Late in the afternoon on the first day of July we reached the picturesque town of Hanover.  Near the cross-roads were lying the bloated carcasses of half a dozen cavalry horses evidently slain in a brief skirmish between Pleasonton's and Stuarts troops, a few hours before our arrival.

Close to the road, near the scene of the cavalry fight, stood a farmhouse, at the gate of which was an old-fashioned pump and horse-trough.  The pump-handle was in constant motion as the weary, foot-sore soldiers flocked around it to quench their thirst with the delicious water that flowed into the mossy trough.

Coming up and waiting for my turn to drink, I noticed a sunburnt, gray-haired man, leaning over his rude gate, watching the troops.  He was dressed in a faded, well-worn suit of homespun, having no doubt spent the day in the hayfield; and I could see that he was pleased that his pump was doing such good service.

"Good -evening sir", said I to him, removing my cap, and mopping the perspiration from my face.  "It's rather hot weather, this, for marching."

"I 'spose it 'tis, though I never did any marching", was his brief response.

As the old farmer uttered the words he moved a little; and my eye was attracted by a new-made grave among a clump of rose-bushes, just inside the fence.  Wondering at the sight, I ventured to ask the reason for its being there.

"Whose grave is that?" said I , pointing to the fresh earth.

"A reb's" he replied laconically.  "One that got killed in the fight the horsemen had here to-day."

"Indeed! and so you buried him."

"Yes: buried him myself.  They left him lyin' in the road out thar, just as he fell. I could do no less, you know."

"Of course! but why do you make your rose garden a graveyard?"

"Wa-al, it was the wimmen that wanted it so.  Yer see, stranger," and the old man's voice trembled and grew husky.  "yer see, I had a boy once.  He went out with the Pennsylvany Reserves, and fou't along with McClellan, down thar among those Chicka-oming swamps.  And one day a letter come.  It was writ by a woman; and she told us as how a battle had been fou't near her house, while she and another woman lay hid all day in the cellar.  When the battle was o'er, them wimmen came out, and found our Johnny thar, his hair all bloody and tangled in the grass.  So they digged a grave in the soft earth of their garden, and buried my boy right amongst their flowers, for the sake of the mother who would never see him again.  So when I saw that poor reb a-layin' out thar, all dead and bloody in the dust of the road, I sed I'd bury him.  And the gals, they sed, 'yes, father, bury him among the rose-trees.'  That's why I did it, stranger."  Then the poor old father's voice was choked by a smothered sob, while a faint cry behind him betrayed the presence of a sister to the dead hero lying in his garden grave near Richmond.

"Indeed, sir", said I, feeling my own throat tighten over the sweet pathos of the little story, "I can appreciate the love you bear your dead son.  It must be some consolation to remember what you have done for the man whose body lies there under the bushes."

"Yes, stranger: that 'ere grave ain't much,"- and the old man turned to look at the rude mound his hands had made,- "it ain't much, but it will be something to remember our Johnny by."

Bidding the farmer good-by, I hastened after the regiment, my eyes dimmed with tears, but my spirits strangely strengthened by this touching instance of human love and forgiveness.