The sun was well up when a new excitement was added to the race--she heard a sound like thunder rolling and rumbling in the distance. She pulled her mare up suddenly. What was it? Though she had never heard the sound before, she knew it must be the roar of the cannon; and as she thought of what it meant, the blood coursed more rapidly than ever through her veins; she was more than ever impatient to be on the scene, and away she dashed again. But then a thought rushed into her mind that for a moment made her feel very foolish to be here so far away from home and child, on what might after all be but a fool's errand.
"What a fool I am," she thought. "My husband could not be dead last night, if the battle is only fighting now."
But she had come too far now to turn back and so she pressed on faster than before. As she drew nearer, she could hear the roar of the deadly muskets, the fatal rifles, and the triumphant shouts of the victors. But from which side did they come? Did those shouts mean the defeat of her husband; or did they mean his triumph? This was the most trying moment of all--this terrible suspense. If it was his victory, then he would rejoice to have her share his glory; if his defeat, then he would need her to soothe his sufferings; so on she pressed to share with him weal or woe. Crossing the Wilmington road a few hundred yards below the bridge, she saw a clump of trees under which were lying perhaps twenty wounded men. What was this she saw? Her blood froze in her veins; her heart leapt to her mouth, for there was the vision realized. The scene before her--she knew it as well as if she had seen it a thousand times; the spot, the trees, the position of the men, the groans of the wounded, and her sight fell upon a body lying in the midst of the group, her brain became dizzy, and the world seemed whirling around her at the rate of ten thousand miles a second--there lay a body, motionless, bloody, ghostly, wrapped in her husband's cloak. Her whole soul became centered in that one spot. "How I passed from my saddle to this place I never knew," she said afterwards; but in some way she succeeded in reaching the body, and mechanically uncovered the head. She saw before her an unrecognizable face crusted with dust and blood from a gash across the temple. What a relief to her aching heart was the strange voice which begged her for a drink of water! Her senses came back to her at once so she was able to minister to the sufferer's wants. She gave him a swallow as she held the drooping head in her lap; and with what remained of the water, bathed the dirt and gore from the face. From the ghastly crust came the pale face of one of her neighbors, Frank Cogdell. Under the gentle care of his nurse, he revived enough to speak, and when she attempted to dress the wound on the head, he managed to gasp out: