"Lead me, Bisco, I'm too weak to guide my horse. Nothing is left now but the curse of it." And O, the curse of it! Fifty-seven Union dead beside the wounded, in the little front yard of the Carter House, alone. And they lay around the breastworks from river to river, a chain of dead and dying. In front of the breastworks was another chain--a wider and thicker one. It also ran from river to river, but was gray instead of blue. Chains are made of links, and the full measure of "the curse of it" may have been seen if one could have looked over the land that night and have seen where the dead links lying there were joined to live under the roof trees of far away homes. But here is the tale of a severed link: About two o'clock lights began to flash about over the battle-field--they were hunting for the dead and wounded. Among these, three had come out from the Carter House. A father, son and daughter; each carried a lantern and as they passed they flashed their lights in the faces of the dead. "May we look for brother?" asked the young girl, of an officer. "We hope he is not here but fear he is. He has not been home for two years, being stationed in another state. But we heard he could not resist the temptation to come home again and joined General Bate's brigade. And O, we fear he has been killed for he would surely have been home before this." They separated, each looking for "brother." Directly the father heard the daughter cry out. It was in the old orchard near the house. On reaching the spot she was seated on the ground, holding the head of her dying brother in her lap and sobbing: "Brother's come home! Brother's come home!" Alas, she meant--gone home! "Captain Carter, on staff duty with Tyler's brigade," writes General Wm. B. Bate in his official report, "fell mortally wounded near the works of the enemy and almost at the door of his father's home. His gallantry I witnessed with much pride, as I had done on other fields, and here take pleasure in mentioning it especially." The next morning in the first light of the first day of that month celebrated as the birth-month of Him who declared long ago that war should cease, amid the dead and dying of both armies, stood two objects which should one day be carved in marble--One, to represent the intrepid bravery of the South, the other, the cool courage of the North, and both--"the curse of it." The first was a splendid war-horse, dead, but lying face forward, half over the federal breastworks. It was the horse of General Adams.