I have never been able to bring myself to write down how my comrade died. Many have written something of his death, judging the manner of it from the condition in which his poor body was discovered the next day by our advance. Yet, even these have shrunk from writing any but the most general details, because the horror of the truth is indescribable, and not even the most callous mind could endure it all.

God knows how I myself survived the swimming horror of that hellish scene — for the stake was hewn and planted full within my view� . And it took him many hours to die — all the long September afternoon� . And they never left him for one moment.

No, I can not write it, nor could I even tell my comrades when they came up next day, how in detail died Thomas Boyd, lieutenant in