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Tuesday, July 23, 1861.
The victory is ours!
The enemy was routed!
The
Lord be praised for this great mercy.
Evening.
Mr.----and myself have just returned from a neighbouring house where we heard the dread particulars of the battle.
We saw a gentleman just from the battlefield, who brought off his wounded son. It is said to have been one of the most remarkable victories on record, when we consider the disparity in numbers, equipments, etc. Our loss, when compared with that of the enemy, was small, very small; but such men as have fallen!
How can I record the death of our young friends, the Conrads of
Martinsburg, the only sons of their father, and such sons!
Never can we cease to regret
Tucker Conrad, the bright, joyous youth of the “High School,” and the devoted divinity student of our Theological Seminary!
Noble in mind and spirit, with the most genial temper and kindest manners I have ever known.
Mr.--saw him on Thursday evening on his way to the battle-field, and remarked afterwards on his enthusiasm and zeal in the cause.
Holmes, his brother, was not one of us, as
Tucker was, but he was in no respect inferior to him-loved and admired by all. They were near the same age, and there was not fifteen minutes between their deaths.
Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in their deaths they were not divided.
But my thoughts constantly revert to that desolated home — to the parents and sisters who perhaps are now listening and waiting for letters from the battle-field.
Before this night is over, loving friends will bear their dead sons home.
An express has gone from
Winchester to tell them all. They might with truth exclaim, with one of old, whose son was thus slain, “I would not give my dead son for any living son in Christendom.”
But that devoted father, and fond mother, have better and
