Yet that was a dreary night to prepare for the dreadful battle of
to-morrow. The men were already weary, hungry, and cold. No fires
were allowed, except in holes in the ground, over which the soldiers
bent with their blankets round their shoulders, striving to catch
and concentrate the little heat that struggled up through the bleak
April air. Many a poor fellow wrote his last sentence in his
note-book that night by the dim light of these smothered fires, and
sat and talked in undertones of home, wife, and mother, sister or
sweetheart. Promises were made to take care of each other, if
wounded, or send word home, if slain; keepsakes were looked at again
for the last time, and silent prayers were offered by men unused to
look above. What an awful thing is war! Here lay, almost within
cannon-shot of one another, eighty or ninety thousand men--brothers
of the same race and nation, many of them blood relations;
thousands of them believing in the same Saviour, and worshiping the
same God, their prayers meeting that night at the throne of Heavenly
Grace;--yet waiting for the light of the holy Sabbath that they may
see how most surely to destroy one another! And yet the masses of
these have no ill feeling. It is human butchery, at the bidding of
arch-conspirators. Upon them be all the blood shed! A fearful guilt
is theirs!

What sleep the men could get on the cold, damp ground, with little
protection or fire, they secured during the early part of Saturday
night. On Sunday morning, the 6th of April, we were under arms and
ready to move by three o'clock.

General Hardee, one of the bravest men in the Confederate service,
led the advance and center, and made the attack. Had I not been