Casualties

“ In order to speak objectively, one must remember the past 14 years of fighting and the 14 thousand dead and injured among the armed forces and patriotic detachments within one year, in addition to the heavy casualties suffered by our people as well. ”

“ But through four long years scarcely a family in Great Britain and the Dominions that possessed men on the fighting fronts—and none were finally exempt except on medical or industrial grounds—but was either in mourning for, or in constant fear of death for one or more of its male members, whether by bullet, shell-fire or bomb, or must witness the return to them of husbands, brothers, and sons, more or less injured for life. The total American casualties are 264,000. ”

“ Daily reports regarding the health of the troops, followers, and transport animals were brought to me each evening, and I made it my business to ascertain how many men had fallen out during the day, and what had been the number of casualties amongst the animals. ”

“ Ignoring many minor cases, the casualties of military operations and the sum of those killed and injured by soldiers' violence, and of those taken away, represents 1 person in 23, or 1 in every 5 families. ”

“ This is war; here are we approaching the place of horror. We have left behind the French villages where peace was still sleeping. Now there is nothing but tumult. And here are direct victims of the war.
The soldiers: blood, mud and dirt. The wounded. Those whom we pass at first are the least suffering—wounds in arms, in hands. In most of them can clearly be seen, in the midst of their fatigue and distress, great relief at having been let off comparatively easily. ”

“ Wounded men everywhere. Crawling about, delirious with pain and agony; lying prone and almost motionless, staring up into the blue sky, dying slowly and making no sign; shrieking, groaning, cursing, praying, imploring help, begging for a bandage, for water, lying quietly, laughing even,—wounded men everywhere. In hospitals, under trees, in tents, in houses, in stables, with surgeons probing and cutting and carving and sawing and clumsily bandaging; in ambulances jolting off towards Springfield; limping along to hide and escape another hurt—wounded men everywhere. ”

“ Our wounded, that is to say, those men who have come back from that hell, "whose horrors," they say themselves, "are indescribable;" those who have marched beneath "that terrible, moving curtain of iron," to which an officer compared the mass of balls and shells in battle, a mass so compact that it obscured the very daylight on the firing line. Our wounded! Those, in a word, who have brought back in their very flesh the frightful scars of the enemy's iron, those who have cemented with their own blood the human wall that is now our frontier. ”

“ Is the soldier melancholy in the storm and whirlwind of war? Is the gallant confronting of the cannon a matter to be complained of? The dolorous flight, the trampled battalion, the broken squadron, the lost battle, the lingering wound, the ill-furnished hospital, the unfed blockade, hunger and thirst, and pain, and fatigue, and mutilation, and cold, and rout, and scorn, and slight,—services neglected, unworthy claims preferred, life wasted, or honour tarnished,—are all passed by! ”

“ And now, in the midnight, the veil is torn aside, and I see a human heart in extremis, writhing with agony, groaning as the wounded never groan, stricken, bleeding, prostrate, overwhelmed with the enormity of its sorrow. ”

“ If we count those who were slain on the field of battle and those who died from wounds, disease, and suffering in wretched prisons, the loss of men was equal to seven hundred a day during the four long years of the war. ”

“ It is painfull to contemplate, and especially describe the scenes of the battle field—the streams of blood—the groans of the wounded and dying—the hundreds or thousands slain—the gasp of death—the crushed hopes—undying spirits thus ushered suddenly and awfully into the presence of their Judge, perhaps unprepared—it is apalling! and we would turn away and weep for poor, depraved humanity. ”

“ The soul-bell in me, can but give one cry,
Like that, a wounded soldier—o'er whom pass
Riders and horses, and around whom lie
The dead and dying in a tangled mass—
Utters, unable or to move or die. ”

“ Almost every day brought its battle or its skirmish. Almost every day men,—sometimes many hundreds,—would be shot dead, or be wounded and borne away in ambulances or on stretchers, not grudging the sacrifices they had made. ”

“ The wounded pray to be saved from death; the dying recall the words of old petitions learned in childhood, and in those broken accents commit their souls to God.”
[Pg 279] The only amusing incident after a battle is, the crowd of spectators from Washington and other places. If they are in carriages, their vehicles are sure to get smashed, and then the trouble arises, what are they to do with their baggage? Carry it, of course, or leave it behind. Even the wounded soldiers cannot help laughing at their sorry plight, gesticulations, and absurd questions. ”

“ War, which had welded the men of the country into an engine of destruction, had sent its women forth on countless works of mercy and reconstruction, and this work I had come to France to witness. As I went about on this strange and heartbreaking sight-seeing, as I visited barracks in which not wounded soldiers, but wounded families, lived and ate, saw workshops, hospitals, there came to me a vision of what a total disorganization war meant to the civil population. ”

“ At every step is war, and this is enough: soldiers black with powder; bayonets bent with the violence of the encounter; the earth ploughed with cannon-shot; trees torn and mutilated; the dead and dying; wounds and agony; fields covered with broken carriages, outstretched horses, and mangled bodies; while disease, sad attendant on military suffering, sweeps thousands from the great hospitals, and the multitude of amputated limbs, which there is no time to destroy, accumulate in bloody heaps, filling the air with corruption. ”

“ It far out-did all that I ever saw in America. For about an hour and a half there was such weeping, so many falling into deep distress, and expressing it various ways, as is inexpressible. The people seem to be slain by scores. They are carried off, and come into the house like soldiers wounded in, and carried off a field of battle. Their cries and agonies are exceedingly affecting. ”

“ Here a wounded soldier would half raise himself on one arm, and beg for water, while others, bleeding and dying, lay uncomplainingly, their eyes fixed on the blue sky, which nevermore would greet their waking vision. ”

“ The dead of the ten thousand slain upon the battle-field return no more—the thrice ten thousand hearts that mourn, bleed on, but form no part of the estimate of war’s disaster. The thousands of brothers, young, impetuous, adventurous, are gone! ”

“ All this shows the havoc of battle, but the sight that appals is the human dead. Dead, dying, and wounded in various ways. The spectator must callous his heart, or, if fairly human, he will be overwhelmed. ”

“ The lonely picket-duty, the toilsome march, the endless duties of the soldier, were a constant drain upon enduring faithfulness, harder to bear, often, than the crashing excitement of the battle, while the deadly suffering of camp and hospital were at times easily worse than all. ”

“ When we walk through the field of battle, slippery with blood, and strewn with the bodies of the slain—when we hear the shrieks and the groans of the wounded and the dying—when we see the country wasted, cities burned, houses pillaged, widows and orphans wailing in the track of the victorious army, we cannot help exclaiming—O, what a blessing is peace! ”

“ We are coming back to England in a ship laden with the human wreckage of war—the wounded, the maimed, the sick, who to their graves will carry the maiming of their sickness. There are, amongst these men, those who will crawl about the world lop-sided, incomplete cripples, or those who will be perpetually victims to intermittent or chronic disease ”

“ From a dread of imminent attack, of charging rebels and retreating defenders, and a fight to the death by the house, they came suddenly to a desire for blood and battle, for dead men and the cries of the wounded ”

“ Considering the sickness and accidents that have happened in the pre- sent year, and others which may be expected before the troops reach home, I may set down the total number of deaths on the American side, caused by the war, at 15,000, and the number of wounded men at 4000. Suppose the army on the average to have consisted of 50,000 men for two years, this gives a mortality of fifteen per cent, each year, which is an enormous loss even for times of war, and one seldom equalled in modern warfare. ”

“ We were constantly surrounded by plunderers, incendiaries, and the dying, who, stretched on the sides of the road, implored assistance in a feeble voice, saying, "I am not infected—I am only wounded;" ”

“ It was a shocking casualty, and even those who escaped unhurt were so badly shaken up and so unnerved by the sight of the dead, the dying, and the sufferings of the wounded, that they dropped exhausted and almost helpless the moment the necessity for action was over, and all who could be removed had been taken out of the wreck. ”

“ And many of the soldier-boys had sad hearts under their brave faces. Soon hundreds of these poor fellows were falling dead and wounded on fields of battle, and then their people at home had good reason to weep and mourn. ”

“ The ground was thick with dead and wounded men, among whom the relief corps was at work. The earth, which was soft from the heavy rains we had been having before and during the battle, had been trampled by the fighting of the thousands of men until it was soft, like thin hasty pudding. ”

“ Millions of lives during the past year have been sacrificed, either in the battle field or in sickness, or accident by sea, or the sickness which is the result of the war, and yet greater preparations are being made to contest the point ”

“ The multitude of the wounded was so great, that notwithstanding the utmost exertions of the surgeons, hour after hour of the long night lingered away, while thousands of the wounded and the dying bit the dust in their agony. ”

“ The stars looked down with kindly gleams upon thousands of worn-out soldiers sleeping as quietly as little children, while the wounded were groaning with pain, as the life-blood slowly trickled over the grass which the hot sun and the trampling of feet and stamping of horses had matted into a tangled and brown mass. ”

“ Many thousands of our citizens have perished in battle, or by disease originating from the hardships of military service; and other thousands have been so maimed and enfeebled, as to be unfitted for the duties and enjoyments of life. ”

“ If this maxim were universal, how many lives would have been saved! how many lives, also, which have dwindled out in sorrow and repining, for the death of friends by rash duels, would have passed without remorse and pain! ”

“ Over four hundred wounded men have been brought in, of which number about forty are rebels, nearly all with terrible wounds. It is a hard sight to see them, and I feel desperate toward everything and everybody, and yet know not on whom to rest this dreadful suffering. ”

“ In siege and battle, in the deadly air of pestilential cities, in the long exhaustion of mind and body, which comes from unduly protracted labor and anxiety, amid the countless conspiracies of assassins, he was daily exposed to death in every shape. ”

“ If a man was shot through the heart, spine, or brain he was, of course, killed instantly; but very few of the wounded died—even under the appalling conditions which prevailed, owing to the lack of attendance and supplies in the field-hospitals with the army. ”

“ We forced our way as well as we could through the streets, crowded now with soldiers and citizens--the soldiers scattered and in disorder, the citizens weeping and alarmed--some hardly able to drag along themselves, others sinking beneath the weight of the wounded whom they bore upon their shoulders, or upon lances and shields as upon a litter. ”

“ I am completely worn out in body, but this joyful news renovates my soul, and in prospect of speedy release I drag myself about. There will be but little if any more fighting, in all probability, and the wounded are feeling so glad over thoughts of the homes soon to be seen. ”

“ Wounded lay here, there, and everywhere, heaped as they had fallen, drenched in their own gore and helpless, yet struggling pathetically to edge themselves with hands or knees or heels nearer some place of safety. ”

“ The wretched loads of wounded were emptied before the doors of the improvised hospitals until they overflowed with maimed humanity and all hearts and hands were full of grief for the dead and work for the wounded. ”

“ As a general might have examined the list of killed and wounded after an action, computing with himself the cost of victory or defeat, so did this veteran warrior of a world's campaign go carefully over all the signs of wear and tear, the hard lines of pain or checkered coloring of agitation, which his last engagement might have inflicted. ”

“ The whole number of these is variously estimated at from thirty to seventy thousand, beside women and children, who had survived the sword, pestilence, and famine.4 It is certain they were three days in defiling along the several causeways,—a mournful train; husbands and wives, parents and children, the sick and the wounded, leaning on one another for support, as they feebly tottered along, squalid, and but half covered with rags, that disclosed at every step hideous gashes, some recently received, others festering from long neglect, and carrying with them an atmosphere of contagion. ”

“ But the care necessary to the wounded, and the difficulties that their own people, in order to prevent their being followed by the enemy, had every where thrown in the way of their march, made it so tedious and so dangerous, that they often despaired of effecting their purpose ”