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| With the wounded of Spotsylvania Court House, May, 1864 Examining the lawn closely, one perceives belts and bandages strewn everywhere. These recumbent figures tell more plainly than words what has been going on here. The stirring of the breeze in the leaves of the great oak which shades the wounded too often marks the sigh of a soul that is passing to its reward. The scene is Marye's Heights after the battle of Spotsylvania, May 11, 1864. The glory of the battle, the glitter of arms, the crash of artillery and musketry, and the paeans of victory echoing over the land after a great battle has been won are not all of war. The maimed and wounded soldiers who have fallen before the hail of shells and canister and grape realize at what price these paeans are bought. With limbs torn and bodies lacerated, they sometimes lay suffering excruciating torments for hours or even days after the battle had been fought. An insensible soldier passed over for dead by the ambulance corps, or lying unseen in a thicket, might recover consciousness to be tortured with thirst and driven frantic with the fear that he would be permanently forgotten and left there to die. Incongruous, but of interest to posterity, is the photographer's tripod on the right of the picture in front of the wounded lying in the shade of the house. |
