The battle was over. When the rattle of musketry is heard, the smoke of battle, and the wild plunging of the frightened horses, and the shouts and fierce onset of a maddened mass of human beings is felt, there is an excitement, a fever in the blood that strengthens the arm, and hardens the muscles--thoughts of self are forgotten. But when those accompaniments are missing--when the awful stillness of a deserted battle-ground succeeds them, then the heart grows faint and cold. {135} [Illustration: 0143] Both {136}armies were glad to rest; both sides had been rent and dismembered. Many regiments in both lines had been slaughtered unmercifully. The victory belonged to McClellan, but the sorrow and anguish belonged to those who loved the fallen ones--to the friends alike of the blue and the gray, in cottage and mansion, all over this broad land of ours. [Illustration: 8145] Daily papers were a luxury, and the boys in the army were always glad to purchase them at a good round price. The newsboy is ubiquitous. He is the product of the century, and will never be shelved as are so many useful things. Their cries were welcome to those men, who were anxious to know what each day was bringing forth and when one galloped into camp, two days after the battle of the Antietam with a bag heavily freighted with New York dailies, he was surrounded at once, and his stock rapidly melted away. “Good news!” flashed through the ranks as they eagerly devoured the news of the battle of Iuka, with Rosecrans at the head. “It was a daring attempt,” Ralph read aloud to the eager group; “the account says that the Union forces attacked Price's men in a narrow front, with ravines filled with undergrowth, where it was difficult to maintaining a foothold, with but one battery, and with hosts against them, three to one. Yet they swept down the enemy, and fought till darkness overtook them, and in the night the Confederates beat a hasty retreat.” This {137}news cheered the hearts of the boys in blue, and while they were giving vent to their joy in different ways, Ralph's heart was filled with a solemn thankfulness, for to him it seemed as if One above surely ruled their destinies. CHAPTER XIII. OLD BILL DIES. [Illustration: 9147] HE beautiful {138}autumn days grew shorter. Novembers blasts were keenly felt, even in that sunny clime, and the boys looked forward with dismay to a winter passed in inaction. “Why, we'll have to fight to keep warm,” jolly Fred Greene said to the comrades gathered round. Old Bill had been in hospital for many months. Ralph visited him often, and the sick man's face would brighten, and his voice grow stronger whenever the boy came to his bedside. But he seemed to have lost interest in everything pertaining to this life. Ralph tried earnestly to induce him to talk of the events passing around them, but without success. One morning early in November, when he went to pay his usual visit, the boy said: