Year: 1861

The correspondent of the Charleston Courier
gives the following description of the feelings of
a soldier for the first time on a battle field:


No person who was not upon The ground and
an eye witness of the stirring scenes which there
ranspired, can begin to comprehend from des-
cription, the terrible realities OF battle; and even
those who participated competent to speak
oaly of their own personal experience. Where
friends and foes are falling by scores, and every
species of missile flying through the air,
threatening each instant to send one into eternity,
little time is afforded for more observation or re-
Election than is required for personal safety. The
scene is one of the most exciting and exhilirating
that can be conceived. Imagine regiment pass
ing you at "double quick" the men cheering
with enthusiasm. their teeth set, their eyes fash
ing, and the whole, i'll frenzy of resolution.
You accompany them to the field. They halt.
An Aid de camp passes to or from the command
ing General. The clear voice of the officers
ring along the line in tones of passionate elo
quence their words short, thrilling and elastic.
The men feel like giants. The word is given to
march. and the body move into action. For the


first time in your life you listen to the whizzng of
iron hail. Grape and canister fly into the ranks,
bomb shells burst overhead, and the fragments
fly all around you. friend falls; perhaps a
dozen or twenty of your comrades lie wounded or
dying at your feet; strange involuntary shrink
ing steals you; which it is impossible to re-
sist. lou feel inclined neither to advance nor
recede but are spell bound by the contending emo
tions of the moral and physical man. The cheek
blanches, the lip quivers, and the eye almost hesi
tates to look upon the scene. In this attitude
you NAV. perhaps be ordered to stand an hour in
active, havoc meanwhile marking its footsteps
with blood on every side. Finally the order is
given to advance, to fire, or to charge And
now. what metamorphosis. With your first
shot you become new man. Personal safety is
your least concern. Fear has no existence in your
bosom. Hesitation gives way to uncontrol-
able desire to rush into the thickest of the fight.
The dead and dying around you, if they receive a
passing thought, only serve to stimulate you to
revenge. You become cool and deliberate. and
watch the effect of bullets the shower of bursting
shells, the passage of cannon balls as they rake
their murderous channels through your ranks;
the plunging of wounded horses, the agonies of
the dying, and the clash of contendng arms
which follows the dashing charge, with feeling
so callous by surrounding circumstances, that
your soul seems dead to every sympathizing and
selfish thought


Such is the spirit which carries the soldier
through the field of battle. But when the ex-
citement has passed, when the roll of musketry
has ceased, the noisy voices of the cannon are
stilled, the dusky pail of sulphurous smoke has
risen from the field, and you stroll the thea
ire OF carnage, nearing the grOalls Oh the WOUND
ed, discovering here shattered almost beyond rec
ognition, the form of some dear friend whom only
an hour before you met in the full flush of life
and happiness; there another, perforated by a
bullet; third with limb shot away; fourth
with his face dis6gured; fifth torn almost to
fragments; sixth headless corpse, the ground
poughed up and stained with blood; human
brains splashed around, limbs without bodies, and
bodies without limbs, scattered here and there,
and the same picture duplicated scores of times,
then you begin to realize the horrors of war and
experience a reaction of nature. The heart opens
its flood gates, humanity asserts herself again,
and you begin 70 feel and act more the man and
less the demon. Friend and foe alike now receive
your kindest ministerngs. The enemy who but
short time before, full of hate, you were doing
all in your power to kill, you now exert to save.
You supply him with water to qnench his thirst,
with food to sustain his strength, and with sym
pathizing words to soothe his troubled mind. All
that is human charitable in your nature now
rises to the surface and YOU are animated by that
spirit of mercy (Which blesseth him that gives
and him that takes" A battle field is eminently
place that tries mems souls.