Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-05-14

was well placed, and in full front of the enc
mys line, while the enemy themselves had
withdrawn from the plain to the cover of their
works. We were ready for the renewal of
the fight on the morrow. They were whip
ped. Our men lighted their fires and cooked
their coffee, and tried to dry their clothes.
Theirs were strapping their knapsacks on
their shoulders for a flight They had met
the Yankee ON an open field, and knew that
at last they had met their masters So,
through the mists of the rainy night, the CON
federate army of the Potomac stole out of
their entertainments, and obeyed the order to
retreat. Bull Run was avenged. The Will
hamsburg Run began at 8 o'clock in the eve
nlng, and now, thirty hours after, is in full
panic and disorder, under the sabering of our
cavalry and the Smelling of our artillery-far
away here toward Richmond. 1t was not till
after sunrise that the last Of the rebel army,
composed of cavalry, passed through Will
liamsburg. They left one large gun in their
works; abandoning a splendid brass piece on
the road, with two caissons; strewed every
rod OF their path with muskets, bayonetS, KNAPP
sacks, blankets and overcoats; Uttered the
way with all the wreck and ruin of beaten and
demoralized army in full flight from imagn-
airy as well as real terrors. There was har-
vest for the blacks who had not been driven
all parts they alighted upon this abandoned
property, much of it new and valuable fresh
from the commissary stores, and left upon the
roadside in wagons, only because it impeded
flight
DREADFUL SCENES IN THE HOSPITALS.
The enemy left the churches, the college,
the court house-all the public buildings
filled with their wounded Their ambulances
and hospital wagons went out also full. AT
the several points of the fight, yesterday, they
left these victims of our fire. The most sad
sight | ever saw was the 50 wounded, lying
upon corn husks, in the tobacco barn nearest
Hancock's ground. Beneath the central win
dow of the hospital nearest Heintzelman's
field, limbs, amputated, were thrown out of
the building, and in such numbers, from the
number of wounded, that they formed Il
CHASTITY pile, that soon mounted to the sill.
Here, in the town, 600 lie in every form of
physical misery, surrounded by their own
surgeons. 'Surrounded"-I leave the word
but SO few of these officers had stayed be-
hind, that at six o'clock on Tuesday evening,
L saw, oh, so many! who feverishly felt a.
round for their water bottles and with all the
language of anguish asked, 9oheR the ''doc-
tors" would come. Scattered among these
sufferers lay forms from which came neither
movement nor sound. Death had ended their
torment. Lifting the linen from the face of
one of these, in the William and Mary col
lege chapel, | saw the features of an officer of
the common type Of Virginia development. |
unused as l looked at the mean mouth and
narrow brow if this could be one Of the
Peasants family, for upon his breast was
pinned a LABEL '"ThiS is Captain Peasants.
Mark his grave" And l thought of his faith
er Off he was the son of the progressive Jour
nalist who had fallen by the bullet of the du-
cling slave driver Wise,) and l thought of the
degeneracy that slavery and its fruit, servili-
ty, tastens by a law of God upon the stock of
men of noble minds and of noble mien.
DREADFUL SCENES on THE FIELD.
BY an association of ideas, too, springing
from contrast, | recalled muddied figure ~
ing in fort No. from the rebel left, in the
well known dull gray uniform and the uni
form SLOUGH hat, of the canal-drivng pattern
of the New York and Erie tow path. The
confederate uniform gray blanket was drawn
high up from his poor shoes and his ragged
stockings, and covered the soldiers head.
Thinking him to be dead, | lifted it.
and saw beneath head that would have
served for a bust of Attila overlooking Rome
The brow had wonderful force and infinite
will, mixed with the beauty of a woman The
most charming clusters Of jet black hair, and
a flowing beard, that shone in the sun, mingled
with the streams Of blacker blood that seemed
to glue the mouth to the soil Swollen and
dlscolOred as was the jaw, and bloated the
lips, the face and whole head were of a mag
nlhcent cast of savage grandeur and ele
gance. His figure, too, was Il Tltans-yet
when our surgeon and his aids began to
place under him board, to bear him off
to our hospital, the feebleness of a man
who had been lying "a hours in the rain
with his jaw shattered and his throat torn
apart, with a Mimic musket ball, asserted
anew the supremacy Of the nervous sensibili-
ty over the spirit. Feeble groans-the groans
of dying girl baby-gurgled through the
blood which filled the gigantic soldiers mouth,
and protested against pain. Abandoned wound
ed in forts, in corn-felds, in churches, in
court houses, in record offices, in colleges,
in hospitals What of the abandoned dead?
They strewed the woods-they strengthened
with their weight the lines of the rail
fences-they spotted while they MANFRED
the fields Of growing wheat-before the
line of our musketry fire they paved
the earth-they were thick in the forts
thicker on the edge of the timbered positions
where our shell and grape smote them from
afar and would alone have discouraged their
bayonet charges if numbers had not justified
them, and the laws of battle required them.
The poor corpses of the poor fellows-(who
can hate the dead foe that in worn, and cheap,
and comfortess and ill-fashioned, and rudely
patched, dirty clothing, appeal to you through
that poverty of the poor and that helplessness
of the ignorant which all over the globe is
heard and respected by the generous) were
lying everywhere under the feet of our ad-
vancing regiments. The sun of Tuesday
went down on the unfinished work Of our bur-
ial parties. The labor of internent begins
again this morning. The whole day will
scarcely suffice for it.