When every second a gap in the ranks tol' where a ball had hit. An' one night, when the field was covered with the awful harvest o' war, They found my boy 'mongst the martyrs o' the cause he was fightin' for. His fingers was clutched in the dewy grass--oh, no, sir, he wasn't dead, But he lay kind o' helpless an' crazy with a rifleball in his head; An' he trembled with the battle-fear as he lay there in the dew; An' he whispered as he tried to rise: "God 'll take care o' you." An officer wrote an' toL' us how the boy had been hurt in the fight, But he said the doctors reckoned they could bring him around all right. An' then we heard from a neighbor, disabled at Malvern Hill, That he thought in the course of a week or so he'd be comin' home with Bill. We was that anxious t' see him we'd set up an' talk o' nights Till the break o' day had dimmed the stars an' put out the Northern Lights; We waited an' watched fer a month or more, an' the summer was nearly past, When a letter come one day that said they'd started fer home at last. I'll never fergit the day Bill come--'twas harvest time again-- An' the air blown over the yeller fields was sweet with the scent o' the grain; The dooryard was full o' the neighbors, who had come to share our joy, An' all of us sent up a mighty cheer at the sight o' that soldier boy. An' all of a sudden somebody said: "My God! don't the boy know his mother?" An' Bill stood a-whisperin', fearful like, an' a-starin' from one to another; "Don't be afraid, Bill," says he to himself, as he stood in his coat o' blue, "Why, God 'll take care o' you, Bill, God 'll take care o' you." He seemed to be loadin' an' firin' a gun, an' to act like a man who hears The awful roar o' the battle-field a-soundin' in his ears; Ten thousan' ghosts o' that bloody day was marchin' through his brain An' his feet they kind o' picked their way as if they felt the slain. An' I grabbed his hand, an' says I to Bill, "Don't ye 'member me? I'm yer father--don't ye know me? How frightened ye seem to be!" But the boy kep' a-whisperin' to himself, as if 'twas all he knew, "God'll take o' you, Bill, God'll take care o' you." He's never known us since that day, nor his sweetheart, an' never will; Father an' mother an' sweetheart are all the same to Bill. An' he groans like a wounded soldier, sometimes the whole night through, An' we smooth his head, an' say: "Yes, Bill, He 'll surely take care o' you." Ye can stop a war in a minute, but when can ye stop the groans? Fer ye've broke our hearts an' sapped our blood an' plucked away our bones.