of position peculiar
to sudden death in action. On the bosoms
of some of the Confederate slain were
pinned placards, stating their names,
regiments, and companies, placed there by their
comrades, that the burial parties might take
note of those whom they interred. The
Federals had been left as they had fallen:
some propped up against riven trees, others
lying on their backs, with their hands raised
as though in prayer; some on their knees in
the attitude of firing, though the rifle had
fallen from their grasp. There were bodies
that had been completely ploughed open by
bursting shell, and from others limbs had
been wrenched away; but the more frequent
cause of death was the small, blue-
edged aperture on the forehead, where the
rifle-bullet had entered the brain.
Notwithstanding I carried a pocket-compass, I
wandered for hours through the different
glades and openings without apparently
getting any nearer to the field hospital, which I
knew had been established in the direction
of Ringold. Every turning I took seemed
to bring me back to the same neighbourhood,
and frequently I left what might
have been the direct path, to follow up
some moaning sound coming from the
undergrowth on either side. I remember
one incident which greatly impressed me at
the time. I was moving slowly and
cautiously, peering into the forest depths in
search of a bridle-path which might lead to
the main track, when some deep groans
near at hand arrested my attention.
Dismounting, I threw the rein over a drooping
branch, and forcing aside the foliage, made
my way in the direction of the wail of suffering.
A few steps brought me into an open
circle, in the centre of which was a still pool
that shone like burnished silver in the moon-
light. The banks surrounding it were steep,
and some three feet from the water. On the
opposite side to where I stood, a movement
of some crawling form through the crags
attracted me, and I was hastening round
to give what assistance I could, when the
wounded man—for there was no doubt now
what the form was—reached the brink,
and stretching forward a pannikin, lost his
balance, toppled over with a sharp cry,
succeeded by a dull plunge, into the almost
well-like pool, at which he would have
slaked his burning thirst. I did all I could,
and that was little enough, for the wide
circling rings gradually faded from the
surface, and not a sign remained of the
life which had disappeared for ever beneath
that calm sheet of moonlit water. Again
I made an effort to discover the right track,
and it seemed to me that I only became
more entangled. Every variety of horror
lay in my path; the carcasses of horses,
with their stiffened legs pointing upwards,
were interspersed with the human remains
around; finally, I came to that portion of
the field where the undergrowth had been
fired by the bursting shell, and where the
wounded, in their helplessness to escape,
had been literally charred by the flames.
Now I knew my whereabouts, and just
as daylight broke I reached the hospital
tents, from whence the groans of suffering
men came trembling from under the long
canvas roofs, and more terrible evidence
still, stacked up by the side of trenches, and
ready for interment, were piles of
amputated limbs.

So after some hours I found my friend;
his wound had been successfully probed,
and the bullet extracted; and he still lives
to tell the story of Chicamaugha, and of
how I, while seeking him, got Lost with
the Dead.

FRONTIER TOWNS OF FRANCE.

NANCY.

THIS old capital of Lorraine, that fair
province that extends from Champagne to
the mountains of the Vosges, that screen it
from the Rhine, stands on a fine plain near
the Meurthe, fifty miles south of Metz,
and one hundred and seventy-five miles
from Paris.