Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1859-07-05
Horrible Scene.

A correspondent of one of the English papers
writing from Milan after the battle of Magenta,
says:
If some one had told me that just on the ninth
day after my arrival at the camp OF Vecelll !
should go by rail from Magenta to Milan, l
should have thought him mad; and yet so it is.
arrived here yesterday afternoon with train
of wounded and prisoners. AS / told you in my
last, the Milanese, Immediately after the Aus
trian evacuation, sent up train TO fetch the
wounded. AS they were found they were
brought in succession to the station by the sol
ders, detachment of two companies of the
First Fusteers of the Guard. at the station the
surgeons were in attendance to apply the hrst
dressing, and the trains from Milan went to and
fro to carry them off. The trains consisted OF
nothing but third class carriages and goods wa
gons, partly covered, partly open. Those who
were only slightly wounded and could walk
were pat into the carriages, while the others
were laid in the goods wagons, which had been
made as soft as the circumstances admitted, by
putting straw and hay at the bottom. 10 these
the unfortunate wretches were carried, IN ago
MES of pain caused by the movement. large
barrel Of cooling drink, made of water and syr-
up, was near, as well as another filled with wine,
with which to assuage the fiery thirst caused by
A~NN~~ -
awning over the open goods trucks, so as TO pro-
tect their miserable inmates from the rays OF
real Italian sun.
This station and the railway train itself were
certainly the most shocking scenes of misery
which one can possibly conceive. 1t was the
darker side of brilliant victory-looking be.
hind the scenes by daylight, wounded in all
stages of agony and pain. only half clad, torn,
dusty and muddy in their own blood. The
priests walking about with the visticum to ad-
minister the last sacrament to the dying; the
glazed eye of death in some, showing that they
had ceased to suffer; the working eyes of others
and the kneeling priest before them, showing
that they were on the point of signing their last
near them were others, whom you wonld have
thought dead had it not been for the perceptible
movement of the eye or q oonvulsiye twist OF the
limb. You became involuntarily silent when
YOU entered and took off your cap at the sight
of SO much misery. Even the lively French sol
diers. who ministered to the wants OF these de-
faced specimens of humanity, became grave, and
this dead silence was only broken from time to
time by the solemn words of the priest, faint
sob, frantric shrek of pain, or weak sigh
| You forgot almost that there was victory to
redeem this dark scene, and these men, who
would otherwise have peacefully followed their
domestic occupations, were summoned to expose
themselves to all this for cause which Is not
their own, which they know nothing about, nor
care for 1t was, indeed, o hard lot.
But it was, aboye all, when the wounded had
to be moved to the carriages, that the nelghbor'
hood became almost intolerable. Such shrieks,
such pale faces, contracted by pain; such torn
limbs! The soldiers ordered to transport them
seemed to forget everything in their anxiety to
alleviate the pain of the sufferers The philan-
thropist would have been touched by so much
care and the oynic might have sneered at the
idea that the very men who had made the
wounds should now try to cure the mischief,
ready to begin again. Before starting new
distribution of drink took place, for which there
was craving. At last the train was of, and
the noise of the train drowned all others, while
few turns of the wheels took US out OF sight OF
+ the station. On our arrival at Milan number
of volunteer nurses were already waiting, with
glasses of lemonade to assuage the burning thirst,
after passage of more than an hour"