"That will depend upon how you behave. If you had not taken up arms against your country, you would not have been in trouble now." "We couldn't help it, sir. I was forced into the army, and I am glad I am a prisoner. I sha'n't have to fight any more," said a blue-eyed young man, not more than eighteen years old. There were some who were very sullen and sour, and there were others who did not care what became of them. I went up the hill into the town. Nearly every house was filled with the dying and the dead. The shells from the gunboats had crashed through some of the buildings. The soldiers had cut down the orchards and the shade-trees, and burned the fences. All was desolation. There were sad groups around the camp-fires, with despair upon their countenances. O how many of them thought of their friends far away, and wished they could see them again! The ground was strewed with their guns, cartridge-boxes, belts, and knapsacks. There were bags of corn, barrels of sugar, hogsheads of molasses, tierces of bacon, broken open and trodden into the mud. I went into the fort, and saw where the great shells from the gunboats had cut through the embankments. There were piles of cartridges beside the cannon. The dead were lying there, torn, mangled, rent. Near the intrenchments, where the fight had been fiercest, there were pools of blood. The Rebel soldiers were breaking the frozen earth, digging burial-trenches, and bringing in their fallen comrades and laying them side by side, to their last, long, silent sleep. I looked down the slope where Lauman's men swept over the fallen trees in their terrible charge; then I walked down to the meadow, and looked up the height, and wondered how men could climb over the trees, the stumps, the rocks, and ascend it through such a storm. The dead were lying where they fell, heroes every one of them! It was sad to think that so many noble men had fallen, but it was a pleasure to know that they had not faltered. They had done their duty. If you ever visit that battle-field, and stand upon that slope, you will feel your heart swell with gratitude and joy, to think how cheerfully they gave their lives to save their country, that you and all who come after you may enjoy peace and prosperity forever. How bravely they fought! There, upon the cold ground, lay a soldier of the Ninth Illinois. Early in the action of Saturday he was shot through the arm. He went to the hospital and had it bandaged, and returned to his place in the regiment. A second shot passed through his thigh, tearing the flesh to shreds. "We will carry you to the hospital," said two of his comrades.