And curiously enough, John Barclay was with Watts McHurdie when he wrote the song. They brought him an accordion one day while he was getting well, and the two sat together. Watts droned along and shut his eyes and mumbled some words, and then burst out with the chorus. Over and over he sang it and exclaimed between breaths: "Say--ain't that fine? I just made it up." He was exalted with his performance, and some women came loitering down the corridor where the wounded man and the boy were lying. The visitors gazed compassionately at them--little Watts not much larger than the boy. A woman asked, "And where were you wounded, son?" looking at Watts with his accordion. His face flushed up at the thought of his shame, and he could not keep back the tears that always betrayed him when he was deeply moved. "Ten--ten miles from Springfield, madam, ten miles from Springfield." And to hide his embarrassment he began sawing at his accordion, chanting his famous song. But being only a little boy, John Barclay tittered. A few days after the battle Captain Ward wrote to Miss Lucy telling her that some soldiers slightly wounded would go home on a furlough to Lawrence, and that they would take John with them and put him on the stage at Lawrence for Sycamore Ridge. Then Ward's letter continued: "It is all so horrible--this curse of war; sometimes I think it is worse than the curse of slavery. There is no 'pomp and circumstance of glorious war.' Men died screaming in agony, or dumb with fear. They were covered with dirt, and when they were dead they merged into the landscape like inanimate things. What vital difference is there between a living man and a dead man, that one stands out in a scene big and obtrusive, and the other begins to fade into the earth as soon as death touches the body? The horror of death is upon me, and I cannot shake it off. It is a fearful thing to see a human soul pass 'in any shape, in any mood.' And I have seen so many deaths--we lost one man out of every three--that I am all unnerved. I saw General Lyon die--the only abolitionist in the regular army, they say. He died like a soldier--but not as the soldiers die in pictures. He sank off his horse so limp, and so like an animal with its death wound, and gasped so weakly, 'I'm killed--take care of my body,' that when we covered his face and bore him away, we could not realize we were carrying a man's body. And now, my dear, if I should go as these men go, I have neither kith nor kin to mourn me--only you, and you must not mourn, for I shall be near you always and always, without sign or token, and when you feel my presence near, know that it is real, and not a seeming. For the great force of life that moves events in this world has but one symbol, but one vital manifestation, and that is love, and when a soul is touched with that, it is immortal."