The next day Ginckle encamped on the heights of Kilcommodon and buried his dead. The Irish slain, who strewed the hill and lay scattered over the country for miles, were stripped and left unburied, to be "devoured by the wild dogs and birds of prey." The country people fled the vicinity of the British army, and retired to the woods and mountains as their only refuge. The body of St. Ruth, according to the English annalist, was stripped and thrown into a bog. A more recent and better authority says, that "by tradition well attested, his ashes lie in the roofless church of Athunree, beside those of Lord Galway, who fell upon the same field of battle." There is, however, reason to doubt both, and the writer is aware that the people of the locality where the battle was fought, directed by tradition, point to a few stunted white thorns, to the west of the hill, towards Loughrea, beneath which, they say, rest the ashes of this great but unfortunate general. It is painful to speculate on the cause that left the Irish army without direction after the death of St. Ruth. Many have endeavored to explain it, but all--as well those who doubt Sarsfield's presence on the field, as those who maintain the contrary,--are lost in conjecture, and none who participated in the battle and survived it, has placed the matter beyond speculation. So leaving that point as time has left it, what appears most strange in the connection, is the absence of all command at such a conjuncture. The disposition of the Irish troops, though dexterous, was simple. The day was all but won. The foiling of Talmash would have been the completion of victory. A force sufficient was on his front; a reserve more than ample to overwhelm him was on its way to the ground--nay, drawn up and even ready for the word. The few British troops that held a lodgement in the hedges at the base of the hill, were completely at the mercy of those above them. It required no omniscient eye to see this, nor a voice from the clouds to impel them forward, and surely no military etiquette weighed a feather in opposition to the fate of a nation. Any officer of note could have directed the movement, and many of experience and approved courage witnessed the crisis. Yet in this emergency, all the hard-won laurels of the day were tarnished, and land and liberty were lost by default! Nor can the rashness of St. Ruth, his reticence as to his plans, his misunderstanding with Sarsfield, nor the absence of the latter, justify the want of intrepid action among those present. This stands unexplained and inexplicable, nor will the flippant appeal to Providence, whose ways are too frequently offered as an excuse for human misconduct, answer here. The want of ammunition at such a moment, was, no doubt, of some import, but the concurrence of events too plainly indicates that Aughrim was won by the skill of St. Ruth and the gallantry of his troops, and that it was lost through want of decision