The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1898-09-21
HORRORS OE our VAR.

~ ne country nus lttu It's Wal dt4e
ite victory, and is now mortified at
the consequences Of army incon
potency and acknowledgement.
We have had our glory, and are
finding out the terrible cost Of it.
The other day the remnant of
the Seventy-frst regiment, which
was spared by war and disease,
came home to recover or die. The
men who rode could not have walk
ed from the battery to their armory
without disastrous consequences.
The regiment went to war 1913
strong. 1t lost ID killed in battle,
and 81 wounded, and 331 were in
line or in the cars.
The rest were dead or on fur
Tough, or in the hospital in Cuba
and at Camp WykoHs and those
who returned were, most of them,
Igaunt and yellow images of the
men they had been, some Of them
so weak that they wept because of
the kindness Of their reception.
while others stared at the cheering
crowds with the wild, strange look
of men to whom the things of this
earth are Of little moment
A terrible episode has occurred
in the history of the countty-an
episode so criminal that the glory
of war and victory has been
dimmed by the wrath caused by
the wrongs and sufferings of the
soldiers who have fought the war
and achieved the glory.
We are seeing the other side of
the war, and it is even more terri
BILE than it ought to be.
Thirty-three years ago we saw
the soldiers coming home after a
war that had endured for four
years. Many of them had lived in
camps and fought over fields from
which the. skeletons of today are
carried to the hospital.
We saw the veterans of that
great conflict march home Their
ranks were thin. Some companies
brought back file or two led by a
non-commissioned officer. Some
men rode in carriages, but they
were wounded men, not men sick
with fevers. The men who march
ed moved with the vigorous stride
of health.
In that day we not did see such
CHASTITY reminders of the war as
we are seeing now in camp and on
the return of the men who enlist
ed for the war, unless we saw the
victims of southern prisons.
Then we saw men starved be-
cause their captors had nothing for
them.
Now we see men starved and fe-
yer stricken because their govern
ment has not the capacity to take
care of them, and even seems in
different to their suffering.
The sufferings of our soldiers
must not be forgotten. If the peo-
pie of the country permit this
scandal to find grave before some
one is punished, they will thereby
make themselves accomplices in
the crime
What has happened2 An army
of $4,000 men has been raised. A
successful campaign has been
fought in Cuba with one corps. a
triumphal progress has been made
in Porto Rico by General Miles.
Manila has been captured by Adj
miral Dewey with the aid of troops
under General Merritt.
The losses upon the field of bat
tie were almost nothing.
The ravage of disease and the
hardship of the men by reason of
neglect, of lack of food SO great
that men have died of starvation,
of want of proper clothing, of in
sufficient tentage; are hideous, and
the evil is still existing; in some
quarters it is even spreading.
Moreover, it is not confined to
the troops who fought in Cuba.
The men who were encamped in
Florida and at Chickamauga are
the victims of starvation and of dis
ease breeding conditions that were
entirely preventable.
If we should say that the Gov
ernment is returning to the people
an army rotting with disease, we
should not greatly exaggerate.
And this is absolutely true, that
nothing that we have gained is
worth the sacrifice which our men
have suffered it. for nothing which