, 1862-07-12
The American War,

With the whole Western world wrapped in tn
red fame of war-with those to whom our heart
are knit by such ties as death only breaks and sor
rows only make stronger-busy at scoop of graves
or tending wounded-with steamers that we knew
once plying peacefully under shadow of overhang
ing cottonwood now burdened with the human
debris of battle-it seems like mocIery that we
should give thought, line, pen-stroke to the
everyday, easy life of the European capital.
So, when fierce cold is shifting with its white
wand all the crops of the North, it seems but fa-
tuity and heartlessness to record how balmy heats
are making the fields bask in SUMMER latitudes
how blossoms are bursting, and sweet fruit form
ing and blithe workers going afeld on the very
day and shs very hoy- whom. in. ailer lands, All
ing frosts are sowing famine.
From the European standpoint what most
surprises, perhaps, in regard TO the American war;
is the anSouciance, the Indifference, the calm with
which all tidings of fierce battles are met "Twen-
ty thousand wounded and killed carries no more
stab to the public sensibility than, in other days,
a blown-up steamer with its hundreds of victims.
We will venture to say that the news of the late
American battles, and the tale of killed and
wounded have startled to quicker sense of the
actual horrors involved the European public than
even the neghbors of the sufferers at home How
is this Do we Americans as is alleged, put SO
small an estimate on life and health or have we,
with philosophic calm, so reckoned the cost from
the beginning as not to be stirred by the abound
ing justification of our estimates
To all who question and express amazement at
the extraordinary result, We answer that both
causes have their weight.
A young people, battling with bears on the
frontiers and risking all the hazards of climate in
its uncomfortable love of "spread," must rate
life at far lower estimate than those who, these
thousand years, have been multiplying every de-
vice to make it long and easy and luxurious
Keen sensbility to the horrors ofwar is the result
of mature civilization. If the pioneer were ham,
pered by the refnements of cities he would never
trample down the savagery of the border
The composure with which, as people, we have
received and forgotten each year our record of
accidents by boat and rail demonstrates com |
Indifference to the value of life which
astonishes European observers, but which, after
all, is perhaps attributable, not so much to sheer
insensibility as to a conviction that our swift
progress as a nation must have commensurate
waste blood and life. We strike for grand re-
suits, and we pay the grandest of prices.
There is yet another explanation of the appar-
ent coolness with which the American public di-
gests its record of losses. The authorities com
manding battle are corporated authorities, and
corporate bodies ignore sympathy. When Napo-
leon tracked his way over the bloody ground Of
Soferno, the groans and the stark corpses made
an appeal to his heart which quickened the nego-
iations of Yillafranca. But let Republican ger
'ral or cabinet officer declare the force of such
appeal, and straightway his loyalty is questioned
No sympathies must stand in the way of duty to
he State. The sheriff must not finch The law
las TO heart to be touched
Hence Republican war, directed against Re
publican subjects, must be the bitterest and most
of all wars. The people alone, who
re the authors of the law must temper its is I
Magazine