“There are two wounded Secesh,” said my companion.  I walked to the bedside of the first, who was an officer, a lieutenant, if I remember right, from North Carolina.  He was of good family, son of a judge in one of the higher courts of his State, educated, pleasant, gentle, intelligent.  One moment’s intercourse with such an enemy, lying helpless and wounded among strangers, takes away all personal bitterness towards those with whom we or our children have been but a few hours before in deadly strife.  The basest lie which the murderous contrivers of this Rebellion have told is that which tries to make out a difference of race in the men of the North and South.  It would be worth a year of battles to abolish this delusion, though the great sponge of war that wiped it out were moistened with the best blood of the land.  My Rebel was of slight, scholastic habit, and spoke as one accustomed to tread carefully among the parts of speech.  It made my heart ache to see him, a man finished in the humanities and Christian culture, whom the sin of his forefathers and the crime of his rulers had set in barbarous conflict against others of like training with his own,—­a man who, but for the curse which our generation is called on to expiate, would have taken his part in the beneficent task of shaping the intelligence and lifting the moral standard of a peaceful and united people.

On Sunday morning, the twenty-first, having engaged James Grayden and his team, I set out with the Chaplain and the Philanthropist for Keedysville.  Our track lay through the South Mountain Gap, and led us first to the town of Boonsborough, where, it will be remembered, Colonel Dwight had been brought after the battle.  We saw the positions occupied in the battle of South Mountain, and many traces of the conflict.  In one situation a group of young trees was marked with shot, hardly one having escaped.  As we walked by the side of the wagon, the Philanthropist left us for a while and climbed a hill, where, along the line of a fence, he found traces of the most desperate fighting.  A ride of some three hours brought us to Boonsborough, where I roused the unfortunate army surgeon who had charge of the hospitals, and who was trying to get a little sleep after his fatigues and watchings.  He bore this cross very creditably, and helped me to explore all places where my soldier might be lying among the crowds of wounded.  After the useless search, I resumed my journey, fortified with a note of introduction to Dr. Letterman; also with a bale of oakum which I was to carry to that gentleman, this substance being employed as a substitute for lint.  We were obliged also to procure a pass to Keedysville from the Provost Marshal of Boonsborough.  As we came near the place, we learned that General McClellan’s head quarters had been removed from this village some miles farther to the front.