Iowa territorial gazette and advertiser., 1844-12-14

Nobody sees : battle. The common
soldier fires away amidst smoks-mist or
hurries on to the charge in = crowd which
hides everything from him. The officer is
too anxious about the performances Of what
he is specially changed with to mind what
others are doing. The commander cannot
be present everywhere, and see every
wood, water course, or ravine, in which
his orders are carried into executions; he
learns from reports how the work goes on.
It is well, for battle is one Of those jobs
which men do without daring to look up
on.s Over miles of country, at every field
fence, in every gorge Of . valley, or entry
into = wood, there 10 murder committing -
wholesale, continuous, reciprocal murder.
The human form Gsd's image---is mutil-
ated, deformed, lacerated in every possible
way, and with every variety Of torture
The wounded are joltrd off in carts to the
rear, their barred nerves crushed into mad
denihg pain at every stone or rut; or the
flight and pursuit trample over them, and
leave them to writhe and without assis-
tance--and fever, and thirst, the most en-
during Of painful sensations, possesses
them entirely. ~ -
Thirst, TOO, has seized upon the yet
able bodied soldier, who, with bloodshot
eye and tongue lolling out plies his trade
-blaspheming, killing with savage de-.
light, callous when the brains Of his best
loved comrade are spattcred over him.
The battlefield is, if possible, q more
painful object Of contemplation than the
oombatants. They are are in their voca-
tion, earning their bread--what will not
men do for shilling q day? But their
work is carried on amid the fields, gardens,
and homesteads Of men unused to war,
They left their homes, with all that habit
and happy associations have made pre-
cious, to bear its brunt.. The poor, the
aged, the sick, are left in the hurry, to be
killed by stray shots, or beaten down as
the charge and counter charge 20 over
them. The r;pening grain is trampied
down; the garden is trodden into black
mud; the fruit trees, bending beneath their
luscious load, arr. shattered BY the cannon
shot. Churches and private dwellings are
used as fortresses, and ruined in the con-
flict. Barnes and stack yards catch fire
and the ccnfagration spreads. on all sides.
| At night the steed is stabbed beside the
altar, and the weary homicides of the day
complete the wrecking Of houses 70 make
their lairs for slumber. The fires Of the
bivouac complete what the fires kindled
by the battle have left unconsumed. The
surviving soldiers march on to act, the
same scenes over and over again else
where, the remnant Of the scattered inhab-
itants return to find the mangled bodies Of
those they had loved amid the blaokened
ruins Of their homes, to mourn with more
agonizing grief over the missing, Of whose
they are uncertain; TO feel themselves
bankrupts of the worlds stores, and look
from their children to the desolate fields
and garners, and think 9f famine and pes
thence engendered BY tie rotting bodies oi
the half-buried myriads Of slain. The
soldier marches on and on inficting and
suffering IS before. War is continuance
Of battles--an epidemic striding from place
| to place, more horrible than the typhus
pestilence, or cholera, which not unfre-
quently follow in its train. The siege il
an aggravation Of the battle; peaceful in
habitants Of the belesgured town are coop
ed up, and cannot fly the place Of conflict.
The mutual injuries inflicted BY assailants
and assailed are aggravated; their wrath is
more frenzied; then come the storm and
the capture, and the riot and lustful ex-
cesses Of the victor and soltliery, striving
to quench the drunkenness of blood in the
drunkenness Of wine. ea
The eccentric movements Of war-the
marching and counter-marching-oftcn re-
peat the blow on districts slowly recover
ing from the first. Between destruction
and the wasteful consumption Of the sol
diery, poverty pervades the land. Hope
less of the future, hardened by the scenes
Of which he is daily witness, perhaps
goaded By revenge. the peasant becomes a
plunderer and assassin. The horrible
cruelties, perpetrated BY Spanish peasants
on the French soldiers who fell into their
power were the necessary consequences Of
war. The families of the upper classes
are dispersed; the discipline Of the family
circle is removed; habit Of living in the
day for the day--or drowning the thoughts
of the morrow in transient and illicit
pleasure-is engendered. The waste and
desolation which battle spreads over the
battlefield, is nothing compared with the
morals which war diffnses through all
rank Of society, in the country which Is
the scene Of war.--LOn on So Ct0fOr.