"Rose, Rose, how shall I tell it? Freddie is dead, and Ritchie
sorely wounded--both in that dreadful, dreadful battle of Ball's
Bluff; both shot while trying to swim the river. Freddie killed
instantly by a bullet in his brain, but Ritchie swam to shore,
dragging Fred's body with him; then fainted from fatigue, pain,
and loss of blood.
"Mamma is heart-broken--indeed we all are--and papa seems to
have suddenly grown many years older. Oh, we don't know how to
bear it! and yet we are proud of our brave boys. Edward went on
at once, when the sad news reached us; brought Ritchie home to
be nursed, and--and Freddie's body to be buried. Oh! what a
heart-breaking scene it was when they arrived!
"Harold, poor Harold, couldn't come home; they wouldn't give him
a furlough even for a day. Edward went, the day after the
funeral, and enlisted, and Ritchie will go back as soon as his
wound heals. He says that while our men stood crowded together
on the river-bank, below the bluff, where they could neither
fight nor retreat, and the enemy were pouring their shot into
them from the heights, Fred came to him, and grasping his hand
said, 'Dear Dick, it's not likely either of us will come out of
this alive; but if you do and I don't, tell mother and the rest
not to grieve; for I know in whom I have believed.
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