CHAPTER XVI.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
Very sad and heart-rending were the scenes with which Iola came in constant contact.

Well may Christian men and women labor and pray for the time when nations shall learn war no more; when, instead of bloody conflicts, there shall be peaceful arbitration.

The battle in which Robert fought, after his last conversation with Captain Sybil, was one of the decisive struggles of the closing conflict.

The mills of doom and fate had ground out a fearful grist of agony and death, "And lives of men and souls of States Were thrown like chaff beyond the gates." Numbers were taken prisoners.

Pale, young corpses strewed the earth; manhood was stricken down in the flush of its energy and prime.