Washington telegraph., 1855-09-12
Loss of Life in Great Battles.

Loss of Life in Great Battles,
The waste of human life in the unsuc-
cessful attack on the Malakoff and Redan
appears to have been nearly as great (though
not quite) as in the average of the most de.
structivc modern battles More than FIVE
thousand OF the assailants were killed and
wounded, vast proportion, when we cou-
slder how small comparatively the storm.
ing column was The French alone met
loss of thirty eight hundred men out of
an attacking force of twenty FIVE thousand;
that is to say, every seventh man was rem.
dered incapable, either by death or wounds
There is, indeed one modern siege which
was more bloody than this-not actually.
however, but when the numbers engaged
are compared with those who fell We al
lude to the second siege of Badajoz in the
Peninsula war.
The famous Spanish fortress was invested
by Wellington, at the head of twenty-five
thousand men, and finally carried by storm.
after one OF the most sanguinary assaults
on record. In the attack on the great
breach alone not less than thirty eight hun
dred men fell Yet Badajoz was a small
place, the fort not being larger, perhaps.
than the Malakoff and It's outworks. Who
ever would realize hah the horrors of war
should read Napicr's account of the fall of
Badajoz
Marengo, Austerlitz Wagram, Leipsic.
Dresden, Bordino and Waterloo were
among the most desperately contested bat
ties of the first Napoleon. At Marengo
the AuStrians lost ten thousand, more than
third of their whole force, while the
French lost seven thousand, or about in the
same proportion \ considerable portion
of these were prisoners however while q.
Redan and Malakoff but few prisoners were
taken. At Austeritz the French lost
twelve thousand, or nearly a sixth of their
entire force but the allies lost thirty thou
sand, or more than third At Wagram
the loss on either side was twenty-five thou,
and. or about one seventh of those engaged
At Lcipsic the loss was forty three thousand
on the side of the allies, out of nearly three
hundred thousand in the field, and sixty
thousand on tbe part of the French out of
one hundred and seventy five Thousand -
At Dresden, the allies lost twenty FIVE thou.
sand, or one sixth of their entire numbers,
while the French lost twelve thousand, or
one tenth. At Bordino, the bloodiest battle
of all, fifty thousand fell on each side or a
third of those in the battle At Waterloo
the French lost forty thousand. or more than
half; but large proportion of these fell in
the rOut ; yet the English lost nearly TWEEN
ty thousand, or almost a third Of their en-
tire troops.
1t Is often said, in discussing military af-
fairs. that Qur American battles have been
too trItling TO take into consideration But
if we consider, not the numbers actually
killed and wounded, but the proportion
which those numbers bear to the whole
force engaged, we shall find that those ac-
tions thus adorned, were as hotly contested
as even the first Napoleon's battles At
Eutaw Springs, for example, in the revolu-
tiOuary war, one third of both armies were
left upon the field. At Chippewa. in the
war of 1912, nearly one fifth of the British
were disabled. At Lundy's Lane. the loss
of the Americans was about one third, and
that of the British equally great At New
Orleans. where the British attempted, on a
smaller scale, the same rash experiment
which they have just been defeated in before
the Redan and Malkoff. the assailants lost
1000 out of their army of 10000
From the statistics it appears that battles
in the open field are generally more bloody,
though not always, than assaults of eutrench-
ed positions The reason is, that in the .
former case, the entire army is unusually
engaged. but in the latter only the storming
column. The loss by those actually occu-
pied on the attack is always heavier, howey-
er, than the average loss of an army in the
open field. II would seem, also that the al
lies in their late repulse suffered as severely
as the English at New Orleans defeat
which has always been considered one of
the most sangulnary on record