Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1883 — How It Feels to Kill a Man. [ARTICLE]

How It Feels to Kill a Man.

“I believe I must have killed at least a dozen of the enemy during my three years’ service in the army, ” said Gen. Charles F. Manderson, of Nebraska. “One gets used to that Bort of business just as a surgeon becomes hardened and calloused in his profession. The first man I killed was before Richmond, when McClellan was in command. I was doing picket duty late one night, near the bank of a creek, and had been cautioned to be especially watchful, as an attack w r as expected. I carried my musket at half-cock, and was startled by every rustle the wind made among the trees and dead leaves. It was sometime after midnight that I saw a Confederate cavalryman dashing down the opposite side of the creek in my direction. As he was opposite me I fired upon the horse and it fell. The cavalryman regained his feet in a moment and had drawn his pistols. I called to him to surrender, but his only reply was a discharge from each revolver, one bullet inflicting a flesh wound in my arm. Then I let him have it full in the breast. He leaped three feet in the ait and fell with his face down. I knew I had finished him. I ran and jumped across the creek, picked him up ahd laid him on his back. The blood was running out of his nose and mouth and poured in a torrent from the ragged hole in his breast. In less time than it takes to tell it he was dead without having said a word. Then my head began to swim, and I was sick at my stomach. I was overcome by an indescribable horror of the deed I had done. I trembled all over and felt as faint and weak as a kitten. It was with the greatest difficulty that I managed to get into camp. There they laughed at me, but it was weeks before my nervous system recovered from the shock. Even in my dreams I saw the pale face of the dying cavalryman, and the epecter haunted'me like a Nemesis long after 1 had got over the first shock of the affair. It was simply horrible, but in time I recovered and at the close of the war I was quite as indifferent to the sacrifioe of human life as you could imagine.”— Denver Tribune.