Tuesday.–Witnessed for the first time a military funeral. As that march came wailing up, they say Mrs. Bartow fainted. The empty saddle and the led war-horse –we saw and heard it all, and now it seems we are never out of the sound of the Dead March in Saul. It comes and it comes, until I feel inclined to close my ears and scream.
Yesterday, Mrs. Singleton and ourselves sat on a bedside and mingled our tears for those noble spirits–John Darby, Theodore Barker, and James Lowndes. To-day we find we wasted our grief; they are not so much as wounded. I dare say all the rest is true about them–in the face of the enemy, with flags in their hands, leading their men. “But Dr. Darby is a surgeon.” He is as likely to forget that as I am. He is grandson of Colonel Thomson of the Revolution, called, by way of pet name, by his soldiers, “Old Danger.” Thank Heaven they are all quite alive. And we will not cry next time until officially notified.