The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1861-09-10
THE HAVOC OF LIFE BY WAR.

II is difficult to conceive what fearful havoc war
has made of human life. Some of its incidental
ravages seem to defy all belief 1t has at times
depopulated immense districts In modern, as
| as well as ancient times, large tracts have been
left so utterly desoate, that traveller might pass
from village to village, even from CITY to city,
without finding solitary inhabitant. The war of
1855 waged in the heart Of Europe, left in one
instance no less than twenty contiguous villages
without q single or beast. The "Thrty
Years War;" in the seventeenth century, reduced
the population of Germany from $1,000 900 to
1000 ,OOO-three fourths; and that of Wurten-
burg from 100000 to 68000--more than nine
tenths? Thirty thousand villages were destroyed; /;
in many others the population entirely died out;
and in districts once studded with towns and cities
there sprang up immense forests.
Look at the havoc of seiges-in that of Lon
donderry $1,000 soldiers, besides vast number
of inhabitants; in that of Paris, in the sixteenth
century, 10000 victims of mere hunger; in that
Of Malplaquet, 81 900 soldiers alone; n that Of
Ismail, 10000; of Vienna, 10000; of Ostend,
10000; of Mexico, 100000; Acre, 100000; of
Carthage, 100000; of Jerusalum, l,00O,000!!
Mark the slaughter Of single battles-at Lepan.
to, twenty five thousand; at Austerlitz. thirty thou
sand; at Eylau, sixty thousand; at Waterloo and
Quatre Bras--one engagement, in fact-seventy
thousand; at Borodino, eighty thousand; at Foute-
nay, one hundred thousand at Arbela, three hun
dred thousand of Atilla's army alone; four hum
dred thousand Usipetes were slain by Julius Cse.
sar in one battle, and four hundred and thirty
thousand Germans in another.
Take only two cases more: The army Of Xer-
xes, says DR.. Dick, must have amounted to $685.
$40; and, if the attendants were only one-third
great as common at the present day in Eastern
countries, the sum total must have reached near
ly six millions. Yet, in one year this vast multi
fnH uroe uof anf hv 1fh
to three hundred thousand fighting men, and of
these only three thousand escaped destruction.
Jenghis khan. the terrible ravager of Asia in
the thirteenth century, shot ninety thousand on
the plains Of Mesa, and massacred two hundred
thousand at the storrning of Kharasm. In the
district of Herat he butchcreG one million six
hundred thousand, and in two cities, with their de-
Tendencies, one million seven hundred and sixty
two thousand. During the last twenty-seven years
of his reign, he is said to have nassacred more
than half million every year, aud in the first
ii years, he is supposed by Chinese historians, to
have destroyed not less than Is 900, ,000-& sum
total of over 80 millions in forty-one years J
In any view what fell destroyer is war! Ma
poleon's wars sacrificed full six millions, and all
the consequent on the French Revolution
some nine or ten nions The SpaniardS are
said to have destroyed, in forty-two years, more
than twelve millions of American Indians Gre
clan wars sacrificed fifteen millions; Jewish wars
twenty FIVE millions, the wars Of the twelve great
Caesars, in ALL thirty millions the wars of the Ro-
mans, before Julius Caesar sixty millions; the wars
of the Roman Empire, Of the Saracens and the
Turks sixty millions each; those ofthe Tartars elgh-
ty millions; those of Africa hundred millions.
DR.. Dick says that if we take into consideration
the number, not only Of those who have fallen in
battle, but of those who have perlshed through
the natural consequences of war, it will not, per-
haps. be overrating the destruction of human life
if we affirm, that one-tenth of the human race has
been destroyed by the ravages Of war; and,
according to this estimate, more than fourteen
thousand millions of human beings have been
slaughtered in war since the beginning OF the
world Edmund Burke went still further, and
reckoned the sum total of its ravages from the first,
at no less than AirtyJfre thousand rstHtons