Boston in charge of the body of the lamented Dr. Revere, the Assistant Surgeon of the regiment, killed on the field.  From his lips I learned something of the mishaps of the regiment.  My Captain’s wound he spoke of as less grave than at first thought; but he mentioned incidentally having heard a story recently that he was killed,—­a fiction, doubtless,—­a mistake,—­a palpable absurdity,—­not to be remembered or made any account of.  Oh no! but what dull ache is this in that obscurely sensitive region, somewhere below the heart, where the nervous centre called the semilunar ganglion lies unconscious of itself until a great grief or a mastering anxiety reaches it through all the non-conductors which isolate it from ordinary impressions?  I talked awhile with Lieutenant Abbott, who lay prostrate, feeble, but soldier-like and uncomplaining, carefully waited upon by a most excellent lady, a captain’s wife, New England born, loyal as the Liberty on a golden ten-dollar piece, and of lofty bearing enough to have sat for that goddess’s portrait.  She had stayed in Frederick through the Rebel inroad, and kept the star-spangled banner where it would be safe, to unroll it as the last Rebel hoofs clattered off from the pavement of the town.

Near by Lieutenant Abbott was an unhappy gentleman, occupying a small chamber, and filling it with his troubles.  When he gets well and plump, I know he will forgive me if I confess that I could not help smiling in the midst of my sympathy for him.  He had been a well-favored man, he said, sweeping his hand in a semicircle, which implied that his acute-angled countenance had once filled the goodly curve he described.  He was now a perfect Don Quixote to look upon.  Weakness had made him querulous, as it does all of us, and he piped his grievances to me in a thin voice, with that finish of detail which chronic invalidism alone can command.  He was starving,—­he could not get what he wanted to eat.  He was in need of stimulants, and he held up a pitiful two-ounce phial containing three thimblefuls—­of brandy,—­his whole stock of that encouraging article.  Him I consoled to the best of my ability, and afterwards, in some slight measure, supplied his wants.  Feed this poor gentleman up, as these good people soon will, and I should not know him, nor he himself.  We are all egotists in sickness and debility.  An animal has been defined as “a stomach ministered to by organs;” and the greatest man comes very near this simple formula after a month or two of fever and starvation.

James Grayden and his team pleased me well enough, and so I made a bargain with him to take us, the lady and myself, on our further journey as far as Middletown.  As we were about starting from the front of the United States Hotel, two gentlemen presented themselves and expressed a wish to be allowed to share our conveyance.  I looked at them and convinced myself that they were neither Rebels in disguise, nor deserters, nor camp-followers,