Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1877 — FRIGHTFUL CARNAGE. [ARTICLE]

FRIGHTFUL CARNAGE.

n Eye-Witness’ Account of the Capture of Loftcha by the Russians—The Turkish Dead Piled Five Feet Deep. A correspondent with the Russian army at Loftcha, describing the late battle there, says: Mount Rous was within easy cannon-shot of the position attacked. The attacking force was compelled to cross a plain half a mile wide before reaching the base of the hill on which the redoubt was constructed, under the musketry fire of the Turkish infantry securely ensconced behind their parapets. Along the road and on the left bank of the Osma were several low ridges of earth high enough to cover a man in a creeping posture, and these places of refuge were resting-places in the deadly race for the bluff. A cemetery through which the Russians also had to pass had a number of tall flagstones standing upright, and these were taken advantage of by the advancing soldiers. At 2:30 o’clock the order to attack was given, and the men rushed across the valley amid a perfect hail-storm of bullets. In a few minutes the ground was dotted with dead and wounded Russians, and the survivors were resting under the little ridges of the road and the Osina. The men advanced in open order at a rush, and the Turks kept up a steady stream of fire. There was not the slightest break in the rain of bullets, yet it was wonderful to see how small a proportion of them took effect. Sometimes a single soldier would run across the whole space between the river and bluff. I could see where every bullet hit around him by the dust which it threw up, and yet he generally got across unhurt. There were minutes when no Russian was under fire, and yet the Turks never stopped. It appears that they were lying down in the trenches, firing over the parapets without looking. The Russians declare they never saw even a head above the bank. Another attacking column is now seen advancing up the river Osma from our extreme right. They are scattered in open order, and steal along unobserved by the Turks to reinforce the party under the northern end of the bluff. All this time the Turks keep up an incessant rifle fire, but the guns on the hills at the back of the redoubt only fire occasionally, as our troops cannot be seen from that position.

The Russian artillery thunders away very rapidly, and two batteries are now advanced down the road nearly to the edge of the city. The Russians gathered undpr the bluff now make a rush forward and secure possession of some Turkish trenches in front of the eastern face of the redoubt, within 100 yards of the ditch. r x " It is now 4p. m., and the decisive moment approaches. The men along the Loftcha front of the work open fire and draw the bulk of the Turkish fire in their direction, when suddenly about fifty Russians make a rush upon the eastern face of the redoubt and approach within fifty yards of the ditch. They were compelled to retire by the tremendous Turkish fire. After twenty minutes of desultory fire the attack is made up the slope facing the eastern side of the redoubt. The Russians rush up in open order, keeping a steady stream of reinforcements following the advance. A perfect deluge of shells is poured upon the redoubt from our batteries as the men run up the slope, while the Turkish infantry fire is incessant, and if it were well directed every Russian would have been shot down. As it is, many fell. Our artillery ceased firing as our men leaped into the ditches and clamber up the parapet, while another column rushes along the Loftcha face of the redoubt to clear the advance trenches. The Turks in the trenches fiy to the westward, firing as they go, and falling under the Russian fire. In the redoubt the garrison rush to the gorge in the western face of the work. There is a traverse covering this gorge, and the Turks are jammed between the traverse and western parapets. In a few seconds the firing ceases, the day was ours, and the Turks were in full retreat to the westward, where no force had been sent to cut off their flight. Immediately after the redoubt was taken the correspondent entered it. The roads adjacent tolhe plain were thickly dotted with dead and wounded. He says: Up the slope where the Russians had charged the redoubt I was surprised to find so few dead, the Turkish fire having principally gone too high. Inside of the redoubt were the corpses of Turks and Russians thickly strewing the ground, but at the western end, where the Turks had been jammed in in their efforts to escape, a space of fifty feet by twenty was covered with Turkish dead and wounded to the depth of five feet. The living and dead were lying on each other in a dense mass, steaming with heat and blood. Around this Moslem pile was a fringe of dead Russians, showing that there had been a fearful struggle on this fatal space. The Russian soldiers were standing upon this mass of humanity. I watched them, working manfully to separate the living from the dead. In half an hour they had made scarcely any impression upon that fearful pile. The road was strewn with Turks, with here and there a Russian. Some of the Turks had been shot first, and then repeatedly bayoneted.