Alas, he was one of the Wilderness victims: a Christian gentleman, reverenced and beloved by his men and fellow-officers. And the captain of that company whose line we lengthened, he too met a pathetically heroic death. Early in the afternoon's fight in the woods he received a severe wound in the head: a wound which, as one of his comrades told me, was more than enough to have sent most men out of the battle. His men all loved him, and they begged him to go to the rear and have his hurt cared for. But with the blood streaming down his face, and the anger of battle in his strong soul, he sternly refused, saying, "It is the business of no live man to go to the rear at a time like this!" A few moments later, and again he was struck by a bullet in the thigh. He retired a short distance, took off his sash, bound up his second wound, returned to his place in the line, and while cheering his men a third bullet found this hero's heart and silenced his voice forever. The sacrifice of the Vermont Brigade was not one of numbers only. Ghastly incidents abounded in that Wilderness battle-field. One of them, told me in a letter from a Fifth Corps comrade, is unique in its horror. He was severely wounded, and, finding himself useless on the line of battle, tried to make his way to the rear. After several narrow escapes from capture, he came to a little open field. Here a number of others, like himself wounded, were gathered, and faint from loss of blood and from hunger they sat down together and tried to eat a little from shared rations of such as had any. The little field, scarce a hundred yards across, had been the scene of conflict earlier in the day, and hundreds of dead and mortally wounded lay scattered about it. Close by where they sat down lay a young soldier from a Connecticut regiment, frightfully shot in the breast so that his lungs protruded. His life was slowly, painfully ebbing away. My friend and his comrades, forgetting their own hurts at the sight, tried to do what they could for him. They raised him up, put a blanket under him, and propped him against a tree so that he could breathe a little easier. By feeble motions he made them understand that he wanted something from his pocket. They searched and found a photograph of some loved one at home, which he eagerly grasped with both hands and held before his dying eyes while big tears rolled down his cheeks. But he seemed satisfied, he wanted nothing more, and my friend and his companions moved away to a little distance where they could eat their lunch undisturbed by the gruesome sight of the mangled dying man.