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Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army - Being a Narrative of Personal Adventures in the Infantry, Ordnance, Cavalry, Courier, and Hospital Services; With an Exhibition of the Power, Purposes, Earnestness, Military Despotism, and Demoralization of the South by William G. Stevenson
page 100 of 145 (68%)
to my surprise, he did not fall immediately. A tremor ran through
his frame which I felt, convincing me that he was mortally wounded.
I dismounted, and stood watching him. He soon sank on his knees, and
then slowly lay down on his side. As his life-blood ebbed away, his
eye glazed, and making a last futile effort to rise, he fell back
again and died with a groan almost like the last agony of a human
being. The pain of my side and my knee, which was never entirely
free from pain, grew worse, and I saw that unless I found surgical
attendance and rest, I would soon be exhausted. In making my way to
the general hospital which was established on the ground where the
battle commenced, I met one of Forrest's cavalry, wounded in the
foot, and very weak from loss of blood. With my handkerchief and a
short stick, I made a simple tourniquet, which stopped the bleeding,
when I accompanied him to the hospital. After the dressing of my
wound, which was an extensive bruise, about five inches in diameter,
I took the cavalryman's horse, and started back to my command. When
I had reached the camp of the 71st Ohio Volunteers, my strength
failed, and after getting something to eat for myself and horse, and
a bucket of water to bathe my side during the night, I tied my horse
near the door of a tent, and crept in to try to sleep. But the
shells from the gunboats, which made night hideous, the groans of
the wounded, and the pleadings of the dying, for a time prevented.
Weariness at length overcame me, and sleep followed more refreshing
and sound than I hoped for under the circumstances.

The sharp rattle of musketry awakened me early, announcing the
opening of the second day's battle. But before I speak of Monday the
7th, I will state why the Confederates ceased to fight at half-past
five P.M., on Sabbath evening, when they had another hour of
daylight. They had already driven back the Federal forces more than
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