The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1912-04-25
ITEMS FROM THE PILOT FILES,
FIFTY YEARS AGO.

The HORRORS OF WAR. The follow
ing in the New York Worlds CORE
spondence from Winchester, makes
one shudder. God forgive the Aboli-
tionists and Secessionists, who plunged
US into this war, for mans nature has
not enough in it of the exalted Chris
tian for such forgiveness as that.
"The scene of the conflict is terrible.
Civilians are generally prevented from
visiting it for the present. 1t is i'm
possible 10 describe the scene so as to
give a realization of its ghastliness
and terror, which any one ought to
blush not to perceive while walking
amid the remnants of humanity which
are scattered about. Bodies in all the
frightful attitudes which a violent and
unnatural death could produce, stained
with blood, mangled and lacerated
perhaps, often begrimmed and black,
lay scattered, here and there, some
times, almost in heaps.
Some had crawled away when wound
ed to a comfortable place to die. Two
men lay almost covered with straw
into which they had scrambled, and
lay until death released them. In the
woods through which our troops had to
pass to charge the rebels lie the larg-
est number of our dead, and beyond
on the other side of the wall from be-
hind which they poured their volleys
of balls at our men, large numbers Of
the rebels lie, pierced in the forhead
or face as they rose above their hiding
place to shoot at the Federals. There
is peculiar ghastliness in the appear
ance of the enemy's dead. Did not
their dress distinguish them, their
faces would enable anyone instantly to
tell which were the Federas and which
were not. One would think they were
all Indians, SO very dark had they be-
come from their exposure, sleeping
without tents as they did for a long
time at the beginning of the war.
In the court house are placed large
number of the wounded, our own and
the enemy's without discrimination,
and in several places town hospitals
have been established since the battle
1t is difficult to compel ones self to
dwell long enough upon the scenes
witnessed there, of the dying and dead,
to give them faithful description.
Surgeons and attendants have been
constantly at labor, without rest, in at
tending to the unfortunate soldiers in
til hospitals. The codrt room was
filed with the sufferers lying upon the
f1or, so many that it was difficult to
pass about among them. Among them
was confederate Captain Jones, who
had both his eyes shot out, and whose
face, covered thickly with clotted
blood, presented the most repulsive
and pitiable sight which one could
we'll behold. Some, from loss of blood,
were wan and pale, and some, from the
INJURIES to the face, were swollen, dis
torted and discolored. Some, indeed,
were cheerful, and rejoicing that,
while their comrades were many of
them SO seriously injured their slight
wounds would soon heal and become
honorable scars, testifying their pa
triotism and loyalty. But the majority
OF those which saw here were danger
Gus wounds, and some were to suffer
amputations, and their fellow soldiers
about them, suffering from their own
wounds, were obliged to listen to their
cries and groans, ana to hear the graf
ing of the surgeons saw, premonitor
of their own hard fate.
Read Abolitionists of the North
All this is, in good part, your horrible
work. You began all this twenty
years ago You laid the trains for
Davis, Toombs, ETC., of the South to
fire.