The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1861-08-09
HAVOC OF LIFE BY WAR.

II is difficult to conceive what fearful havoc
war has made OF human life. Some OF lis incl
dental ravages seem to defy all belief. Il has
at times entirely depopulated immense districts.
In modern, as we'll as ancient times. large tracts
have been left so utterly desolate, that travel
er might pass from village TO village, even from
city to city, without finding solitary inhabl-
tant. The war OF 1856, waged in the heart of
Europe, left in one instance no less than twenty
contiguous villages without single man or
beast. The Thirty Years. War, in the seven
teenth century, reduced the population oil Ger
many from 100000 TO 1900, ,000-ihree
fourths; and that of Wurtembe.g from SOC, 900
TO 4S,OO0-more than nne-tenlhsl Thirty
thousand villages were destroyed in many
Others the population entirely died out and in
districts once studded with towns and cities,
there spTang up immense forests.
Look at the havoc OF sieges-in tha: of Lon
donderry $4,000 soldiers, besides vas. num-
Der OF inhabitants; in that of Paris, in the six
teenth century, 80, 900 victims OF mere hunger;
in that OF Malplaquet, $4,000 soldiers alone
in tina, of lsmal, 10000 Vienna, 10000; Of
Ostend, 100, 900; OF Mexico, $50, 900; of Acre.
100000; OF Carthage, 900 of Jerusalem,
100000.
Mark the slaughter of single battles-at Le-
panto, twenty-five thousand at Austerlltz,
thirty thousand at Eylau, sixty thousand at
Waterloo and Quatre Bras seventy thousand
a! Borodino, eighty thousand at Fontenoy.
one hundred thousand at Arabela, three hun
dred thousand; at Chalons, three. hundred thous-
and OF Attila's army alone four hundred Usi-
petes were slain by julius Cesar in one battle,
four hundred and thirty thousand Germans in
another.
Take only Two cases more. The army OF
Xerxes, says DR.. Dick, must have a mounted 10
5,2S3, 800 and, If the attendants were ouly
one-thlrd as great as common at the present
day IN eastern countries, the sum .otal must
have reached nearly six millions. Yet, in one
year, this vast multitude was reduced, though
not entirely by death, TO three hundred thous-
and fighting men and of these only three
thousand escaped destruction. Jenghis-khan
the terrible ravager of Asia 10 the thirteenth
century, sho: ninety thousand on the plains OF
Mesa, and massacEed two hundred thousand of
the ktorming of Kharasm. In the district of
Herat, he butchered one million SIX hundred
thousand, and in two cities with their depen-
denotes, one million seven hundred and sixty-
t-~ sA~~~@si. Da-'ns Gh-aiA.t t~-~~ty srrs
years OF his longIreign, he is said TO have masa-
cred more thar half million every year and
in the first fourteen years, he Is supposed, by
Chinese historians. TO have destroyed not else
than eighteen millions sum total of over
thirty-two millions in forty-one years.
In any view, what fell destroyer is war.
NaPoeon's wars sacrificed full six millions, and
all the wars consequent on the French Revolu-
ton, some nine or ten millions. The Spanierds
are said to have destroyed. in forty-two years,
more than twelve millions of American Indi-
ans. Grecian wars sacrificed fifteen millions;
Jewish wars, twenty-five millions; the wars
OF the twelve Caesars, in all, thirty millions
the wars of the Romans, before Julius Cesar,
sixty millions; the wars of the Roman Empire,
OF the Saracens and Turks, sixty millions each
those OF the Tartars, eighty millions those of
Africa one hundred millions.
Df. Dick says that if we take into considera-
lion the number not only of those who have
fallen In battle, but of those who have persisted
through the natural consequences of war, it will
not 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
hundred thousand millions OF human beings
have been slaughtered IN war, since the Begin
ming of he world. Edmund Burke went still
further, and reckoned the sum total Of IFS rava-
ges, from the first, al no less than thirty-fve
thousand millions.