Franklin stood at the inner edge of the earthworks, half hidden by a little clump of trees.  It seemed to him that he could not well escape without being seen, and he hesitated at this thought, Yet as he stood it appeared that he must be an intruder even thus against his will.  He saw approaching him, slowly but almost in direct line, two figures, an older lady and a girl.  They came on, as did the others, always with that slow, searching attitude, the walk broken with pauses and stoopings.  The quest was but too obvious.  And even as Franklin gazed, uncertain and unable to escape, it seemed apparent that the two had found that which they had sought.  The girl, slightly in advance, ran forward a few paces, paused, and then ran back.  “Oh, there! there!” she cried.  And then the older woman took the girl’s head upon her bosom.  With bared head and his own hand at his eyes, Franklin hurried away, hoping himself unseen, but bearing indelibly pictured on his brain the scene of which he had been witness.  He wanted to cry out, to halt the advancing columns which would soon be here, to tell them that they must not come upon this field, made sacred by such woe.

The column of occupation had begun its movement.  Far as the eye could see, the way was filled with the Northern troops now swinging forward in the march.  Their course would be along this road, across these earthworks, and over the fields between the wood and the town.  The rattle and rumble of the advance began.  Upon the morning air there rose the gallant and forgetful music which bade the soldier think not of what had been or would be, but only of the present.  The bugles and the cymbals sounded high and strong in the notes of triumph.  The game was over.  The army was coming to take possession of that which it had won.

It had won—­what?  Could the answer be told by this chorus of woe which arose upon the field of Louisburg?  Could the value of this winning be summed by the estimate of these heaps of sodden, shapeless forms?  Here were the fields, and here lay the harvest, the old and the young, the wheat and the flower alike cut down.  Was this, then, what the conqueror had won?

Near the intrenchment where the bitter close had been, and where there was need alike for note of triumph, and forgetfulness, the band major marshalled his music, four deep and forty strong, and swung out into the anthem of the flag.  The march was now generally and steadily begun.  The head of the column broke from the last cover of the wood and came into full sight at the edge of the open country.  Thus there came into view the whole panorama of the field, dotted with the slain and with those who sought the slain.  The music of triumph was encountered by the concerted voice of grief and woe.  There appeared for the feet of this army not a mere road, a mere battlefield, but a ground sacred, hedged high about, not rudely to be violated.

But the band major was a poet, a great man.  There came to him no order telling him what he should do, but the thing was in his soul that should be done.  There came to him, wafted from the field of sorrow, a note which was command, a voice which sounded to him above the voices of his own brasses, above the tapping of the kettledrums.  A gesture of command, and the music ceased absolutely.  A moment, and it had resumed.