The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-10

Post-MOrtem Death Cries and Com
tinunnce of Activity.
From the London News.


ton of death in the field of battle ever
penned was that which Kinglake has left
of Capt. Nolan's fall. Nolan was aide de
camp to Gen. Airey, and in that capacity
was the bearer of written message from
the Commander in Chief 10 Lord Lucan,
in command of the Light Cavalry at Bala-
clava On receipt of the order, Lord Lucan
gave Lord Cardigan instructions for that
terrible charge Of the Light Brigade"
which Nolan believed to be altogether a
misinterpretation of the directions of the
commander in chief. AS the brigade NOV
ed off toward the valley of death he DASH
Ell, in the greatest indisnation and excite
ment, across the head of the advancing
troops and endSavored to divert them into
what he believed to be the course intend
ed by Lord Raglan. According to King
lake, he rode across with vehement ges-
lures and upliHed sword in advance Of the
brigade as if reckoning the cavalry TO
follow him and not Lord Cardigan. But a
Russian she'll bursting on the right front
there a fragment, which met Nolan full
in the chest and tore a way into his heart
1.-THE sword dropped from his hand"
says the historian, "but the arm with
which he was waving il the moment be-
fore sin remained high uplifted in the
air, and the grip of the practiced horse
man, remaining as yet unrelaxed, still
held him firm in the saddle. Missing the
perfect hand of his master, and finding
the accustomed governance, now succeed
ed by the dangling reins, the horse all at
once wheeled about and began to gallop
back upon the front of the advancing
brigade Then, from what had been No
lan-and his form was still erect In the
saddle, his sword arm st II high in the air
there burst forth cry SO strange and
appalling that the nearer who rode the
nearest horse has always called it 'un-
earthly And in truth, 1 imagine" says
Kinglake, "the sound resulted from no
human viii, but rather from those spas
modic forces which may act upon the
bodily frame when life as a power has
ceased. The firm-seated rider, with arm
uplifted and stiff. could hardly he ranked
with the living. The Shrek men heard
rending the air was scarce other than the
Shrek of a corpse. The dead horseman
rode on till he passed through the inter-
val of the Thirteenth Light Dragons.
Then at last he dropped out of the sad
die" ea
scientific man, commenting on this
story of the death of Nolan, is inclined
to ascribe the uplifted arm and the reten-
ton of the seat in the saddle to the in
fuence of intense excitement dominating
every element of activity as long as any
activity remained" He thinks that If
Nolan had been quietly Jogging along in
the ranks of the six hundred thinking of
nothing but keeping in line and getting
ahead, he would at once have gone to the
ground under that blow. But as a mat
ter of well-established fact, incidents of a
similar kind have been often noted on the
battlefield. During the American Civil
War a great many were recorded. For
instance, Capt. A. II. De Graft related
that sergeant of the Fifty-seventh Mass
achusetts, in charge of the Ninth Corps
on the Confederate works east of Peters,
burg, leaped upon the parapet, and, with
his cap in his left hand and his musket
in his right, stood cheering and gesturing
with his arms to incite his comrades to
come on. Suddenly a shell took his head
off as completely as a knife could have
done, but the tall form continued erect
for some seconds, the arms still waving
frantcally, but with ever lessening
sweep and power, until the forces of the
body collapsed, when the headleSS trunk
toppled over to the ground.
Another American writer during the
Civil War says:
Advancing through the tangled mass
of legs and stumps, I saw one of our men
aiming over the branch of fallen tree
which lay among the tangled abatis l
called to him, but he did not turn nor
move. Advancing nearer I put my hand
on his shoulder, looked in his face, and
started back He was dead, shot through
the brain-and so suddenly had the end
come that his right hand grasped his
musket, and he still preserved the atti-
tude of watchfulness, literally occupying
his pose after death. ----~-,---
Such cases seem TO be, indeed, very COM
mon, and they appear to esta blish beyond
doubt the existence of a "rigor mortis''
peculiar to the battlefelds, or, at any rate,
peculiar to cases of sudden death from
physical injury. Dr. Carpenter regarded
it as tetanic in its character-as spasmodic
rigidity of muscles similar to that of lock-
jaw, and he believed that after a few
hours 1t relaxed for a time, and would
then be followed by the ordinary rigor
mortis, There seems to be some doubt
about this, however Some medical au-
thorities who have had great experience
on the field regard it as merely the or
binary rigidity of death, FASTENED by spe-
cial circumstances.
There was. it seems clear, nothing very
exceptional in the case of Capt. Nolan SO
far as the retention of the scat on horse
back and the sustaining of the arm were
concerned the CHASTITY feature of the In
l.Ient was the blood-curdling shrek of
what Kinglake regards as the soldiers
corpse This has been explained as the
effect of the collapse OF the chest walls.
That explanation would, no doubt be suffi-
Client to account for something like deep
sigh, but surely, could hardly be the
cause Oh SUCH a CRY Vi uilCtTtuly agony as
could be heard above the tumult of a
brigade of cavalry in motion. It probably
was not the mechanical collapse of the
chest walls that drove 1t forth from a
corpse. 1t was far more probably the last
Departing cry of a living man, or some in
voluntary play of nerve or muscle before
the final extinction Of the vital spark. And
here again the incident was not by any
means unprecedented. though, according
to Kinglake's description, the really hid
eous circumstance was that the wild cry
of agony broke from the lips of the unfor-
tunate captain some time after the fatal
stroke. There are many instances on rec
ord In which a mortal wound has extorted
a piercing cry at the moment of injury
and sometimes the cry has been accompa~
MED by extraordinary muscular action
Says an American writer, describing an
incident of the Cuban War:
IAN infantryman passed by hurriedly,
loading his gun as he went: turned and
fired; went on. and then his body shot up
into the air. 1t seemed to me twice his
height. and with g scream that pierced my
ears through the din, he fell to the ground,
dead"