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The Horrors Of War

The Horrors Of War image
Parent Issue
Day
14
Month
August
Year
1843
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Description of the arrival, at Dresden, of a remnant of Napoleon1 s army of Russia. - I was lateiy an witness of a terrible scène. The regiment of body guard that ncquitted itself so manfully at Minsk, has, in the retreal from Moscovv, been altogether cut up, mostly by the frost. Single bodies arrive I y deg;e?s,but, in the main,in a most p!t ons plight. When they reached the Saxon border, they are ossisted by their compassionate countrymen, who enable them to make the rest of the road in some carriage or wagon. On Sunday forenoon, I went to the Linie? scen Bad, and found a crowd collected round a car, in which some soldiers had retured from Russia. No grenade or grape could have disfigured them as I beheld them, the victims of cold. One of them had lost the upper joints of his ten fingers, and he showed ua the black stumps. Another looked as if he had been in the hands of the Turks, for he wanted both ears and nose. Most horrible was the look of a third, whose eyes were frozen; the eyelids hung down, rotting, and the globes of the eyes were burs, and protruded out of the sockete. It was awfuüy hideous, and yet a more hideous object was to present itself. Out of the straw, in the boUom of the car, I now beheld a figure creep painfully out, which one could scarcely believe to be a human being, so wild and dietorted were his featuresi The lips were rotted away, and the teeth exposed. He pulled the cloak away, from before his mouth, and grinned on us like a death-head. Then he burst into a wild loughter; began to give the command in broken French with a voico more liko the bark of a dog than anything human; and we saw that the poor wretch was mad from a frozen brnin. Suddenly a cry was heard, "Henry! myHenry!" and a young girl rushed up to the car. - The poor lunatic rubbed his bron', os if trying to recollect where he was; he thcn stretchec out his arms towards the distracted girl, am lifled himselt up with his whole strength. A shudderiog fit carne over him. He fel collapsed, and lay breathless on the straw. - The girl was removed foicibly from the corpse It waa her bridegroom. Her agony foum vent in the most horrible imprecations agains the French and the Emperor, and her rage communicated itself to the crowd around he - especially the women, who were assemblet in considerable numbers; they expressed thei opinión in language the most fearfully frantic I should advise no Frenchman to enter into such a mob; the name of the king fiimsel would help him little there. Such are the dragon-teeth of wo, which a Corsican Cadmus has sown. The erop rises superbly: and already I see, in spirit, the fields bristling wilh lances, and the meadows with ewords. You and I, doubtless, will find out place with the

Article

Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News