L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

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[476] his wound should be dressed. The surgeon found he could not prevent his returning to the field, so he attended to his wants, and the young soldier went off to rejoin his comrades in their struggle, and remained, dealing out his ammunition to good account until the day was over, as if nothing had happened to him. Several days after he returned to the doctor to have his wound redressed, and continued to pay him daily visits in his leisure hours, attending to duty in the meantime.

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The acre of fire.

At the battle of Iuka, Captain, afterward Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur C. Ducat, then an officer of General Ord's staff, and subsequently Inspector-General of the Army of the Cumberland, seeing a division of rebels about to flank one of the Union regiments, rode up and informed Rosecrans of the danger. “Ride on and warn Stanley at once,” said the general. An acre of fire, and showered with bullets, lap between them and the menaced troops. The officer looked at it, and said: “General, I have a wife and children.”

“ You knew that when you came here,” said the general, coolly.

“I'll go, sir,” was the only answer.

“Stay a moment. We must make sure of this,” and hastily writing some despatches, the general called three of his orderlies. Giving a despatch to each, he said to the officer: “Now go.” He started, and at intervals of about fifty yards, bearing a similar message, the orderlies followed. The officer ran the fiery gauntlet, and, his clothes pierced with bullets, and his horse reeling from a mortal wound, reached Stanley — the orderlies found their graves on that acre of fire!