that they should butcher and tear to pieces one another!

"For five hours, (continues the narrative of this officer,) the enemy plied us with grape and round shot; some of the wounded, lying in the mud or on the wet grass, managed to crawl away, but every now and then some unfortunate man was lifted off the ground by round shot, and lay killed or mangled. During the tedious hours we remained in front, it was necessary to lie on the ground to cover ourselves from the projectiles. An officer of our regiment was in a reclining posture, when grape-shot passed through both his knees; at first he sunk back faintly; but at length opening his eyes and looking at his wounds, he said, 'Carry me away, I am chilled to death;' and as he was hoisted on men's shoulders, more round and grape shot passed his head. Taking off his cap, he waved it; and after many narrow escapes got out of range, suffered amputation of both legs, but died of his wounds on board ship, after enduring all the pain of the surgical operation, and passing down the lake in an open boat."

There was an individual present at the naval battle of Trafalgar, who relates some things that came under his personal notice. From the account abridged and prepared for the second volume of the Harbinger of Peace, we make the following extract.-"Now that the conflict was over, our kindred feelings resumed their sway. Eager inquiries were expressed, and earnest congratulations exchanged at this moment. The officers came to make their report to the captain, and the fatal result cast a gloom over the scene of our triumph. I have alluded to the impressions of our first Lieutenant, that he should not survive the contest. This gallant officer was severely wounded in the thigh, and underwent amputation; but his prediction was realized; for he expired before the action had ceased. The junior

lieutenant was also mortally wounded on the quarterdeck. These gallant fellows were lying beside each other in the gun room preparatory to their being committed to the deep; and here many met to take a last look of our departed friends, whose remains soon floated in the promiscuous multitude, without distinction either of rank or nation. In the act of launching a poor sailor over the poop he was discovered to breathe; and after being a week in the hospital, the ball which entered the temple came out of his mouth. I notice this occurrence to show the probability, that many are thrown overboard when life is not extinct. The upper deck presented a confused and dreadful appearance. Masts, yards, sails, ropes, and fragments of wreck were scattered in every direction: nothing could be more horrible than the scene of blood and mangled remains with which every part was covered, and which, from the quantity of splinters, resembled a shipwright's yard strewed with gore.

From our extensive loss, thirty-four killed and ninetysix wounded, our cock-pit exhibited a scene of suffering and carnage which rarely occurs. I visited this abode of suffering with the natural impulse which led many others thither, namely, to ascertain the fate of a friend or companion. So many bodies in such a confined place, and under such distressing circumstances, would affect the most obdurate heart: my nerves were but little accustomed to such trials, but even the dangers of the battle did not seem more terrific than the spectacle before me. On a long table lay several anxiously looking for their turn to receive the surgeon's care, yet dreading the fate which he might pronounce. One subject was undergoing amputation, and every part was heaped with sufferers. Their piercing shrieks and expiring groans were echoed through this vault of misery; and even at this distant period the heart-sickening picture is alive in my memory.'

History, as it is generally written, is nothing but an outline, a skeleton, a mere anatomy; and it gives us scarcely a more perfect idea of the events it undertakes to describe, than the human skeleton does of the symmetry and beauty of the human form. If we wish to go beneath the surface, if we wish to know things as they are, we must look into what are sometimes called the documents of history; private letters, biographical notices, personal memoirs, and incidents, which aspire to no higher honor, than that of being chronicled in a newspaper. A person may read Voltaire's history of Lewis XIV., and yet have but a very feeble conception of the miseries of war; but not so, when he reads the memoirs of Madame De la Rochejaquelein. The one deals in outlines; it leaves merely a general, and therefore a feeble impression; the other, limited to a single event, gives its minute facts, and we see it distinctly and graphically just as it was; and what is more, we feel it. We could give passages from this little book, but if we made a beginning, we should not know where to end; and we merely mark it down as a document to be referred to in all times to come, in proof of the inexpressible miseries, which men are bringing upon themselves by resorting to

arms.

Of the books with which we are acquainted, one of the best calculated to give an impression of the immediate evils of war distinct and vivid, an impression corresponding in some degree to the reality, is Labaume's Narrative of the campaign in Russia. There were two hundred and sixty thousand soldiers present at the battle of Borodino, nearly all of whom were engaged in it. In the two armies there were two hundred pieces of cannon, and according to some accounts a much greater number, constantly employed; and forty thousand dragoons, crossing the field in every direction, rode over the

bodies of the lifeless and the wounded, and dyed the hoofs of their horses in human blood. The battle commenced on the 7th of September, at 6 o'clock in the morning, and continued till night. The loss in both armies has been estimated at eighty thousand. Labaume gives an account of what fell under his notice the day after the battle. "In traversing the elevated plain on which we had fought, we were enabled to form an estimate of the immense loss that had been sustained by the Russians. A surface of about nine square miles in extent, was covered with the killed and wounded; with the wreck of arms, lances, helmets, and cuirasses, and with balls as numerous as hail-stones after a violent storm. In many places the bursting of shells had overturned men and horses; and such was the havoc occasioned by repeated discharges, that mountains of dead bodies were raised. But the most dreadful spectacle was the interior of the ravines, where the wounded had instinctively crawled to avoid the shot; here these unfortunate wretches, lying one upon another, destitute of assistance, and weltering in their blood, uttered the most horrid groans. Loudly invoking death, they besought us to put an end to their excruciating torments. As our medical means of relief were insufficient, our fruitless compassion could only lament the calamities inseparable from a war so atrocious."

On his return with the retreating army from Moscow, this writer gives us another glimpse of the same field of battle. "My consternation was at its height on finding, near Borodino, the 20,000 men who had been slaughtered there, lying where they fell. The half-buried carcasses of men and horses covered the plain, intermingled with garments stained with blood, and bones gnawed by the dogs and birds of prey, and with the fragments of arms, drums, helmets, and cuirasses."

"As we were marching over the field of battle, we heard at a distance a pitiable object, who demanded our assistance. Touched by his plaintive cries, many of the soldiers drew near the spot, when, to their great astonishment, they observed a French soldier stretched on the ground, with both his legs broken: 'I was wounded,' said he, 'on the day of the great battle, and finding myself in a lonely place, where I could gain no assistance, I dragged myself to the brink of a rivulet, and have lived near two months on grass and roots, and on some pieces of bread which I found amongst the dead bodies. At night I have lain in the carcasses of dead horses, and with the flesh of these animals have dressed my wounds, as well as with the best medicines. Having observed you at a distance, I collected all my strength, and have advanced sufficiently near to make myself heard.' Whilst we expressed our surprise at the event, a General, who was made acquainted with a case, as singular as it was affecting, ordered him to be placed in his own carriage.”*

It is from such circumstantial details as we find in this Account, that we become acquainted with the miseries actually endured by the French in their retreat from Moscow." Overwhelmed," says this writer in another place, "by the whirlwinds of snow which assailed him, the soldier could no longer distinguish the main road from the ditches, and often fell into the latter, which served him for a tomb. Others, eager to press forward, dragged themselves along with pain; badly clothed and shod, having nothing to eat or drink, groaning and shiv

* It appears from Count Segur's History of the Expedition into Russia, Chap. XIII, that the dead of the Russians had either been buried or carried off. The same writer estimates the number of Frenchmen, who were found unburied on the field of Borodino, at thirty thousand.