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Was it that the American people might enjoy these as the fruits of the triumphant close of this war, that hundreds of thousands of them have been mutilated on the battle-field and by the diseases of the camp, and that a debt of four or five thousand million dollars has been left upon the country?
While standing by the grave, Hawthorne was told a story, a tradition of how a youth, hurrying to the battle-field axe in hand, came upon these two soldiers, one not yet dead raised himself up painfully on his hands and knees, and how the youth on the impulse of the moment cleft the wounded man's head with the axe.
The lost ground being thus regained, and the French having been beaten on their right, it was not long before word came that Bazaine's army was falling back to Metz, leaving the entire battle-field in possession of the Germans.
I saw no flowers except the clustered heads of a scarlet-and-orange blossom which I heard some one call the "Cuban rose," and I did not see a bird of any kind until we approached the battle-field of Guasimas, where scores of vultures were soaring and circling above the tree-tops, as if aware of the fact that in the leafy depths of the jungle below were still lying the unburied and undiscovered bodies of Spanish dead.
The Roman camp-followers and the allied troops were already fleeing in all directions; of the Celtic cavalry whole divisions, like the contingent of the Treveri, galloped off at full speed, that from the battle-field itself they might announce at home the welcome news of the defeat which had been sustained. Everything was at stake.
Of this nature are the problems of strategy those which confront a general in command of an army or of a detached portion of an army, and which are worked out on the map. The problems of the battle-field are of a different order. The natural characteristics which, when fortified by experience, carry men through any dangerous enterprise, win the majority of victories.
"He was," says Massillon, "a prince profound in his views, skilful in forming leagues and banding spirits together, more successful in exciting wars than on the battle-field, more to be feared in the privacy of the closet than at the head of armies, a prince and an enemy whom hatred of the French name rendered capable of conceiving great things and of executing them, one of those geniuses who seem born to move at their will both peoples and sovereigns."
"Charles may rush into a war with Spain, thinking that a brilliant victory or two would win back his popularity." "The war with Spain will never come about," growled a grizzled veteran, who had fought with Coligny on his earliest battle-field.
Several, indeed, lay dead on the battle-field, almost torn to pieces by the wolves. My father, who had had some experience in gunshot wounds, did his best to attend to the poor men; but the last discovered died in the course of a few minutes, and we had now only one, the sole survivor of the massacre, to carry with us.
According to his abiding practice, he showed himself a merciful conqueror. Through his whole reign he shows a distinct unwillingness to take human life except in fair fighting on the battle-field. No blood was shed after the victory of Val-es-dunes; one rebel died in bonds; the others underwent no harder punishment than payment of fines, giving of hostages, and destruction of their castles.
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