Harrisburg, going East. He had conversed in the bar-room of this hotel
with one of them, who was wounded about the shoulder (it might be the
lower part of the neck), and had his arm in a sling. He belonged to the
Twentieth Massachusetts; the Lieutenant saw that he was a Captain, by the
two bars on his shoulder-strap. His name was my family-name; he was tall
and youthful, like my Captain. At four o'clock he left in the train for
Philadelphia. Closely questioned, the Lieutenant's evidence was as
round, complete, and lucid as a Japanese sphere of rock-crystal.

TE DEUM LAUDAMUS! The Lord's name be praised! The dead pain in the
semilunar ganglion (which I must remind my reader is a kind of stupid,
unreasoning brain, beneath the pit of the stomach, common to man and
beast, which aches in the supreme moments of life, as when the dam loses
her young ones, or the wild horse is lassoed) stopped short. There was a
feeling as if I had slipped off a tight boot, or cut a strangling
garter,--only it was all over my system. What more could I ask to assure
me of the Captain's safety? As soon as the telegraph office opens
tomorrow morning we will send a message to our friends in Philadelphia,
and get a reply, doubtless, which will settle the whole matter.

The hopeful morrow dawned at last, and the message was sent accordingly.
In due time, the following reply was received: "Phil Sept 24 I think the
report you have heard that W [the Captain] has gone East must be an error
we have not seen or heard of him here M L H"

DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI! He could not have passed through Philadelphia
without visiting the house called Beautiful, where he had been so
tenderly cared for after his wound at Ball's Bluff, and where those whom
he loved were lying in grave peril of life or limb. Yet he did pass
through Harrisburg, going East, going to Philadelphia, on his way home.