It was an awful scene to the inexperienced youth.

Though he had seen hundreds fall in the battle of that day, death had not seemed so ghastly and horrible to him as now, when he stood face to face with the grim monster.

For a few moments he forgot his own toil-worn limbs, his craving hunger, and his aching head.
He gazed upon the silent form before him, which had ceased to suffer, and he felt thankful that he had been able to mitigate even a single pang of the dying rebel.

But not long could he gaze, awe-struck, at the ghastly spectacle before him, for he had a life to save.

The words of the sufferer--his last words--offering him the contents of his haversack recurred to him; but Tom's sensibilities recoiled at the thought of eating bread taken from the body of a dead man, and he turned away.
"Why shouldn't I take it ?" said he to himself.