Orleans Independent Standard

SOLFERINO SKETCHES BY MR. RAYMOND.

After furnishing the first complete description of the battle of Solferino which was laid before American readers, Hon. H.J. Raymond remained two or three days on the battle-field and in the neighborhood, gathering up the incidents of the great conflict. These he has now transmitted to the New York Times. We make the following extracts from them, beginning with this lucid and graphic VIEW OF THE BATTLE.

"Standing at Castiglione, and looking down the Mantua road, Gen. Niel, with his division, (the 4th,) held the extreme right wing; McMahon, with the 3d, was in the centre; and Baraguay d'Hilliers, with the 2d, on the left, in the open plain, and to force it back. McMahon was to hold the Austrian centre in check while this was being done, and then support the attack after it should be accomplished, and Baraguay d'Hilliers was to do the same. The French line formed a radius some six miles long, which was to swing round upon Baraguay d'Hilliers' division as a pivot, gradually encircling the Austrians and driving them back upon the hills, from which they were then to be forced at the point of the bayonet. Victor Emmanuel's forces formed the extreme left of the allied army, and was to move up against the Austrians from the other side of the hills, and especially to cut off their retreat in that direction. When I reached Castiglione—which I did as I stated in my former letter, by coming in with the artillery wagons of Gen. Canrobert's division, which had been held in reserve, I rushed immediately to the hill about a mile from the village—and when I reached the summit the Austrian left wing had been pushed across the road, and McMahon's division was closing in for the grand assault upon the centre. The Austrians kept up a rapid and heavy cannonade which was replied to with still greater heat by the French, who were pushing their batteries further and further on upon the circumference of the circle on which they were moving. New batteries, from time to time, opened their fires from still more distant points—and we could distinctly see the enormous masses of McMahon's infantry deployed in the plain, and moving up to the attack. The scene was terrible, but magnificent beyond description. The smoke and the distance prevented us from seeing any of the details. But it looked as if the enormous thunder clouds of heaven had descended to the earth and were pouring the lightnings into each other's breasts. We did not stop to think of the issue, nor of our own position, in case the French should be defeated. The excitement and splendor of the spectacle overpowered all other thoughts; and it was only by an effort of will that we could picture to ourselves the murderous slaughter of human beings which those swelling volumes of smoke concealed from view. Solferino was finally carried at about 3 o'clock—after two most desperate and unsuccessful charges, in both of which the French were repulsed, and some of their regiments—especially the Turcos and Zouaves—terribly cut to pieces. The third attempt was crowned with victory—the Austrians were driven from the ground but retired without disorder, mainly in the direction of Cavriana, Volta and the Mincio. Gen. McMahon's division followed them with murderous discharges of artillery and swept them down by hundreds at a blow. The battle on this side was substantially over by five o'clock, when the heavy storm, accompanied with thunder, wind and rain, broke upon the field. The French were not in condition to push the pursuit very far, and did not renew the engagement after the storm."

THE ARMY OF THE WOUNDED.

"The army seems not to be provided with any means of removing the wounded, but relies entirely upon the conveyances they can procure from the surrounding peasantry. Everything for miles around had been called into requisition. For the most part they consisted of the rude, heavy ox-carts of the farmers, made to carry stone or other ponderous articles over the fields. Each of them had a flat platform six or eight feet wide and twelve or fifteen long. Some hay was spread upon this, and upon that the wounded soldiers were placed as thickly as they could be laid—without shelter of any kind, or pillows for their heads or blankets for their limbs, except such as they might happen to have upon them. The weather has been excessively warm—the storm on the day of the battle being the last rain that has fallen—and yesterday and to-day the sky has been perfectly clear, and the air heated with the warmest rays of an Italian sun. The roads are perfectly hard and very dusty, and it was utterly impossible for well persons to travel along them with any comfort without protection of some kind from the heat. You can judge then of the intense suffering which these thousands of maimed and mutilated creatures must have endured during that fearful journey of ten or fifteen miles, performed at the slowest pace of heavy oxen, and compelled constantly to stop by some interruption of the procession. It was enough to melt the most obdurate heart to see the state in which they arrived. The peasants who drove them seemed not to have the slightest sense of their condition, or to take the least pains to alleviate their agony. Some of the soldiers themselves—whose wounds were least serious and permitted them to move about—had cut branches from the willows and other trees that border the road, and made of them a slight shade for some of those who could only lie upon their backs, their faces turned to the brazen and the burning sky. As far as the eye could see, a dense cloud of white dust marked the approach of the advancing train. As the carts came into the town, many of the poor wretches stretched out their hands, piteously crying for water, or for wine, as they were perishing of thirst. The people of the village had prepared, so far as possible, for their reception. Committees had been appointed, a quantity of soup had been prepared, and the young women and men of the place went to work to supply the most pressing necessities of the poor creatures who were suffering on their behalf. They went about from cart to cart, asking what each needed, and provided for them to the best of their ability. Austrians and French were mingled indiscriminately and were treated with precisely the same kindness and attention. As a general thing the Austrians were very badly wounded, and seemed to suffer terribly. They were so far as had been convenient, placed upon the same carts, and frequently six or eight carts would arrive with none but Austrians upon them; but still more frequently there would be three or four Austrians upon a cart with twice as many French and in many cases I have seen a French soldier assisting the Austrian, who lay by his side, into some easier position, or endeavoring to procure for him water or something else of which he seemed to be in need. All differences of nationality were submerged in the intense and overmastering agonies of their common fate. Upon one cart which came up lay an Austrian who had died on the road—and close by his side was a French soldier just able to raise himself from his place and beg for water. As he raised his head he looked over at his companion and said, as if envying his lot, 'Poor fellow, he needs nothing now.' The Austrian lay at full length upon the cart, his hands crossed upon his breast, and his face, which was turned directly upward to the sun, wearing an expression of intense suffering. Five or six others, less severely wounded, were sitting in front. Upon another cart lay a poor fellow entirely naked above his waist, except a broad bandage which had been passed around his body to protect a frightful wound received from a musket ball in his side—the ball seemed to have passed entirely through his body—his face was pale and inexpressibly sad—and he had just strength enough left to lift himself up and beg for water. It was immediately brought, and as soon as his condition was perceived he was lifted off the cart in the blanket on which he was lying, and placed in the hall of the hospital—but he lived only a few minutes longer. As they were lifting him out the blanket was drawn from under the feet of another poor fellow lying in the same cart, and the motion extorted from him a cry of anguish more intense than I ever heard before. But it is utterly useless to multiply notices of individual cases of suffering. Indeed it would be impossible to mention a hundredth part of the instances of dreadful agony which attracted my special attention at the time—and if each one of them could be described in writing, not even a faint impression would be given of the fearful horrors of the scene as it met the eye of a spectator.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SUFFERING.

As a general thing the wounded made but little noise. Many of them were too much exhausted—none of them cried aloud, and comparatively few could be heard to groan. But there was no mistaking the expression of their faces, which spoke of intense agony, in spite of all their efforts to suppress and conquer it. As I was riding through the principal street in Castiglione this afternoon, passing the largest hospital, I saw lying in the street, close to the wall, fifty or sixty Austrian wounded who had just been brought in from the field, and for whom no place within the building could yet be found. One of them, a large, powerful man, with an intelligent face, was sitting upright, with his back against the wall, uttering with a chattering sound the most intense and heartrending yells of pain. He looked eagerly into the face of every one who passed, as if he must have help—but he could only await his turn. In another part of the town, on a cross-road leading from the hill in front of Solferino, I met twenty-one ox-carts laden with Austrians in every stage of suffering. One of the carts contained but two, and in the extremity of their agony they had half risen to their knees, grappled one another by the shoulder and were gazing into one another's faces with a fixed and stony look of frenzied horror which I shall never forget.

A CHURCH SCENE.

Just before dark on Sunday evening I looked into the large church in this place, to which the greatest number of the wounded were taken. It was a Catholic Church, of course, as there are no others here. All the furniture of every kind had been taken out, from the altar and side chapels, as well as from the nave of the building, and upon rows of mattresses extended lengthwise on the stone floor, as closely as they could lie, the wounded were placed. All whose injuries would permit their removal, had been taken away and sent on to Montechiaro, Brescia and other towns, and only those were left who seemed very near their end. In one side chapel lay eight Austrians—two or three gasping for breath and in the very act of dying—and not one of the whole eight could possibly, as it seemed to me, live an hour. The entire floor was covered with the poor victims of war, nearly all rapidly approaching the same extremity. Men and women, charged with the care of them, were passing to and fro—not to soothe or comfort the dying, for there was
The day after the battle, crowds of people were coming down the street with uncommon activity. Their numbers and their speed increased. Zouaves and other soldiers were running as fast as the rest. I stepped into the street and asked three or four soldiers in succession what was the matter. Each gave the same reply—'Je ne sais pas'—but never stopped his running in the least. Presently one shouted as loudly as his spent breath would permit, 'They are killing the wounded.' And when I asked him 'Who?' he replied 'Les Autrichiens.' This was certainly rather startling information, and, as it was backed up by a general flight of the whole population, we thought we might as well join in, to prevent being run over by the crowd. French mounted officers came tearing down the street, spurring their horses into a dead run over the pavement. Shutters were closed, doors bolted, and Sardinian flags pulled in with a good deal more alacrity than they had been hung out the day before. Everybody who had a cart and horse mounted it and started. I saw a Zouave, who had been limping through the street not a moment before, seize a horse which stood at the entrance of a stable yard, without saddle, bridle, or even halter, leap on his back, and holding by the mane, kick and halloo him into a keen gallop down the street. Everybody was running for dear life. We went with the crowd until we cleared the town and reached the high road to Lonato. A French officer, whom I recognized as one I had seen in command of the guard of the wounded, came dashing along en grand galop. I called out to him as he rushed past, 'Are the Austrians there?' 'On dit,' was his only reply. Following close to his heels came one of the large wagons belonging to the Imperial suite, and in it a young man to whom I had seen the surgeons of the Imperial household especially deferential the day before. Next came an open chaise, with two civilians, one of whom was lashing the horse, and the other fighting off the soldiers who were trying their best to climb up behind. By this time we had stopped running, and fallen into a leisurely walk: the men in the chaise were touchingly sympathetic, and consolingly shouted to us that we were certainly lost, as the Austrian dragoons were slashing their way, right and left, directly in our rear. This decided us to quit running altogether, as it was quite hopeless to run away from pursuing cavalry. This relaxation of our pace and the recovery of our wind induced a cooler view of the whole affair: and we were already beginning to see its farcical character, when our cowardly coachman came puffing and blowing behind us, his face swelling with fear and red with heat. He raised his eyes and clasped his hands in pity as he passed us, and soon turned off from the road and buried his stalwart form in a field of wheat. This quite reconciled us to the desperate state of things, and laughing at his sorrows we entirely forgot our own. Reasoning the case, moreover, as we walked along, we thought it just possible that a corps of Austrian horse might have dashed in from Peschiera to rescue the prisoners, of whom there were 6000 in Castiglione: but anything beyond this seemed quite impossible. The whole body of fugitives upon our road was out of sight, but a long cloud of dust on the road to Montechiaro showed that in that direction the panic was unabated. As we had agreed to meet 'Malakoff' on his return from Brescia at Montechiaro, we struck into the cross roads leading through the farms and country districts, and after a couple of hours' brisk walking, reached the place. We found it in the very height of the fever and it was with a good deal of difficulty that we prevailed upon the landlord of the inn to open his doors and give us possession of the rooms we had previously engaged."