o
to three hundred poor fellows. The groans and screams, the odour of
blood mixed with the fresh scent of the night, the grass, the
trees--that slaughter-house! Oh, well is it their mothers, their
sisters, cannot see them, cannot conceive, and never conceived such
things! One man is shot by a shell both in the arm and leg; both are
amputated--there lie the rejected members. Some have their legs blown
off, some bullets through the breast, some indescribably horrid wounds
in the head--all mutilated, sickening, torn, gouged out, some in the
abdomen, some mere boys." Alas, I have quoted enough--and may never such
a task come before me again! The picture is sharp as an etching; it is
drawn with a shudder of the soul. Is that grim sedate man right when he
says that women are the moving influence that drives men to such
carnage? Would you wantonly advocate war? Never! I reject the solemn
philosopher's saying, in spite of his logic and his sententiousness.

Who shall speak of the awful monotony of the hospital camps, where men
die like flies, and where regret, sympathy, kindness are blotted from
the hardened soldier's breast? People are not cruel by nature, but the
vague picturesque language of historians and other general writers
prevents men and women from forming just opinions. I believe that, if
one hundred wounded men could be transported from a battle-field and
laid down in the public square of any town or city for the population to
see, then the gazers would say among themselves, "So this is war, is it?
Well, for our parts, we shall be very cautious before we raise any
agitation that might force our Government into any conflict. We can die
if our liberties are threatened, for there are circumstances in which
it would be shameful to live, but we shall never do anything which may
bring about results such as those before us." That would be a fair and
temperate mode of talking--far different from the airy babble of the
warlike scribe.

An argumentative person may stop us here and ask, "Are you of opinion
that it is possible to abolish warfare?" Unfortunately, we can cherish
no such pleasing hope. I do emphatically believe that in time men will
come to see the wild folly of engaging in sanguinary struggles; but the
growth of their wisdom will be slow. Action and reaction are equal; the
fighting instinct has been impressed on our nature by hereditary
transmission for countless generations, and we cannot hope suddenly to
make