"I wiped the blood away from his lips and then rolled my blouse up for a pillow and laid his head on it. I could see a mute look of gratitude in his eyes, like those of a dying dog, and, mingling with that, the awful fear of death. It was all over in a few moments, and at the last he drew my hand to his lips and kissed it. The other two boys turned away, and I was glad, for the tears were chasing each other down my face. The one bit of consolation I had was, the poor boy did not know I shot him. When it was all over, we left him, and later we three went up there and buried him beside the rock where he died. I saw his face hovering over me all last night, and it will haunt me as long as I live." CHAPTER XVI. THE GRASP OF DEATH. When the fierce heat of E Company's second summer in an almost tropical climate was fast depleting their ranks, Manson wrote to Liddy: "Disease among us is more dangerous than rebel bullets. When I was a boy I used to feel that the long, hot hours in hay fields, or the bitter cold ones in the snow-buried woods, were severe hardships, but now I thank God for them! If I survive the exposure here it will be because of the splendid health and strength that came to me from those days on the farm. Sometimes when the miserable food I have to eat, or the vile water I must drink, is at its worst, I think of what mother used to cook, and how sweet the water in dear old Ragged Brook used to taste on a hot summer day, and you cannot imagine what I would give for a chance to thrust my face into that cool stream, where it was leaping over a mossy ledge, and drink my fill. "I have passed through some ghastly and sickening experiences, too horrible to relate to you, and at times I am so depressed that I lose all hope, and then again I feel that I shall pull through all right. One thing I want you to do, and that is, forget the foolish promise I exacted from you that day on Blue Hill. Some things have occurred that have convinced me it was doing you a cruel injustice to ask such a promise." It was the last letter Liddy ever received from her soldier boy, and when she read it it filled her with a new and uncanny dread. During those first two years of service, E Company made heroic history. They took part in eleven hard-fought battles, besides many skirmishes, and not a man flinched or shirked a duty! They were all hardy sons of old New England, who, like their forefathers of '76, fought for home and liberty; for freedom and love of country. Such, and such only, are true heroes!