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veterans of our old ‘Stonewall Brigade.’
Beyond was the long line of blue-coated hirelings, who paid for their crime with their life's blood.
I stood leaning against my gun, waiting for orders and watching the tide of battle as it steadily receded from me. Soon one of the Liberty Hall Volunteers came up, and, with tears rolling down his cheeks, told us his brave captain was lying there in front of us.
I ran forward, and there, too true, was my best, my noblest friend, with his sweet, lovely face upturned, his eyes gazing upon that world where his spirit had gone, and his body in its last, long sleep.
His sword had been already taken away.
I found and took off his Bible and several letters.
It was indeed heartrending as we gathered around.
Dear, dear Hugh, the purest, the truest, the best of us all. May we of his companions who are spared live to love and serve our God more and better, and die to meet him in our home above.
What a blessed ministry did we anticipate in his!
How full of the promise of usefulness were his amiable, attractive qualities, his accurate and increasing attainments, and his quiet, yet earnest, active piety.
But I must say no more, though of this subject my heart and head are full.
Our victory is great.
Again let us turn to God —may His goodness lead us to new repentance and obedience.
God was good in giving this son, good in making him what he was, and no less good in taking him away, just when and as He did. The belief is sincerely entertained that neither vanity nor ostentation prompts to this effort to perpetuate his memory.
But as it was the ruling desire of his heart to make this bad world better, and as the bitterest grief of his parents on account of his early death flows from the consideration that he did not accomplish this by living, this effort is made so to perpetuate his existence on earth that, being dead, he may yet speak.
Well may the old ask, why are we feeble, withered, fruitless branches spared, and they, so young, so fresh, so fruitful, taken away?
God's ways are not our ways, neither are His thoughts ours.
He may enable a youth like this, who dies at
