Page:Picture of war (2).pdf/11



11 “In the morning I returned to the camp, and by day light retraced my steps of the night before. In every place I passed a great many wounded; I saw eight or ten shot through the face, and their heads a mass of clotted blood, many with limbs shattered, many shot through the body, and groaning most piteously! I found the body of my brother officer on the hill, his pantaloons, sword, epaulet, and hat, taken away; the dead lay stretched out in every form, some had been dashed to pieces by bombs, many had been stripped naked, and others had been rolled in the dust, with blood and dirt sticking all over them!

“When I came to the spot where the grapeshot first struck us, the bodies lay very thick! but even there they bore no comparison to the heaps in the breach, where they lay one upon another two or three deep, and many in the ditch were half out and half in the water.

“I shall now give you my feelings through the whole affair, and I have no doubt when you read this you will feel similarly. I marched towards the town in good spirits; and, when the balls began to come thick about me, I expected every one would strike me: as they increased I regarded them less; at the bottom of the hill was quite inured to danger; and could have marched to the cannon’s mouth. When the grape-shot came, I suffered more for those who fell than for myself; and, when I first trode upon the dead heaps, it was horrible ! In the next twenty or thirty steps I trode upon many