Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-10-05

t, his relief. But very often his trials
are prolonged not only through hours
but through day and night. Some
times when he comes to life, feeble and
helpless, in the field-hospital. he will
have no recollection of many hours
which preceded his rescue by some
! searching party.
1t is a sad picture; but thousands
who will read these paragraphs will be
able to assure those to whom war and
| its horrors are but tradition that
their own experience declares it to be
true.
This would he quite enough for the
general reader. He would lay down
the printed page with shudder at the
atrocities of warfare.
But what would he say if some of
the exceptional instances of the SOL
diers suffering were presented to him !?
Let him consider that dreadful
picture of what befell our wound
ed on the field just before
the capitulation of Fort Donelson, in
February, 1862? The weather was at
first mild and pleasant; it changed
after the fighting had continued some
time, with snow and cold wind. 1t
was hard enough for the unwounded to
shiver and endure frost bites; no fires
could be permitted, as they would be-
tray the positions to the enemy. But
think of the wounded in such a situa-
ton as that! Hundreds of both sides
had fallen and lay where no help could
be given them while the siege was go
ing on; and as the cold increased,
many of these were frozen to death;
and were found afterward with their
limbs and bodies fastened as in a wise
by the freezing of the mud in which
they lay.
Could any form of death be more
appalling? If there could be, it would
be that which overlook other hundreds
at Charlottesville in May, 1863, and
again in the Wilderness, near by a
year later.
In both Of these situations there
were places between the opposing lines
where the dry grass, brush, and fences,
even the woods and thickets, were set
on fire by burning cartridge-paper.
The devouring flames and the sitting
smoke rolled over the poor, helpless
victims of the fight; their agonizing
cries could be heard by their COM
rades, hut nothing could be done to
help them. How many men were there
burned or suffocated to death will
never be known. /
An eyewitness of the horrors of the
Wilderness says of this fearful cpl
sode:
while we were fighting savagely
over these intrenchments the woods in
our front caught fire. and I saw many
of our wounded burned to death. Must
they not have suffered horribly? am
not at all sure of that. The smoke
rolled heavily and slowly before the
fire, and l think that by far the larger
portion of the men who were roasted
were suffocated before the flames could
reach them"
The conjecture of this writer may be
true; but he fails to take into account
the mental agony, worse than thou
sand deaths, of these helpless soldiers,
lying on the ground and watching the
destroying fire and smoke crawling to-
ward them, without the power to es-
cape. Could anything be more hideous
than that?
But volume would be required to
recount the special and dreadful forms
of suffering that visited the soldier.
The people as a whole know very little
of them. None but the soldier can UNI
derstand what the soldier endured.
sARecollections of Private Soldier" by Frank
| Wilkeson, page 2Ol.
|-Chicago Ledger.