The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-01-16
A TERRIBLE STORY.
The mutffatfon of Russian Dead by the
Turkish TrOoDs.


From a Private Letter of a Russian Officer to
Relative in Cleveland.l
Four days later our First brigade, to which
my regiment belongs, was ordered toward
Telish, eight miles from Dabnik. Our first
squadron, commanded by my friend s.,
moved forward accompanying a regiment
of infantry and two light field pieces They
after heavy struggle fell back to await
achievements. We were ordered for
ward, and ). being disabled, L took
charge of the second squadron. About
three miles ahead we overlook the remnant
of our Inflated first squadron-of 500 men
hardly l40 remaining and six officers miss
ing. We stopped but moment, and then
cantered on along path that every moment
grew more and more thickly strewn with
dead. Wounded we saw none. The nearest
bodies were only partly stripped of their
clothes and their heads cut off, but the
farther we rode the ghastlier grew the sight.
The dead Turks lay as they had fallen, but
our poor comrades had been robbed and
mutilated, some in manner too horrible to
describe
Coming to a place where the road somewhat
widened, about two miles from Telish, we
halted, and after driving away and cutting
down in a short. skirmish a party of Turks
who were busy robbing our dead we stopped
to form before going on. As l rode along
the front, shouting out rders to men, an ago
nizsd cry for help arrested my attention.
looked round. Nothing but heaps OF dead
everywhere. OF these none needed me.
But harkl Once more, and again, and again
these piteous cries. Hastily dismounting
| threw the bride over my sound arm and
ran toward some bushes from behind which
the sounds proceeded. and there, in a small
pool of clotted blood, lay that which l at
first failed to recognize as a human being
cries and the seemingly gloved hands that
clutched air and earth in their agony. The
rest, from the waist upward, was one mass
of raw, quivering fesh-the face feature
less, eyelIds and eyes cut out, the man
fayed alive, all but the hands, whose white
skin at first gave the impression of their
being gloved. This CHASTITY object lay a few
steps from a dead horse, one of our own reg
iments golden bays. Faint at heart bent
over the sufferer, evidently one of our own
men, but now mangled beyond recognition.
He prayed for death with his poor torn lips
and IN a minute more W., our surgeon, and
two more of our officers were by my side.
made room for W, who stopped for few
seconds over our comrade, and then rising.
sadly shook his head, murmuring No
help"
A sudden impulse prompted me to seize
the poor, helpless hand in my own, and
pressing it, whisper few words of comfort.
at the sound of my voice came the sadder
appeal: "Nicolai, for old friendships sake
send a bullet through my heart" This
voice sounded so strangely familiar, and yet
| could not recognize it. "Who are your
alexis 81 Alexis, my old schoolmate,
who had but a few hours ago shared
my breakfast by our bivouac
fire and then rode away, hand
some and bold at the head of our gallant first
squadron. He had fallen wounded, helpless,
his horse shot under him, and the fien6ish
Turks were slowly torturing him to death
when our approach drove them away.
Clasping my hand in his, he still begged for
death. Nv revolver was empty, discharged
in the scuffie g few moments before. looked
at w, who suddenly drew out his and shud-
dering in every nerve, placed the muzzle
against S. breast, and with averted face fired
twice in succession, while still pressed the
poor hand in mine. We wrapped him up in
my cloak, and placing him in the shallow
ditch rolled a boulder over him, and then,
with our hands still moist with his blood,
we swOre to each other never to empty the
last chamber of our pistols. but always to re-
serve shot for ourselves and friends.
should any of US, wounded, have to be left
behind. May a quick death, a soldiers
death, be ours.
As / rode away 1 thought of SIS young
wife and of my own, few weeks brides,
one widowed, the other likely to be, and
my heart burned with Indignation within
me as | thought how, in the face OF warfare
waged by the Turks with such fiendish, saw
age atrocity, any civilized nation, any paper
edited in a Christian land would have the
heart to waste their sympathies upon the
MoslemS.