We march on. The scene of a few days ago comes unbidden to my mind.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the soldiers are marching. Where are many of my old
friends and comrades, whose names were so familiar at every roll call,
and whose familiar "Here" is no more? They lie yonder at Perryville,
unburied, on the field of battle. They lie where they fell. More than
three hundred and fifty members of my regiment, the First Tennessee,
numbered among the killed and wounded--one hundred and eighty-five slain
on the field of battle. Who are they? Even then I had to try to think
up the names of all the slain of Company H alone. Their spirits seemed
to be with us on the march, but we know that their souls are with their
God. Their bones, today, no doubt, bleach upon the battlefield. They
left their homes, families, and loved ones a little more than one short
twelve months ago, dressed in their gray uniforms, amid the applause and
cheering farewells of those same friends. They lie yonder; no friendly
hands ever closed their eyes in death; no kind, gentle, and loving mother
was there to shed a tear over and say farewell to her darling boy;
no sister's gentle touch ever wiped the death damp from off their dying
brows. Noble boys; brave boys! They willingly gave their lives to their
country's cause.
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