d hoped among so many to find some of the
How we buried these seventeen
bodies you would
not care to know. The lantern
gone out, the candle which the men had procured lasted but a little time; but
the moon had risen and the pale rays it cast through the trees aided us in our
task, though they added much to the ghostliness of the terrible scene over which
We found one body, that of a
young, light-haired boy, not over nineteen at the furthest, whose forehead was
pierced by a ball; in his left hand he firmly grasped his rammer; his right hand
or its forefinger was in the watch-pocket of his pantaloons. We examined this
pocket and found in it a small silver shield with his name, company, and
regiment engraved upon it. We took possession of this memento, and fortunately
finding a fragment of a cracker-box, marked upon it in pencil, by moonlight, the
inscription found on the shield. We buried him with two of his comrades, one of
whom belonged to the Fifth Corps, and placed the rude board at the head of his
grave in the hope that it would some day enable some pilgrim-friend to find the
body. Since that day the shield has been sent to the soldier's father; its
inscription was, "S. L. Caldwell, Company D, 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers."
It was half an hour after
midnight when we came into camp, and half an hour after that, lying with our
faces to the stars, dreams enfolded us, and we were as though no battle horrors
had ever pained and no battle dangers had ever menaced us.
IN sight of the starry sky,
In sound of the rushing sea,
With a beating heart and a tender
Did my own true love kiss me.
Under the solemn sky,
Close to the throbbing sea,
With words of love, and vows of
Did my own true love kiss me.
I gaze on the same bright sky,
I hear the same rippling sea,
But never again on earth, or in
Will my own true love kiss me.
True are the holy stars,
True is the restless sea,
True are the thoughts of my heart
But my love is false to me!
Hear it, O changeful sky!
Hear it, O moving sea!
Ye are true to your own eternal
But my love is false to me.
Why should the moonlit sky,
Why should the moaning sea,
Recall the empty dream of the
When my love is false to me?
Pierce to his soul, O stars!
Thrill to his heart, O sea!
It may be, smit with a sudden
My love will come back to me!
THE brain makes ghosts both
sleeping and waking. A man was lying in troubled sleep when a phantom, with the
cold hand of a corpse, seized his right arm. Awaking in horror, he found upon
his arm still the impression of the cold hand of the corpse, and it was only
after reflecting that he found the terrible apparition to be due to the
deadening of his own left hand in a frosty night, which had subsequently grasped
his right arm. This was a real ghost of the brain, which the awakening of the
senses and the understanding explained. M. Gratiolet narrates a dream of his own
which is singularly illustrative of how the brain makes ghosts in sleep. Many
years ago, when occupied in studying the organization of the brain, he prepared
a great number both of human and animal brains. He carefully stripped off the
membranes, and placed the brains in alcohol. Such were his daily occupations,
when one night he thought that he had taken out his own brain from his own
skull. He stripped it of its membranes. He put it into alcohol, and then he
fancied he took his brain out of the alcohol and replaced it in his skull. But,
contracted by the action of the spirit, it was much reduced in size, and did not
at all fill up the skull. He felt it shuffling about in his head. This feeling
threw him into such a great perplexity that he awoke with a start, as if from
M. Gratiolet, every time he
prepared the brain of a man, must have felt that his own brain resembled it.
This impression awakening in a brain imperfectly asleep, while neither the
senses nor the judgment were active, the physiologist carried on an operation in
his sleep which probably had often occurred to his fancy when at his work, and
which had then been summarily dismissed very frequently. A pursuit which had at
last become one o