Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1900-10-27
PART III.

N~ tndt ndu bNtDt Wis
portion of the battlefeld-only a
small section of a vaster area of
struggle-into which a brigade had
back, recovered it's ground, and pur-
suing, had passed out of IL forever,
leaving only it's dead behind and
knowing nothing more of that
struggle than Its own impact and mo-
mentum-even this wild excitement
had long since evaporated with the
singing smoke of gunpowder, the
acrid smell of burning rags from the
clothing Of a dead soldier fired by a
bursting shell, or the heated reek OF
sweat and leather. A cool breath,
that seemed to bring back once more
the odor of the upturned earthworks
along the now dumb line of battle,
I began 70 move from, the suggestive
darkness beyond.
But into that awful penetralia OF
death and silence there was now no
invasion-there had been no retreat. a
few of the wounded had been brought
out, under fire, but the others had
been left with the dead for the
morning light and succor. For it was
known that in that horrible obsecur-
Iity riderless horses, frantic with the
smell of blood, galloped wildly here
and there, or, maddened by wounds,
plunged furiously at the intruder,
that the wounded soldier, still armed,
could not always distinguish friend
from foe or from the ghouls of camp
followers who stripped the dead in
the darkness, and struggled with the
dying. A shot or two heard some
where in that obsecurity counted as
nothing with the long fusillade that
had swept it in the daytime; the pas
sing of n single life, more or less,
amounted to little in the long rollcall
of the days slaughter,
But with the first beams of the
morning sun-and the slowly moving
relief detail" from the camp-came
n weird half resurrection of that
CHASTITY field. Then it was that the
long rays of sunlight, streaming many
a mile beyond the battle line, first
pointed out the harvest of the dead
where the reserves had been posted.
There they lay i'm heaps and piles,
killed by solid shot or bursting shells
that had leaped the battle line to
plunge into the waiting ranks beyond.
AS the sun lifted higher it's beams fell
within the range of musketry fire
where the dead lay thicker-even as
they had fallen when Killed outright
with arms extended, and feet at all
angles to the feSi. AS it touched
these dead upturned faces, strangely
enough it brought out no expression
of pain nor anguish, but rather as if
death had arrested them only with
surprise and awe. 1t revealed on the
lips of those who had been mortally
wounded and had turned upon their
side the relief which death had
brought their suffering, sometimes
even with n smile. Mounting higher,
it glanced upon the actual battle
line, curiously curving for the shelter
of walls, fences and breastworks-and
here the dead lay, even as when thay
had lain and fired, their faces prone in
the grass, but their muskets still rest
ing across the breastworks. Exposed
to grape and canister from the bat
them mercifully also-through the
head and throat. And now the whole
field lay bare in the sunlght-broken
with grotesque shadows cast from Sit
ting, crouching, half-recumbent, but
always rigid, figures, that might have
been efigies of their own monuments.
One half-kneeling soldier, with head
bowed between his stiffened hands,
might have stood for a carven figure
of grief at the feet of his dead COM
rade. A captain shot through the
brain in the act of mounting n wall
lay sideways half across it, his lips
parted with the word of command,
and the sword still pointing the way
hat they should go.
But it was not until the sun had
mounted higher that 1t struck the
central horror of the field and seemed
to linger there in dazzling persistence,
now and then returning 10 it In
stating flashes, that it might be seen
of men and those who brought succor.
A tiny brook had run obliquely near
the battle line. 1t was here that the
night before the battle friend and foe
had filled their canteens side by side
with soldierly recklessness, or perhaps
n higher instinct, purposely ignoring
each others presence; it was here
that the wounded had afterwards
crept, crawled and dragged them
selves, here they had pushed,
wrangled, striven and fought for a
draught of that precious fluid which
assuaged the thirst of their wounds
or happily put them out Of their
misery forever; here, overborne,
crushed, suffocated by numbers, pour
ing their own blood into the food and
tumbling after it with their helpless
bodies, they damned the stream, until
recoiling, red and angry, it had burst
it's banks and overflowed the cotton
field in a brave pool now sparkling in
the sunlight. But below this human
dana mile anywhere the brook
still crept sluggishly, the ambulance
horses shifted and started from it.
The detail moved on slowly, doing
emily callously, but really only with
that mechanical movement that saves
emotion. Only once were they moved
to an outbreak of indignation-the
discovery of the body of an officer
whose pockets were. turned inside out,
but whose hand was still tightly
grasped on his buttoned waistcoat, as
if resisting the outrage that had been
done while still in life. As the men
disengaged the stiffened hand, some
thing slipped from the waistcoat to
the ground. The corporal picked it up
and handed it to his officer. 1t was a
sealed packet. The officer received it
with the carelessness which long ex-
perience of those pathetic missives
from the dying to their living rela-
tions had induced, and dropped it in
the pocket of his tunic, with the half
dozen others that he had picked up
that morning, and moved on with the
detail. A little further on they halted
in the attitude of attention as a
mounted officer appeared riding slow
ly down the line.
There was something more than the
habitual respect of their superior in
their faces as he came forward. For 1t
WAS the general who had Commanded