Delaware State journal and statesman., 1861-11-19
THE HORRORS OF BULL RUN.
FEELING Ar nIcnMoNp. yIRoINIA.

Written for the Montreal Witness by an ex-
Montreal editor who has spent several years in
the Southern State in the same VOCATION
The battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, as it is
somewhat poiutedly styled by the Northencrs
was sad victory to the people OF Richmond
In proportion, there were many more citizens Of
Richmond present on the battle field than of any
other city of the South; and the oss of thu
Southern army was very much greater than was
supposed at the North have heard Bsauregard
declare his belief that three or four Soulherncrs
fell 10 every Northern soldier BE this as il may,
Richmond, after the battle, was yeicd in mourn
ing Ii seemed rs if there was scarcely fami.
| ly that had not lost u friend or relative; many
had lost their head and every male member Of
their once loving domestic circle. Manassas was
n hardly gained victory, though its moral effects
were greats but it was victory that spread
mourning and desUlati0n over the land for hun
dreds of the most beloved and cherished amongst
the youth of the South fell on that day. They
had gone forth in the flush and confidence Of
youthful hope AMI mistaken patriotism, and can
we wonder that no sounds of rejoicing were
heard, such as are usual after a victory, however
unexpectedly or hardly won, even though the
wall of the widow, the mother or the orphan
child mingleswith the hoarse bray of the trum-
pet and the shouts Of the yictoIs. No gong of
triumph was sung in Richmond, or in the sur
rounding villages; and now, for the first time,
the people appeared to realize the horrors Of the
war they had entered upon, without seeming to
have calculated its cost. Those who had cher
shed hopes, raised by the reports that those
they loved were not dead, but only wounded
were, alas, doomed to suffer n more bitter an.
gush than that of their fellow citizens who went
over the biers of the slain No pen can ade-
quately describe the horror Of the scenes wit
messed by anxious crowds, as day by day the
L
houses OF their friends or to the 81. Charles
Hotel, which had been fitted up as an hospital
question, indeed, whether many of the battle
fields Of Europe have been the arena of such
horrible individual suffering have read of no
campaign, except that Of Moscow, where the
French soldiers penshed by tens of thousands
in every conceivable agony, that can offer n com
pnrison in this respect. II may seem absurd to
speak Of Moscow nnd Bull Run in the same
breath; but do not refer 10 the relative mnr
nitude Of the campaigns, nor compare the mum
bers engaged, the duration of the struggle, nor
the loss Of life My comparison refers only TO
the peculiar suHeiings Of the wounded, as day
after day they were brought into the city in
every conceivable and nconceivable condition of
mutlation, and writhing in agony where morti-
tication had not already supervened, or where
the stupor which generally precedes death by
violence had not seized upon the hnpless victim
of this fratricidal strife.
In most battle fields of modern times skillful
surgeons and attentive nurses have been in
prompt attendance, And the wounded have re-
ceived every possible attention compatible with
their unfortunate positions but with the wound
ed Of the Southern army, at least, this was not
the case. Possibly sufficient number of sur
geons could not be provided, and | know that
many who were present we're poorly supplied |
with surgical instruments, or with medicines of
nature to alleviate suffering, and that they did
the best they could under the circumstances
but saw men brought in who had lain for four
and twenty hours on the field where they had
fallen, unaided, and without even drop Of wa
ter to slake their burning thirst. l saw men
brought in delirious with feyerlravng like mad
men, aud falling to recognize their nearest and |
dearest friends. Some were bOrne past, upon |
whose livid features death had already set his |
pitiful appealing glance of the fast
gazing eye being the only sign that life stil |
fingered. The features Of many were so dis
torted by pain that they scarcely appeared to be |
human and, most horrible of ali, / witnessed |
at least dozen poor creatures brought in who
had either lost a limb by cannon ball or had |
suffered the amputation Of q leg or an arm.
1t is hard to decide which Of these two classes |