In Frank Wilkeson's "Recollections of a Private" in this chapter, which can not fail to be of greater interest to the average reader than the war stories which are written from the standpoint of men who were not in the fight, or, being there, treat of the struggle in a general and tactical way:

      Almost every death on the battle-field is different. And the manner of the death depends on the wound and on the man, whether he is cowardly or brave, whether his vitality is large or small, whether he is a man of active imagination or is dull of intellect, whether he is of nervous or sympathetic temperament. I instance deaths and wounds that I found in Grant's last campaign.

      On the second day of the battle of the Wilderness, when I fought as an infantry soldier, I saw more men killed and wounded than I had before or after the same time. I knew but few of the men in the regiment in whose ranks I stood, but I learned the Christian names of some of them. The man who stood next to me on my right was called Will. He was cool, brave and intelligent. In the morning when the second corps was advancing and driving Hill's soldiers slowly back I was flurried. He noticed it, and steadied my nerves by saying kindly: "Don't fire so fast. This fight will last all day. Don't hurry. Cover your man before you pull your trigger. Take it easy, my boys, take it easy, and your cartridges will last the longer." This man fought effectively. During the day I had learned to look up to this excellent soldier, and lean on him. Toward evening, as we were being slowly driven back to the Brock road by Longstreet's men, we made a stand. I was behind a tree firing, with my rifle barrel resting on the stub of a limb. Will was standing by my side, but in the open. He, with a groan, doubled up and dropped on the ground at my feet. He looked up at me. His face was pale. He gasped for breath a few times and then said, faintly: "That ends me. I am shot through the bowels." I said: "Crawl to the rear. We are not far from the intrenchments along the Brock road." I saw him sit up, and indistinctly saw him reach for his rifle, which had fallen from his hands as he fell. Again I spoke to him to go to the rear. He looked at me and said impatiently: "I tell you that I am as good as dead. There is no use in fooling with me. I shall stay here." Then he pitched forward, dead, shot again and through the head. We fell back before Longstreet's soldiers and left Will lying in a windrow of dead men.

      When we got in the Brock road intrenchments a man a few files to my left dropped dead, shot just above the right eye. He did not groan or sigh or make the slightest physical movement, except that his chest heaved a few times. The life went out of his face instantly, leaving it without a particle of expression. It was plastic, and, as the facial muscles contracted, it took many shapes. When this man's body became cold, and his face hardened, it was horribly distorted, as though he had suffered intensely. Any person who had not seen him killed would have said that he endured supreme agony before death released him. A few minutes after he fell another man, a little farther to the left, fell with apparently a precisely similar wound. He was straightened out and lived for over an hour. He did not speak. Simply lay on his back, and his broad chest rose and fell, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, and more and more feebly until he was dead. And his face hardened and it was almost terrifying in its painful distortion. I have seen dead soldiers' faces which were wreathed in smiles, and heard their comrades say that they had died happy. I do not believe that the face of a dead soldier, lying on a battlefield, ever truthfully indicates the mental or physical anguish, or peacefulness of mind, which he suffered or enjoyed before his death. The face is plastic after death, and, as the facial muscles cool and contract, they draw the face into many shapes. Sometimes the dead smile, again they stare with glassy eyes and lolling tongues and dreadfully distorted visages at you. It goes for nothing. One death was as painless as the other.

      After Longstreet's soldiers had driven the Second corps into their intrenchments along the Brock road, a battle-exhausted infantryman stood behind a large oak tree. His back rested against it. He was very tired, and held his rifle loosely in his hand. The Confederates were directly in our front. This soldier was apparently in perfect safety. A solid shot from a Confederate gun struck the oak tree squarely about four feet from the ground, but it did hot have sufficient force to tear through the tough wood. The soldier fell dead. There was not a scratch on him. He was killed by concussion.

      While we were fighting savagely over these intrenchments the woods in our front caught fire, and I saw many of our wounded burn to death. Must they not have suffered horribly! I am not at all sure of that. The smoke rolled heavily and slowly before the fire. It enveloped the wounded, and I think that by far the larger portion of the men who were roasted were suffocated before the flames curled round them. The spectacle was courage-sapping and pitiful, and it appealed strongly to the imagination of the spectators, but I do not believe that the wounded soldiers, who were being burned, suffered greatly, if they suffered at all.

      Wounded soldiers, it mattered not how slight the wounds, generally hastened away from the battle lines. A wound entitled a man to go the rear and to a hospital. Of course, there were many exceptions to this rule, as there would necessarily be in battles where from 20,000 to 30,000 men are wounded. I frequently saw slightly wounded men who were marching with their colors. I personally saw but two men wounded who continued to fight. During the first day's fighting in the Wilderness I saw a youth of about 20 years skip and yell, stung bv a bullet through the thigh. He turned to limp to the rear. After he had gone a few steps he stopped, then he kicked out his leg once or twice to see if it would work. Then he tore the clothing away from his leg so as to see the wound. He looked at it attentively for an instant, then kicked out his leg again, then turned and took his place in the ranks, and resumed firing. There was considerable disorder in the line, and the soldier's moved to and fro — now a few feet to the left, now a few feet to the right. One of these movements brought me directly behind this wounded soldier. I could see plainly from that position, and I pushed into the gaping line and began firing, in a minute or two the wounded soldier dropped his rifle, and clasping his left arm, exclaimed: "I am hit again!" He sat down behind the battle ranks and tore off the sleeve of his shirt, the wound was very slight — not much more than skin deep. He tied his handkerchief around it, picked up his rifle, and took position alongside of me. I said: "You are fighting in bad luck to-day. You had better get away from here." He turned his head to answer me. His head jerked, he staggered, then fell, then regained his feet. A tiny fountain of blood and teeth and bone and bits of tongue burst out of his mouth. He had been shot through the jaws; the lower one was broken and hung down. I looked directly into his open mouth, which was ragged and bloody and tongueless. He cast his rifle furiously on the ground and staggered off.

      The next day, just before Longstreet's soldiers made their flint charge on tin Second corps, I heard the peculiar cry a stricken man utters as the bullet tears through his flesh, I turned my head as I loaded my rifle, to see who was hit. I saw a bearded Irishman pull up his shirt. He had been wounded in the left side, just below the floating ribs. His face was gray with fear. The wound looked as though it was mortal. He looked at it for an instant, and then poked it gently with his index finger He flushed redly, and smiled with satisfaction. He tucked his shirt into his trousers, and was fighting in the ranks again before I had capped my rifle. The ball had cut a groove in his skin only. The play of the Irishman's face was so expressive, his emotions changed so quickly, that I could not keep from laughing.

      Near Spottsylvania I saw, as my battery was moving into action, a group of wounded men lying in the shade cast by some large oak trees. All of these men's faces were gray. They silently looked at us as we marched past them. One wounded man, a blonde giant of about 40 years, was smoking a brier-wood pipe. He had a firm grip on the pipe stem. I asked him what he was doing. "Haying my last smoke, young fellow," he replied. His dauntless blue eyes met mine, and he bravely tried to smile. I saw that he was dying fast.

      Wounded soldiers almost always tore their clothing away from their wounds, so as to see them and judge of their character. Many of them would smile, and their faces would brighten as they realized that they were not hard hit and that they could go home for a few months. Others would give a quick glance at their wounds, and then shrink back as from a blow, and turn pale, as they realized the truth that they were mortally wounded. The enlisted men were exceedingly accurate judges of the probable result which would ensue from any wound they saw. They had seen hundreds of solders wounded, and they had noticed that certain wounds always resulted fatal. They knew when they were fatally wounded, and after the shock of discovery had passed, they generally lanced themselves and died in a manly manner. It was seldom that an American or Irish volunteer flunked in the presence of death.