Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864
The greatest artillery conflict of the war (in the field) occurred at Gettysburg. For two hours in the afternoon of the memorable third day's battle, about four hundred cannon were filling the heavens with their thunder, and sending their volleys of death crashing in all directions.
It was estimated that the discharges numbered five or six a second; in fact, the ear could hardly detect any cessations in the roar. The air was constantly howling as the shells swept through it, while the falling of branches, cut from the trees by the furious missiles, seemed as if a tornado was in the height of its fury: every few minutes, a thunder heard above all other sounds, denoted the explosion of a caisson, sweeping into destruction, with a cataract of fire and iron, men and animals for hundreds of feet around it. The effect of such a fire of artillery is, however, much less deadly than any except those who have been subject to it can believe. The prevalent impression concerning the relative destructiveness of cannon and musketry is another instance of popular error. In the first place, all firing at over a mile distance contains a large proportion of the elements of chance, for it is impossible to get the range and to time the fuses so accurately as to make any considerable percentage of the shots effective; and in the next place, except when marching to a close conflict, the men are generally protected by lying down behind inequalities of the ground, or other accidental or designed defences. The proportion killed in any battle by artillery fire is very small. Lines of men frequently lie exposed to constant shelling for hours, with small loss; in fact, in such cases, old soldiers will eat their rations, or smoke their pipes, or perhaps have a game of poker, with great equanimity.
No portion of the military service has been more misrepresented than the medical department. An opinion seems to prevail quite extensively that the army surgeon is generally a young graduate, vain of his official position, who cares little for the health of the soldier, and glories in the opportunities afforded by a battle for reckless operations. Such an opinion is altogether fallacious. In the regiments there are undoubtedly many physicians who have adopted the service as a resource for a living which they were unable to find at home, but the majority are exactly the same class of professional men as those who pursue useful and honorable careers in all our cities and villages. When a physician is called upon at home, it happens in a majority of cases—as every honest member of the profession will admit—that there is little or no necessity for his services. Too sagacious to avow this, he gravely makes some simple prescription, and as gravely pockets his fee. In camp, however, the potent argument of the fee does not prevail, and men who run to the doctor with trifling ailments, by which they hope to be relieved from duty, receive a rebuff instead of a pill. They instantly write letters complaining of his inhumanity. In regard to operations, it is a frequent remark by the most experienced surgeons that lives are lost from the hesitancy to amputate, more frequently than limbs are removed unnecessarily.
The medical department of an army, like every other, is controlled by a system, and it is this which regulates its connections with the soldier more than the qualifications of individual surgeons. In the army the system takes care of everything, even to the minutest details. Hygienic regulations for preserving the salubrity of camps and the cleanliness of the troops and their tents, are prescribed and enforced. Every day there is a 'sick call' at which men who find themselves ill present themselves to the surgeons for treatment. If slightly affected, they are taken care of in their own quarters; if more seriously, in the regimental hospitals; if still more so, in the large hospitals established by the chief medical officer of the corps; and if necessary, sent to the Government hospitals established at various places in the country. To the latter almost all the sick are transferred previous to a march. To be ill in the army, amid the constant noises of a camp, and with the non-luxurious appliances of a field hospital, is no very pleasant matter; but the sick soldier receives all the attention and accommodation possible under the circumstances.
To every corps is attached a train of ambulances, in the proportion of two or three to a regiment. They are spring wagons with seats along the sides, like an omnibus, which can, when necessary, be made to form a bed for two or three persons. With each train is a number of wagons, carrying tents, beds, medicine chests, etc., required for the establishment of hospitals. On the march, the ambulances collect the sick and exhausted who fall out from the columns and have a surgeon's certificate as to their condition. When a battle is impending, and the field of conflict fixed, the chief medical officers of the corps take possession of houses and barns in the rear, collect hay and straw for bedding, or, if more convenient, pitch the tents at proper localities. A detail of surgeons is made to give the necessary attendance. While the battle proceeds, the lightly wounded fall to the rear, and are there temporarily treated by the surgeons who have accompanied the troops to the field, and then find their way to the hospitals. If the fighting has passed beyond the places where lie the more dangerously wounded, they are brought to the rear by the 'stretcher bearers' attached to the ambulance trains, and carried to the hospitals in the ambulances. Sometimes it happens that the strife will rage for hours on nearly the same spot, and it may be night before the 'stretcher bearers' can go out and collect the wounded. But the surgeons make indefatigable exertions, often exposed to great danger, to give their attention to those who require it. At the best, war is terrible—all its 'pomp, pride, and circumstance' disappear in the view of the wounded and dead on the field, and of the mangled remnants of humanity in the hospitals. But everything that can be devised and applied to mitigate its horrors is provided under the systematized organization of the medical department. In the Army of the Potomac, at least, and undoubtedly in all the other armies of the North, that department combines skill, vigor, humanity, and efficiency to an astonishing degree. Its results are exhibited not only in the small mortality of the camps, but in the celerity of its operation on the field of battle, and the great proportion of lives preserved after the terrible wounds inflicted by deadly fragments of shell and the still more deadly rifle bullet. Military surgery has attained a degree of proficiency during the experiences of the past three years which a layman cannot adequately describe; its results are, however, palpable.
ÆNONE:
A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME
CHAPTER VIII
Raising himself with an assumed air of careless indifference, in the hope of thereby concealing the momentary weakness into which his better feelings had so nearly betrayed him, Sergius strolled off, humming a Gallic wine song. Ænone also rose; and, struggling to stifle her emotion, confronted the new comer.
She, upon her part, stood silent and impassive, appearing to have heard or seen nothing of what had transpired, and to have no thought in her mind except the desire of fulfilling the duty which had brought her thither. But Ænone knew that the most unobservant person, upon entering, could not have failed at a glance to comprehend the whole import of the scene—and that therefore any such studied pretence of ignorance was superfluous. The attitude of the parties, the ill-disguised confusion of Sergius, her own tears, which could not be at once entirely repressed—all combined to tell a tale of recrimination, pleading, and baffled confidence, as plainly as words could have spoken it. Apart, therefore, from her disappointment at being interrupted at the very moment when her hopes had whispered that the happiness of reconciliation might be at hand, Ænone could not but feel indignant that Leta should thus calmly stand before her with that pretence of innocent unconsciousness.
'Why do you come hither? Who has demanded your presence?' Ænone cried, now, in her indignation, caring but little what or how she spoke, or what further revelations her actions might occasion, as long as so much had already been exposed.
'My lady,' rejoined the Greek, raising her eyes with a well-executed air of surprise, 'do I intrude? I came but to say that in the antechamber there is—'
'Listen!' exclaimed Ænone, interrupting her, and taking her by the hand. 'Not an hour ago you told me about your quiet home in Samos—its green vines—the blue mountains which encircled it—the little chamber where your mother died, and in which you were born—and the lover whom you left weeping at your cruel absence. You spoke of your affection for every leaf and blade of grass about the place—and how you would give your life itself to go back thither—yes, even your life, for you would be content to lie down and die, if you could first return. Do you remember?'
'Well, my lady?'
'Well, you shall return, as you desired. You have been given to me for my own; and whether or not the gift be a full and free one, I will claim my rights under it and set you free. In the first ship which sails from Ostia for any port of Greece, in that ship you may depart. Are you content, Leta?'
Still holding her by the hand, Ænone gazed inquiringly into the burning black eyes which fastened themselves upon her own, as though reading the bottom of her soul. She could not as yet believe that even if the Greek had actually begun to cherish any love for Sergius, it could be more than a passing fancy, engendered by foolish compliments or ill-judged signs of admiration, and therefore she did not doubt that the offer of freedom and restoration would be gratefully received. Her only uncertainty was with regard to the manner in which it would be listened to—whether with tears of joy or with loud protestations of gratitude upon bended knees; or whether the prospect of once again visiting that cottage home and all that had so long been held dear, would come with such unpremeditated intensity as to stifle all outward manifestations of delight, except, perhaps, that trembling of the lip or ebb and flow of color which is so often the surest sign of a full and glowing heart.
For a moment Leta stood gazing up into the face of her mistress, uttering no word of thanks, and with no tear of joy glistening in her eye, but with the deepened flush of uncontrollable emotion overspreading her features. And yet that flush seemed scarcely the token of a heart overpowered with sudden joy, but rather of a mind conscious of being involved in an unexpected dilemma, and puzzled with its inability to extricate itself.
'My mistress,' she responded at length, with lowered gaze, 'it is true that I said I would return, if possible, to that other home of mine. But now that you offer me the gift, I would not desire to accept it. Let me stay here with you.'
Ænone dropped the hand which till now she had held; and an agony of mingled surprise, suspicion, disappointment, and presentiment of evil swept across her features.
'Are you then become like all others?' she said with bitterness. 'Has the canker of this Roman life already commenced to eat into your soul, so that in future no memory of anything that is pure or good can attract you from its hollow splendors? Are thoughts of home, of freedom, of friends, even of the trusted lover of whom you spoke—are all these now of no account, when weighed against a few gilded pleasures?'
'Why, indeed, should I care to return to that home?' responded the girl. 'Have not the Roman soldiers trodden down those vines and uprooted that hearth? Is it a desolated and stricken home that I would care to see?'
'False—false!' cried Ænone, no longer regardful of her words, but only anxious to give utterance—no matter how rashly—to the suspicions which she had so long and painfully repressed. 'It is even more than the mere charms of this imperial city which entice you. It is that you are my enemy, and would stay here to sting the hand that was so truly anxious to protect you—that for your own purposes you would watch about my path, and ever, as now, play the spy upon my actions, and—'
'Nay, nay!' cried the Greek, her flashing eye and erect attitude in strong contrast with the softened tone in which, more from habit than from prudence, she had spoken. 'When have I played the spy upon you? Not now, indeed, for I have come in, not believing that I was doing harm, but simply because my duty has led me hither. I came to tell you that there is a stranger—an old man—standing in the court below, and that he craves audience with you. Is this a wrong thing for me to do? Were I to forbear performance of this duty, would not my neglect insure me punishment?'
Ænone answered not, but, by a strong effort, kept back the words that she would have uttered. Still angry and crushed with the sense of being deceived, and yet conscious that it was not a noble or dignified thing to be in disputation with her own slave, and that there was, moreover, the remote possibility that the girl was not her enemy, and might really dread returning to a desolated and devastated home, what could she say or do? And while she pondered the matter, the door again opened.
'And this is he of whom I spoke. Do you doubt me now?' exclaimed the Greek, in a tone in which a shade of malicious triumph mingled with soft reproach. And she moved away, and left the room, while Ænone, lifting her eyes, saw her father standing before her.
'A plague take the wench who has just left you!' he muttered. 'Did she not tell you that I was below? I sent word by her, and here she has left me for half an hour kicking my heels together in the courtyard. And I might have stayed there forever, if I had not of myself found my way up. Even then, there were some who would have stopped me, deeming me, perhaps, too rough in appearance to be allowed to ascend. But I told them that there was a time when members of the house of Porthenus did not wait in antechambers, but stood beside the consuls of the old republic, and I touched the hilt of my dagger; and whether it was the one argument or the other which prevailed, here I am.'
With a grim smile the centurion then threw himself down upon a settee near the door, arranged as properly as possible the folds of his coarse tunic, drew his belt round so as to show more in front his dagger with richly embossed sheath—the sole article of courtly and ceremonious attire in which he indulged—and endeavored to assume an easy and imposing attitude. For an instant he gazed around the room, observantly taking in its wealth of mosaic pavement, paintings, statuary, and vases. Then, as he began to fear lest he might be yielding too much of his pride before the overbearing influence of so much luxury, he straightened himself up, gathered upon his features a hard and somewhat contemptuous expression, and roughly exclaimed:
'Yes, by the gods, the Portheni lived with consuls and proconsuls long before the house of Vanno began to rise from the dregs and become a house at all. And the imperator knows it, and is jealous of the fact, too, or else he would the better acknowledge it. What, now, is that?' he added, pointing to the central fresco of the ceiling.
'It is—I know not for certain, my father—but I think—'
'Nay, but I know what it is. It is the old story of the three Vanni overcoming the five Cimbri at the bridge of Athesis. No great matter, nor so very long ago, even if it were true. But why did he not paint up, instead, how the founder of the Portheni, with his single arm, slew the ten Carthaginians under the aqueduct of Megara? Is not now your family history a portion of his own? His jealousy prevented him, I suppose; though I doubt not that, when in his cups with his high associates, he often boasts of his connection with the house of Porthenus. And yet he would let the only relic of the family starve before assisting him.'
Ænone stood as in a maze of confusion and uncertainty. Were the trials of the day never to end? First her unsatisfactory strife and pleading with her husband; then the undignified contest with her own slave into which she had been betrayed; and now came this old man—her father, to be sure—but so much the more mortifying to her, as his vulgarity, querulous complaining, and insulting strictures were forced upon her ears.
'Are you not comfortable? What more can he or I do for you?' she said, with some impatience.
'Ay, ay; there it is,' growled the centurion. 'One person must have all luxuries—paintings, silver, and the like; but if the other has only mere comforts, an extra tunic, perhaps, or a spare bit of meat for a dog, what more can he want? But I will tell you what you can do? And it is not as a gift, I ask it. Poor and despised as he may be, no one can say that the centurion Porthenus is a beggar. It is as a fair matter of business that I offer it.'
'Well, my father?'
'It is this: I have two slaves, and can afford to keep only one of them, particularly as but one can be of use to me. Will the imperator purchase the other? I will give it for a fair price, and therefore no one can say that I have asked for anything beyond a proper trade, with which either side should be well satisfied.'
Ænone listened with a blush of shame for her father overspreading her face. It did not occur to her that the slave rejected as useless could be any other than the hunchback, whom her husband had bestowed upon the centurion a few days before; and for the receiver to try to sell back a gift to the giver was a depth of meanness for which no filial partiality or affection could find an excuse.
'I will show him to you,' cried the centurion, losing a little of his gruffness in his eagerness to effect a transaction, whereby, under the thin guise of a simple trade, he could extort a benefit. 'I have brought him with me, and left him below. You will see that he is of good appearance, and that the imperator will be pleased and grateful to me for the opportunity of possessing him.'
So saying, Porthenus strode to the head of the stairway, and issued his commands in a stern voice, which made the vaulted ceilings of the palace ring. A faint, weak response came up in answer, and in a moment the slave entered the room.
'Is this the one of whom you spoke?' faltered Ænone, unable for the moment to retain her self-possession as she beheld, not the angular, wiry form of the hunchback, but the careworn and slim figure of Cleotos. 'I thought—indeed I thought that you spoke of the inferior of the two.'
'Ay, and so I do,' responded her father. 'Of what use to me can this man be? The other one, indeed, is of tenfold value. There is no slave in Rome like unto him for cleaning armor or sharpening a weapon, while to run of an errand or manage any piece of business in which brains must bear their part, I will trust him against the world. But as for this man here, with his weak limbs and his simple face—do you know that I did but set him to polish the rim of a shield, and in his awkwardness he let it fall, and spoiled the surface as though a Jewish spear had stricken it.'
Ænone remained silent, scarcely listening to the words of her father, while, in a troubled manner, she again mentally ran over, as she had done hundreds of times before, the chances of recognition by the man who stood before her.
'But listen to me still further,' continued the centurion, fearful lest his disparaging comments might defeat the projected sale. 'I only speak of him as he is useful or not to me. To another person he would be most valuable; for, though he cannot polish armor, he can polish verses, and he can write as well as though he were educated for a scribe. For one favored of fortune like the imperator Sergius Vanno,' and here again the centurion began to roll the high-sounding name upon his tongue with obvious relish, 'who wishes an attendant to carry his wine cup, or to bear his cloak after him, or to trim his lamps, and read aloud his favorite books, where could a better youth than this be found?'
Ænone, still overpowered by her troubled thoughts, made no response.
'Or to yourself,' eagerly continued the centurion, 'he would be most suitable, with his pale, handsome face, and his slender limbs. Have you a page?'
'I have my maidens,' was the answer.
'And that amounts to nothing at all,' asserted her father. 'A plebeian can have her maidens in plenty, but it is not right that the wife of a high and mighty imperator,' and here again the words rolled majestically off his tongue, 'should not also have her male attendants. And the more so when that wife has been taken from an ancient house like that of Porthenus,' he added, with a frown in derogation of any tendency to give undue importance to her present position. 'But with this Cleotos—come forward, slave, and let yourself be seen.'
Cleotos, who, partly from natural diffidence, and partly from being abashed at the unaccustomed splendor about him, had, little by little, from his first entrance, shrunk into a corner, now advanced; and Ænone, once more resolutely assuring herself that, with the changes which time, position, difference of place and costume had thrown about her, she could defy recognition, summoned all her courage, and looked him in the face. It may have been with an unacknowledged fear lest, now that she saw him so freely in the broad daylight, some latent spark of the old attachment might burst into a flame, and withdraw her heart from its proper duty; but at the first glance she felt that in this respect she had nothing to dread. In almost every particular, Cleotos had but little changed. His costume was but slightly different from that which he had always been accustomed to wear; for the centurion, in view of the chance of effecting a profitable sale, had, for that occasion, made him put on suitable and becoming attire. The face was still youthful—the eye, as of old, soft, expressive, and unhardened by the ferocities of the world about him. As Ænone looked, it seemed as though the years which had passed rolled back again, and that she was once more a girl. But it also seemed as though something else had passed away—as though she looked not upon a lover, but rather upon a quiet, kindhearted, innocent friend—one who could ever be dear to her as a brother, but as nothing else. What was it which had so flitted away that the same face could now stir up no fire of passion, but only a friendly interest? Something, she could not tell what; but she thanked the gods that it was so, and drew a long breath of relief.
But it was none the less incumbent upon her, for the sake of that present friendship and for the memory of that old regard, to cast her protection over him. For an instant the thought flashed across her that it would be well to purchase him, not simply for a page, but so that she could have him in the way of kind treatment and attention until some opportunity of restoring him to his native land might occur. But then again was the danger that, if any great length of time should meanwhile elapse, unconsidered trifles might lead to a recognition. No, that plan could not be thought of. She must keep a protecting eye upon him from a distance, and trust to the future for a safe working out of the problem.
'It cannot be,' she murmured, in answer, half to her father, half to her own suggestion.
''Tis well,' muttered the centurion, rising with an air of displeasure which indicated that he thought it very ill. 'I supposed that it would be a kindness to the imperator or to yourself to give the first offer of the man. But it matters little. The captain Polidorus will take him any moment at a fair price.'
'You will not send him to the captain Polidorus?' exclaimed Ænone in affright. For at once the many atrocities of that man toward his slaves rose in her mind—how that he had slain one in a moment of passion—how that he had deliberately beaten another to death for attempting to escape to the catacombs—how that stripes and torture were the daily portion of the unfortunates in his power—and that, not by reason of any gross neglect of their duty, but for the merest and most trifling inadvertencies. Better death than such a fate.
'Pah! What can I do?' retorted Porthenus, skilfully touching the chord of her sympathies, as he saw how sensitive she was to its vibrations. 'It is true that Polidorus is no fawning woman, and that he greets his slaves with the rod and the brand, and what not. It is true that he thinks but little of sending one of them to Hades through the avenue of his fishponds. But that, after all, is his affair, and if he chooses to destroy his property, what should it matter to me? Am I so rich that I can afford to lose a fair purchaser because he may incline to hang or drown his bargain? Such self-denial may suit the governor of a province, but should not be expected of a poor centurion.'