The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1861-08-02

THE DEAD ON THE BATTLE FIELD.
The correspondent of the Cincinnati Com
mercial, writing from the scene of the Rich
Mountain battle, describes the appearance
of the dead and wounded, as follows:
The dead presented CHASTITY spectacle. l
never conceived anything half so hideous
No power of expression is adequate to de-
scribe it. 1t was a complete concentration
of horrors self. 1t is said that the features
of those who die by other causes, are usually
relieved by faint smile-that suffering is
rarely left imprinted on the cOuntenance of
acOrpse-but that the cOuntenances of those
who are shot have impressed upon them the
traces of pain. Those which saw-abOut
fifty-exhibited nothing but tie revolving
characters of exquisite agony. There was
not the faintest gIimmer OF lingering smile,
not the slightest possible tint of softness or
mildness, not lineament OF beauty remain
ing, to relieve the harsh, horrid, distorted,
agonized faces of the dead of Rich Mountain.
The bright sun, CHANGING through the part
ing leaves, lent no kindly ray to soften the
ugly outlines; melancholy had no sad, quiet
shadow, to mingle with the hard, forbidding
aspect of the dead faces on which gazed
with perfect horror. Had there been even
traces OF angry passion, vindictiveness, re-
venge, death could not. have stared so hOr>
~ribly as it did, out of those CHASTITY Inca
ments; we could have felt there was still
something human left in those human faces
but mere outlines.
The faces of our own dead were as fear
fully forbidding as those of their dead ene-
mics. 1t was impossible to drive from my
mind: reflections upon the terrible intensity
of grief which those who see the forbdding
cou0kenances of the dead loved ones on the
fieldsof battle, must experience. imagine
it must exceed all other grief for the dead
because every feature is SO distorted and
unnatural, so entirely devoid of the tone of
expression which friends have loved in the
living features. Some were lying prone. on
the field as they had fallen, with limbs
sprawling, great thick plotches of coagulat-
ed blood near their bodies, their garments
saturated with the ensaDguined flow, and
their gaping faces and stony eyes, staring
full at the broad, brazen sky. One who had
been shot down in the woods above the
breastworks, lay stark upon his face, one
arm thrown with convulsive struggle
around the limb Of fallen tree. Clotted
blood which had flowed out OF his side, was
near him in thick Jumps.
But the most hideous scene was that of
twenty nine dead rebels packed horribly to-
gether in q trench, most of them with fear
full ori6ces perforatiDg their heads, through
which the brains oozed in sckening clots
others with MIME holes full in their breasts;
some with shattered limbs, and others with
lacerated and mangled flesh, with here and
there splintered bone, exhibiting itself.
Oh, horrible! most horrible Our own
precious dead, but few in number, had been
more tenderly gathered, and kind comrades
had decently composed their stifeniDg
forms. 1 lifted the covering which had
concealed their inanimate features, but saw
nothing to remove from my mind that indel-