Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1914-05-07
81. BLAKELEY CREIGHTON,
What War Really Means.


again soon. The jingoes are not found
among the veterans. War is worse
than Sherman said it was This de-
scription, which l copy from the II
dependent, is all too true:
No more thunder Of artillery, no
| more blare of trumpets, no more beat
of drums; only the low moan of pain
and the rattle of death In the
| trampled ground some redly-glimmer-
| ing pools, lakes of blood; all the crops
| destroyed, only here and there a piece
| of land left untouched, and still COW
cred with stubble; the smiling villages
of yesterday turned into ruins and
rubbish. The trees burned and hacked
| in the forests, the hedges torn with
| grapeshot. And on this battle-ground
thousands and thousands of men
dead and dying-lying without aid. No
blossoms of flowers are to be seen on
wayside or meadow: but sabers. bayo-
| nets, knapsacks, cloaks, overturned
ammunition wagons, powder wagons
blown into the air, cannon with broken
carriages. Near the cannon, whose
muZzles are black with smoke, the
ground is bloodiest There the great
est number and the most mangIed of
dead and half-dead men are lying lit
orally torn to pieces with shot; and
the dead horses and the haIf-dead
which raise themselves on their feet
such as they have left them-to sink
| again; then raise themselves up once
more and fall down again, till they
only raise their heads to shrek out
their pain-laden death-cries. There is
hollow way quite filed with corpses
trodden into the mire. The poor crea-
lures had taken refuge there, no doubt
to get cover, but a battery had driven
over them, and they have been crushed
by the horses hoofs and the wheels.
Many of them are still alive-a pulpy,
bleeding mass. but still alive"
1t is impossible to depict it accu-
rately. Flies were feeding on their
open wounds, which were covered with
them; their gaze, flaming with fever,
wandered about asking and seeking
for some help-for refreshment, for
water and bread! Coat, shirt, flesh
and blood formed in the case of most
Of them one repulsive mass. Worms
were beginning to generate in this
mass and to feed on them. A horrible
odor filed every place. All these sol
diers were lying on the bare ground;
only a few had got a little straw on
which they could repose their miser-
oh hn6inC ~ hoJ
under them but clayey, swampy
ground had half-sunk into the mud it
! formed-they had not the strength to
get out of it.
In Masloved, place Of about fifty
houses, there were lying, eight days
after the battle, about 700 wounded
It was not so much their shrieks Of
agony as their abandonment without
| any consolation which appealed to
heaven. In one single barn alone sixty
Of these poor wretches were crowded.
Every one of their wounds had origi-
nally been severe, but they had be-
come hopeless in consequence of their
unassisted condition, and their want
| Of nursing and feeding; almost all
| we're gangrenous. Limbs crushed by
shot formed now mere heaps of pu-
| trefying flesh, faces a mere mass of
coagulated blood, covered with filth,
in which the mouth was represented
by shapeless black opening, from
which frightful groans kept yelling
out. The progress Of the putrefaction
separated whole mortified pieces from
these pitiable bodies. The living were
lying close to dead bodies which had
begun to fall into putrefaction, and
for which the worms were getting
ready.