Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/359

1862] with Smith. This wrong supposition led him, after crossing the Chaplin River, instead of undertaking at once an energetic pursuit, to get his army into a favorable position just beyond Perryville and there await the arrival of General Sill's division, which took place only on the third day after the battle.

I spent the morning of the 9th in writing my first account of the battle, which a surgeon in charge of an ambulance train of wounded bound for Louisville promised to mail at the first railroad station, and devoted the afternoon to a ride over the entire battle-field. I could easily trace the course of the action by the ghastly lines of dead and severely wounded from the points of the first rebel attacks to where they stopped in the evening. On our side, most of the victims lay in rows along our front, where the most vigorous defence was made. Along Jackson's line, the casualties had obviously been few, showing that most of his division had sought safety in flight. The number of the fallen was greatest along Starkweather's brigade, while Harris's and Lytle's losses appeared to be about even. Nearly all our wounded had been removed either during the action or at night. The direction of the rebel advances was literally marked by trails of blood from a quarter to half a mile long. I counted over five hundred of their dead. Most of them appeared to have been killed instantly by bullets and artillery fire; but many showed by their distorted features that they had passed through more or less prolonged agonies. I found some two score that had been struck and mutilated by cannon-balls and shells — some with upper and lower limbs torn off, others with chest and abdomen laid open, and one with his entire and another with half his head gone. Our sanitary corps was at work gathering up the hundreds of wounded the enemy had mercilessly left on the field. These had suffered indescribably since they fell, from pain, cold, and want of food and water. The hopeless cases were left to die where they lay, and I passed dozens of them writhing in the last