The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-08-28
FRIGHTFUL SIDE OF WAR.
HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE IN A FIELD
HOSPITAL AFTER BATTLE.
Conditions During Civil War Much
Like Those I'm Cuba-The Sanitary
Commission Angels of Mercy.
New York Evening Post.

New YORK EVenlnB FOSL
Ny first hospital experience must have
been that of tens of thousands passed
in a twinkling from the ecstacy of physical
excitement TO the swoon OF death. There
was a click, then an exit of everything, as
the lights were extinguished and the soul
Of me fled like receding river.
The next second a dull light, an overpow-
ering smell of ether a suppressed hurrying
OF feet, anu the dissonances of human
ageny growing more audible and more in
tolerable as the light grew, told me that l
was in hell or in a hospital. Two hours had
elapsed They have never been accounted
for by me. Then it was that came slowly
to the full consciousness of what a kindly
blow was mine, that stunned while it stayed
the courses of life.
Others were not so fortunate We were
lying without order on the straw in a rule
shed. Some of it had been used as bedding
for cattle. The anbulances were at the
doorway. The curses of the teamsters min
gled with the groans of their burdens.
There were two surgeons and two assist
ants. They were in their shirt sleeves and
had napkins or hahdkerchefs round their
necks. 1 lifted myself as well as l could
and looked round My eye fell first on what
appeared to be collection of boots, but
which L speedily enough saw was pile
of amputated limbs, from which the boots
and shoes had not been removed, and from
which dripped and ran congealing stream
of blood that was tracked all round the
narrow spaces by the slipping feet Of
nurses. Instinctively 1 put my hands upon
my own neither limbs TO feel if 1 had lost
them, and they made themselves known by
a convulsive vince as L did SO. They were
there. sure enough, but was to keep them?
In the center of the place some boards torn
from the shed itself, had been placed upon
two trestles, and this the operating ia
ble tried to shut my eyes as l saw one
form lifted off and another lifted on, but
l couldn't. The business-like butchery of
the surgeons fascinated me for time, pre-
vented me from needing my own pain. Some
kind of suspense was inwrought with the
hideousness Of it all. 1t would be my turn
next. One or two of the men died under
the operation. could see that by the look
Of the surgeon and the extra haste of the
attendants. One of the ambulance men,
seeing me sitting up, came over to me and
pushed me back rather roughly. Keep
still, he said you're all right If you don't
squirm that tourniquet Off They've tied
up your artery and your in luck
Some kind of dull thankfulness like
glow, suffused me, and at the same time a
dull pain made itself known, ACCOMPANIED
by an intolerable thirst. tried to ask him
to get me drink, but my tongue stuck
fast. Keep STILL, he said, "the sanitary
commission wagons will be here soon with
Ice, and brandy, and women"
IN THE MIDST OF HORRORS.
We were about a mile and a half from
the front The battle was raging yet the
pulse of it could be heard at times above
the tnarticulate sounds in that place. Now
and then shell exploded somewhere in the
vicinity. Nobody paid the least attention to
1t. The ambulances were coming and going
The curses and shouts outside and the
growing dissonances of death and torture
inside, made the injunction to keep still''
horrible irony. How was one to keep quiet
with that CHASTITY routine before him and
that tumult outside? Ones heart must keep
time to the intensity OF it, and that is not
the best thing for a tied artery. Besides
what was all this patching and carving
against the issue out there, mile and a
half away? Why did not some one tell US IL
our battalion got across the field; did we
turn their left flank ?-that was the ques-
ton. tried to shout ii, but it sounded like
any heed to it.
Why should he? A score of torn and
dismembered men were saying things that
no ear could disentangle, and yet they
wounded and stung if you listened to them
Other sounds, still more dreadful, came
from the mere automatism of muscles that
beat the floor with rhythmic heels and bit
at the planking in the paroxysms of deliri-
naturally affected my circulation and every
heartbeat made itself felt with a dagger
thrust in that tied artery. shut my eyes
with all my force in the effort to calm my
self. But 1t was no use They came back
staringly to the routine of those heroic doc
tors which wore to me the air OF an inqui-
Just how far the nature of ones thoughts
and reasoning processes is distorted or
broken down while the body is suffering
from acute pain 1 am unable to say but
was conscious that was looking at what
was going on through some kind of medium
that was new TO me. There was what I
may call an acute distortion of the rela-
tons and values. This is the true shock
of such scene. 1t reaches down to the
a monstrous cruelty and an unanswerable
Interrogation. / know that my astonished
senses were in some way making me ira
uonal and that my outraged senSibilities
were producing something like a sub-hys-
terra.
THE SUFFERERS SENSATIONS.
But so wide is the range of mans ca
pacity to suffer that no general route can
be mapped out for his feelings. Insensibility
very often passes for fortitude, and a dull.
nervous organization for strength of will,
just as the mental disturbance in the de-
lirium of physical anguish is mistaken for
moral weakness. L have seen that in the
ranks, where one mans susceptbilitieS tear
him to pieces long before the shell does.
anu dIlOlu0T ISHIS automatically dIlQ CURSES
with defiance while he dies. The unlikeness
of natures and frames thus brought to-
gether in the concourSe OF war is heightened
10 the last degree in the field hospital. For
the most part sudden extremity, without
the relief of action, throws back upon the
conscious centerS flood of sensations that
are wholly without precedent in the man S
experience. He is stripped in an instant of
the Fictitious glory Of endeavor, the whole
symbolism and fervor OF conflict are wiped
out as with sponge, and he Is face to face
with his own impotency, stripped OF every
thing but the appalling sense Of weakness,
wavering between agony and extinction.
Nor was there the least attempt to screen,
10 mitigate, or to soften the dire work that
was going on. The battle had come on
Unexpectedly, and, as usual. the hospital
provision for 1t was laggard and inadequate.
Mercy and tenderness had to be practically
ruthless, and buSineSs-like, and off-hand.
LeglesS trunks were laid upon the reeking
straw with the gentlenesS only Of expedi-
tion. The pile of limbs in the center grew
into a quivertng mass, and the flies, those
invincible little harpieS of the Shambles
added a million miserieS of their own. as
they lit upon the distorted faces OF arm
less men who could not brush them Off and
eddied in clouds round the heads OF the
surgeons. One of these surgeons, a white
whiskered, methodical man who had been
through this experience before, had stuffed
something into his ears, which he had to
take out when he was spoken to by the at
tendants His face and arms were spattered
with blood, and some of Ii chung in little
clOtS IN his white WhiSlxerS. hut he was grim