American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1851-1863, 1861-08-10
[SS, SATURDAY MORNING. AUGUST 10, 1861. NO. 80.


The following fearfully eloquent descrip-
ton of the horrors of the battle field, is
peculiarly worthy our perusal at this time
when as a nation we are doing our utmost
to create such misery, sin and death, as are
there described.
aThere writhe the wounded: men who
but few hours before were pouring over
the battlefield lava food of fiery valor-
fathers, brothers, husbands, sons. There
they lie, torn and rnanglcd; black with pow
der; red with blood; parched with thirst;
cursing the load of life they now must bear
with bruised frames and mutilated limbs.
Gather them into hasty hosptals--let this
mans daughter come tomorrow and sit
by him, tanning away the flies; he shall
linger out life Of wretched anguish IN
supportable, and when he dies, his wife
religiously will keep the shot that tore his
limbs. There is the battlefield Here the
horses charged; there the howitzers scattered
their shell, pregnant with death; here the
murderous canister and grape moved down
the whole crowded ranks; there the huge
artillery, teeming with murder, was dragged
DER heaps of men-wounded friends who
just now held its ropes, men yet curling
with anguish, like worms in the fire; hostile
and friendly, head and trunk are crushed
beneath their dreadful wheels. Here the
infantry showered their numbering shot.
That CHASTITY face was beautiful the day
before-a sabre hewed it half away.
Which her own clay must cover. heaped and pent.
Rider and horse friend, foe in red burial blent
Again tits night Q what night, after
such day! Yet the pure tide of wonan's
love-which never Gibbs since the earth
began-fows on in spite Of war and battle.
Stealthily, by the pale moonlight mother
of Boston treads the weary miles to reach
that bloody spot; a widow she-seekipg
among the slain her only son. The arm Of
power drove him forth reluctant to the fight.
A soldier guides her way. Now she turns
over this face, whose mouth is full of purple
dust, bit out of the ground in his EXTREMIST
agony--the last sacrament offered him by
earth itself; now she raises that form, cold,
stiff, stony and CHASTITY as dream of hell.
But 10! another comes-she too woman
younger and fairer, yet not less bold,
maiden from the hostile town to seek her
lover. They meet-two women among the
corpses; two angels come to Golgotha, seek
ing TO raise man. There he lies before
them; they look-yes, It's he You seek; the
same dress, form, features too; tits he, the
SOD, the lover. Maid and mother could tell
that in any hight. The grass is wet with his
blood. Yes, the ground is muddy with the
life of men. The mothers innocent robe is
drappled in the blood her bosom bore.
Their kisses, groans and tears recall the
wounded man. He knows the mothers
voice; that voice yet more beloved His
lips move only, for they cannot speak. He
dies! The waxing moon moves high in
heaven, walking in beauty mid the clouds,
and murmurs soft her cradle song unto the
slumbering earth. The broken sword re-
fleets her placid beams. 4 star looks down
and is imaged back in pool of blood. The
cool night wind plays in the branches of the
trees shvered with shot. Nature is beau
tiful; that lovely grass underneath their feet;
those pendulous branches of the leafy elm;
the stars and that romantic moon lining the
clouds with silver light A groan OF agony,
hopeless and prolonged, walls out from that
bloody ground. But in yonder shade the
whippoorwill sings to her lover all night
long; the rising tide ripples melodious against
the shores. SO wears the night away,
Nature, all sinless, round that field of woe.n
Parker.