Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1870-10-13
&tisflIauenns.
MILES OF coRPsEs.
Gruveliotte After the Bsftie-Aeres Oh
Dead and Dytng--The Slain OF Botn
Armies Killed in!Bloody Heaps
A scene Of Horror, as Descrtb-
ed by Murat Haistead.

poNT-A- -MOUSS0N, August ~ heic
were. for instance, four or f1ve snousahu
dead men in sight. Here, there, every,
where the poor fellows had been oieo
over. We come upon Frencnman
whose head had been knocked on py .
cannon shot. There remained OF 1.-TWO
Grams of skin, each as large as your
S.rd and on one was his moustache and
On the other q patch of the hair OF bis
head Another had been struck In the
'csntre of his body and almost cut in two.
III. shoulders and head were left, the
hairy knapsack and red cap still cling
,nU to them. and below the bloody mass
his coarse shoes and white CATERS were
risihle. his face was in the dust. An
other French soldier had been
DIsEMBowELED.
hy . fr.pment of shell, and the fatal
missile had torn open his pantaloohs
nocket. showing largo piece OF hdro
hread and bit of meat. A tall Prus-
si.n- dead. was at full length on his
hack his helmet half hiding his swoi-
I.n face-the eagle that adorned It with
the legend "For King and Fatherland," "
and the buckle of his hilt showing In
can.nicuous letters "God with u.s." On
the north side of the road a aslender little
Erench soldier lying on his face, his gun
IN his hands. He had been killed as he
vas making ready to fire, ,andhad crouch
ed in the collapse of death like pitliul
little animal. A triangular rent in the
hand of his red cap told that he had
been shot through the head.
SHOT THROUGH THE HEAD.
At his side was a larger man, through
those naked head CHASTITY furrow had
haen. pioughed, and from it the torn
hraina issued. His chassepot was clutch
II in his stiff hands. In the same neigh
horhood was French colonel, not dis
6oured at all by his deaLh wound. L
tS;nk he had not met his death Instant
iv mt rad been struck in the thigh and
ia from loss of blood. He had, it SEEM
ed Attempted to do something to staunch
the flow OF blood, and finding it vain,
had composed himself for death.
- A NEAT CORPSE.
He was as neat corpse as you ever
saw. His spurs were still on his heels,
hiscan on his head, his hands by his
.Ide. His clothes had been opened about
his breast by some one in search OF val
uables. / suppose, and there were artl-
cles scattered about showing that be had
been careful in camp to be neat. Among
them was toothbrush and box OF
tooth powder. The dust from the Paris
road had powdered him. His features
were not swollen or distorted, but clear
and cIoudIess, and his friends would
have recognized him quickly as in life.
BLACK AND SWOLLEN.
How it happened that in the same
.rouns of dead some were hideously af-
fected by the sun, black and monstrous,
with details of horror in their appear
ance that must not mention, while
Others were pale and waxen, every
facial outline delieately preserved do
not understand.
THE DEAD HORSES.
Some of the most terrible OF the pic
lures of death were among the fallen
hurses. There were expressions of ut
terable fear and suffering ia their dead
facss. The wild eyes, the expanded
nostriIs, the open lips diplaying the full
length of the teeth. In some of the faces
of these noble animals every hair SEEM
ed to tell a tale of terror. The attitudes
of the horses in death were as various
and fascinating in their interest as those
Of the men. oh for an artist to nave
made a study of them! Here is grand
bay horse shot through by an unexplod-
ed shell, his left shoulder crushed and
a hole in his flank balf as large as the
head of -four barrel. Stricken down
with his legs under him and his chin In
the dirt, there was in his
STARING EYES AND STARTLING GRIN,
the suggestion ofs horrible shrek. Here
was another, shot, shot through the
head aud prone on his side. In his
struggles he had torn the clover sod with
his feet, and the bloody froth, blown
from his nostrils, spoke OF the desperate
agony of his dying breath. A beautiful
young mare, in whose satln SKIN ana
handsome limbs and graceful head tipped
With dainty ears, an horse fancier
would have detected the marks of gen.
tie blood, had clasped her legs, as fthey
we're human arms, against her body,
which had been shot through. Many
were on their backs, their legs extended.
So numerous were they that, glancing
over the field, horses legs could be seen
sticking I'D on all sides. making dis
play that would have deem grotesque if
it had not been hideous.
AGRoUP FOR A PHOTOGRAPHERS.
In the Gravelotte letter L referred to
the seven horses and forty men dead In
group. There was a chance for pho
tographer. If the photographers OF Eu-
rope had half the enterprise they have
in America, some of them would have
been on the spot, however extreme the
trouble of getting there. That slaugh-
tered heap contained soldiers of both
armies. ana not a rag should have been
changed or shifted for the purpose ofthe
artist. 1t was in its dreadful pictures
aueness complete. The caisson, the
horses at the wheels.
DEATH sMTTTEN BY THE SAME STROKE,
the red breeches of France and the blue
coats of Prussia piled together, caps and
helmets, knapsacks, swords and bayon-
cts, muskets and sabres, the rammers
for cleaning cannon one OF them broken,
chassepots and needle guns literally
across each other, the ground pitted
with Shells dozen marks of them with
in a square rod, black holes where they
had burst. indentations where they had
bounced, deep abrasions where they
struck and exploded. counted thirteen
of these in a cluster, and SO small was
the space you could have concealed half
of them under wagon cove.
HEAPS OF coRPsEs.
Thelittle town Vionville was heaped
with corpse. The garden walls were
over-thrown, the houses were shivered
with shots, and one that had been fired
in the battle still burning. Every house
had been a a slaughter house. The Prus-
SLAMS had removed nearly all their dead,
but the French corpse were so thick
that one could but think the battle had
been for them at this point, massacre.
Extending across the Paris road from
Vionville southwark was line on
which the French had stood, their faces
toward Patis. How many miles of
corpses were here, in row revealing the
ground on which the French had made
their stand on the second pay, 1 do not
know, but I certainly saw two miles Of
them.