Oh, God! What misery war leaves in its wake

When men made in Thy image breaks

The ties of kindred; and forsake

Home, loved ones, flesh of flesh, and bone of bone.

A smile turned into a frown.

A prayer into a curse; a heart into a stone.

__________

Death, always alert, eagerly watching for victims, seemingly ought to be satisfied with his ghastly work in time of peace. But when the two sections of this great country became pitted one against the other, and the strong arms of a million men were turned away from that productive industry that feeds even weakness into strength; when these were diverted from life-giving into life-taking; in aiding death in his already victorious work; then was it a "carnival of death" indeed.

Such were the conditions in 1862, when the battle of Shiloh was fought, and death reached a rich harvest of blue and gray.

The ranks of the regiments from both north and south had but recently been filled to their full complement, with the flower of manhood. The very best that each afforded.

I was in the Army of the Ohio, under General Buell, and did not arrive in time to participate in that bloody battle, but came upon the field in time to see its horrible sights.

Having arrived in advance of my command, I was free to go, as I pleased, to all parts of the field.

This was not my first look at a battlefield. I had been greatly impressed but a short time before at Mill Springs, but that field was as nothing compared with Shiloh. At the former a few thousand men were engaged for two hours, while at the latter tens of thousands fought desperately for two entire days.

Early Tuesday morning April 8, William I. Barnheizer, my chum, and I started over the battlefield, and immediately after ascending the hill from the landing we began to see the sad results of war. The first horror what met our eyes was a stretcher borne by two soldiers, piled full of arms and legs. From many of the latter the pants and shoes had not been removed. Most of the pants were blue, but some were gray. The soldiers informed us that these had been amputated at the hospital near by, where they were racked up like cord-wood outside awaiting their removal to the burial ditch.

Burial parties were busy everywhere. These were principally volunteers from the regiments who had fought over the ground, and consisted of men who were anxiously looking for their dead and wounded comrades.

Among such was found the tenderness of brothers, but with those who had been detailed to collect both friends and foes, coarse joking and cursing was often heard, showing how soon men's hearts become hardened when surrounded by misery and deprived of woman's presence.

We were soon upon the part of the field taken by the confederates on Sunday and recovered by the federals on Monday. Here the blue and the gray lay side by side, and many places so thick that one might easily step from one to the other without touching the ground. Here, in a slight depression, was a part of a battery of artillery, completely wrecked, every horse being either killed or disabled; men, horses, guns and caissons, all entangled in one heap of destruction.

The wounded men had been removed, but the noble horses had been left to suffer alone.

It would be difficult, indeed, to convince one who has witnessed only the cowardly actions of a horse when overtaken by sudden fright that in actual danger he is the bravest creature that ever faced death. The stolidity and patience of a wounded horse is beyond comprehension. Men will flinch, groan and wail, but a horse will endure all manner of pain without a twitch. He will call when in distress or pain, but his call is in the same tone and language that he would use if he were asking for a lump of sugar.

I was surprised when I heard the soft whinny of a horse (I had thought them all dead) calling for sympathy, for when I looked into his clear, brown eyes I could understand that he knew I could give him nothing else. Three of those noble fellows were disabled but still living. One had both front legs broken and mangled; the other had his back broken by a shot that had almost severed his backbone. Perhaps the same shell had disemboweled the third, for they had been leaders and were still harnessed together.

Near this place I heard someone say, "Hello, pardner."

Overlooked on Field

I turned to the left and found two very young boys in blue lying between two fallen trees. They were both wounded alike, through the hips, and were unable to move; but were not suffering greatly except from thirst. They told us that they had been placed between those logs by their comrades that they might be protected, and in this concealed position had been missed by those who cared for the wounded the day before. One belonged to the Eighth Missouri and the other to the Sixth Ohio. After making them as comfortable as possible we reported them to searching parties of their command and guided them to the place of concealment.

Soon we were again in advance of all searching parties. Passing over the brow of a hill, we saw first, below, a row of knapsacks, which still lay just as the regiment had unslung and cast them aside. Nearly all had been opened and their contents were scattered on the ground.

"There's a fellow on guard," said Barnheizer.

"Where?" I inquired.

"Right at the end of the line, sitting against that big oak tree," he replied.

"Let's go and see what he has to say," I suggested.

Imagine our surprise on approaching to find a dead man on guard, sitting upon the ground and leaning against a tree, his gun across his lap and both hands grasping it tightly, and with wide-open eyes staring wildly down the line.

Years after while relating this incident I was told by a member of an Iowa regiment that this man had been wounded soon after unslinging knapsacks, and, thinking the wound but slight, had volunteered to return and guard his comrades' property. And thus they found him. Can any one imagine a more glorious record than this?

Soon we came to a part of the field where only a few of the dead wore the blue, then to a post where all wore the gray. We realized that this was the closing scene, where the confederates had made their last stand.

The Harvest of Death

On our return we came to where the dead confederates were collected for burial. They had been gathered like sheaves of grain in a harvest field, into long windrows, which extended almost as far as the eye could see. Our dead were gathered and buried separately by their loving comrades.

More than two years later, when General Sherman said, "War was hell," the whole world marveled and took it as something original. What a vast difference it makes in the perpetuity, either of words or of deeds, who speaks it or who does it.

On the battlefield of Shiloh that day I heard more than a score of men say, while looking with horror upon the scene, "This is hell."

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