Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-04-14

vile. Here and there one, realizing that
 he is wounded unto death and that help
 will come too late; maintains silence. With an effort which starts the red blood
 afresh, he carries his hand to the pocket
 In which lies a photograph of sweet
 heart or last letter from the wife at
 home, and the burial party finds his
 dead fingers clutching the relic and his
 glazed eyes fastened upon it-his last
 glimpse of things mortal:
 The full horror of battlefield is re-
 alized only at night: While darkness
 shuts out thousand horrible sights, it
 yet adds to the horrors. Here and there
 parties searching for some officer, dead
 or wounded, move about with lantern
 or torch to guide them: They step over
 the dead. They tread upon hands and
 arms outstretched. They slip and stag
 ger on the spots of earth wet with blood.
 The wounded hear and see them moving
 about, and they call out with renewed
 strength for succor. A wounded horse
 who has been lying down in a pool of
 blood sees the light approaching, and
 there is something human in his whim- perings. He pleads and coaxes. With great effort he gains his feet and hob
 bles along and utters his pleadings and reproacheS.
 On this battlefield of Cold Harbor are nine or ten thousand dead men, ten or twelve thousand wounded. The living and unhurt are exhausted with the days struggle, and the wounded must lie through the night. There are no search ing parties abroad, no details to give succOr. From forest and thicket and field the cries of the stricken continue hour after hour. but they cry in va Il. In the swamp over which Hood charged wounded men lap the water thick with mud and slime. They struggle as they sink slowly into the ooze, struggle and shout And pray, but dig their own graves, as it were, and some of their blackened bones are there today. Here,
 where the brigades of Hill moved over the open ground to charge the troops of Seymour and Reynolds, the dead lie thicker than they will i'll the streets at Fredrlcksburg or on the slopes at Get tysburg. There are no wounded--at least nc voices cry out to us through the darkness. Here the Federals had 30 pieces of artillery posted to command the approach and as the Confederates advanced the slaughter was something terrible. Sixteen hundred and eighty d,..,, men lie here in this open spot of five acres. They were struck down by round shot. by bursting shell and by grape and canister. There are bodies without heads, bodies without arms, bodies which are but fragments. When the burial party reaches this spot to- morrow, they will name it ''The Butch CT Pcn, and that name will cling to it forev"rmore. Napoleon would have said that 10 troops in the world could have been advanced under that awful fire, but from o'clock to sundown the Con- fedarates charged again and again, leav ing their dead nearer earthwOrk and breastwork each time.
 Here, where Porter massed so guns at Alexander's Bridge in the vain hope of saving the center, the dead cannot be gathered and buried for days. They are not corpses, but fragments ot corpses. Arms and legs will be found amid the branches of trees, and hands and feet and pieces of flesh and bloody bCnes must be raked up as if 1t were hayfeld. Here, where General Cooke with his cav airy charged one of Longstreet's divi- sions and was broken and shattered and routed within five minutes, 800 horses cover two acres of ground. Among them are 300 dead and wounded troopers. It was a gallant charge, but it was made in vain. Even by monday no man can pass over that field without staining his boots with blood. If corn grows here in after years when men shall be at peace, 1t will grow rank and tall, and the rustic of the stalks in the summer wind will sound like chant in memory of the dead.
 It is midnight. Mcclellan is moving quietly to the rear, the Confederates along his front watching, waiting, sleeping. The wounded have almost | ceased to call out. The faces of the dead have been made winter and more ghast- ly by the bath of dew. And now the