Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1877 — The Night After Plevna-A Terrible Scene. [ARTICLE]

The Night After Plevna-A Terrible Scene.

The correspondent of the London Daily News writes from Bucharest, Aug. 2, descriptive of the sad scenes which followed the defeat of the Russians at Plevna: The dusk was fast settling on one of the bloodiest battle-fields of the century—closing in round the batteries whose guns were atill firing, round detached parties of Russian soldiers who were doggedly maintaining the fight against the swarms of Turks who formed a ring around them, firing fiercely into their midst, round the dead and the wounded lying thick on the stubbles, on the grassy slopes, in the hollows among the maize plants and oak copses, round the knots of wounded who had crawled for cover to the leeside of the grain stacks on the fields, and who lay there in the unspeakable agony of waiting for the inevitable doom which they knew too well was to befall them, round the groups of miscreants tramping about the battle-field intent on wreaking that doom on the defenseless wounded, and stopping ever and anon to perpetrate some bar oar ity. Prince Schackoskov and his staff stood on the summit of the ridge above the Village of Radisovo, which was crammed with wounded men. The fate of the battle had hung in the scale for some time, but now all hope of success had gone. There was no reserve among us in the acknowledgment that, the attack had been a failure; all the concern now was to do what was possible toward diminishing the results of that failure. There was no conversation; men’s hearts were too heavy for talk. We sat about on the knoll, gazing down into the pandemonium below'. The General, alone and apart, paced up and dowh a little open space in the oak copse, gloom settled on hie face. All around us the air was heavy with the low moaning of the wounded who, having limped or bees aided thus far out of the fight, had cast themselves down to gain a little relief from the agony of motion. There was not even water for them, for Radisovo is all but a waterless village, and what water trickled in the tiny rill from the fountain behind the village was straggled for eagerly by the parched and fevered wounded who crowded around it, coveting with a longing, the agony of which the reader can never know, a few drops of the precious fluid. I cannot tell when I most respect anefadmire the sim pie, honest Russian soldier—whether when he is plodding along without a murmur verst after verst, under a burden just double in weight that which our soldiers carry, cheering the way as he tramps with a lusty chorus; or when, with cheers that ring with sincerity, and with an alacrity which is genuine, he presses forward into the battle; or wheu he is standing stubbornly confronting his enemy, conscious of being overmatched, yet never dreaming of running away; or when ho is lying wounded but uncomplaining, helping his neighbor in the same plight with some trifling act of teuder kindness, and waiting for what God and the Czar shall send him, with a patient, vmmurmttring calm that is surely true heroism. The darkness closed in around us, and the enemy seemed bent on following the example of the darkness. We had been on this ridge for a long time beyond the range of the enemy’s batteries; but now these were advanced, and we were once more under fire. Through the darkness we could see the flashes of the cannonshots—they must be back now in the position on the knoll below the position where four hours ago the Russian soldiers had charged them with the bayonet, and whence two hours ago the Russian cannon had been firing. A second more, and nearer and nearer came the whistle of the shells, with a swiftly gradual crescendo into a scream as they sped over us and crashed down into the village in the valley behind us; and yet nearer there was the flashing of the musketry fire in the darkness; one could watch the streaks of flame fore-shortened down in the valley' there, and nerves tried by a long day of foodlessuess, excitement, fatigue and exposure to sun, and the chances of the bat-tle-field, quivered under the prolonged tension of endurance, as the throbbing hum of the bullet sped through or over the straggling group. No man dared to say to that stern, lowering Chief, eating his heart there in the bitterness of his disappointment, that it was a bootless tempting of fortune to linger, longer on this exposed spot, nor did any man care to quit for the 6ake of greater safety the companionship which had endured ‘throughout the day. So we lingered on till our senses became dulled, and till some dropped off into slumber, regardless of the scream of the shells and the hum of the bullets. It was a humane object which so long detained the General in a position so exposed. There was no force available to line the height and cover to ever so little extent the wounded lying on and behind it from the Bashi-Bazouks, who, too certainly, were prowling in the vicinity, and ever coming nearer and nearer. An attempt had, indeed, been made to get together a detachment of infantry for this purpose, and a bugler, at the General’s order, persistently sounded the assembly, but the result was merely to gather a handful of stragglers from half a dozen different regiments; and although but a company was wanted, that tiivial strength could not be collected, so the General, his staff and his escort took up for the time a kind of informal fore post duty, and there we waited till the pale, calm moon rose and poured the sheen of her white radiance over the bat-tle-field. While it was yet dark there had been no cessation of the firing,' both artillery and musketry, and now that Heaven was holding a candle to Hades, the fire waxed warmer and brisker.. Up from out of it, with broken tramp, came a detachment,silent, jaded, powder-grimed. There could not have been a company all told; a Lieutenant marched at its head, and it was the remnant, so far as could be gathered, the sole remnant, of one of the finest regiments of the Thirty-second Division, that had crossed the ridge over which its debris was now listlessly trailing itself, three fine battalions strong.

At last the jingle of cavalrv accouterments was heard, and a squadron of dragoons rode on to the heights, and, extending in skirmishing order, relieved the headquarters staff. It was a poor screen to interpose between a victorious and remorseless army and a mass of wounded men; but nothing more was available. The General hacf lost an army, the fragments of an army had lost their General. We turned the heads of our jaded horses, and, silent and depressed, rode down the slope across the valley and up the slope beyond. Our pace was a slow walk, for there were wounded men everywhere, limping along the narrow path in front of us, prostrate on the grass by the side of it, or asleep in the very dust. Occasionally we struck detachments of infantry who had scrambled back out of the fight, and were lying on their arms in utter ignorance of the best direction in which to march. Or it might be a battery of artillery, halted in perplexing dubiety whether if they went on they might march into the bosom of the Turkish Army. I believe there existed some intention that we should go for the night to a village celled Begot. But we got confused as to the road, and bewildered by the crackling spurts of infantry fife that broke all around in the most uncomfortable fashion. - Were the Turks then wholly round us, that we heard, and occasionally felt, fire as it seemed to north, to south, to east and to west? Once such was the confusion that we were fired upon by a detachment of Russian troops, halted In equal bewilderment with ourselves, and expecting an enemy ’ from any or every side. We made halt after halt, but there nevbt was rest for us. A sport of near firing

would stir us, or a Cossaclj would ride in with intelligence that the Bashi-Bazouks were prowling heal- by, and through all this harassment there yet lingered i with the most sanguine of ua the idea that the battle would be resumed next morning, we affording an artillery support to the supposedly fresh troops of Krudcner. Where, I asked myself, la our artillery to take orders for such a purpose ? We did not know where we were ourselves much less where the army was, of which this gropiLg, forlorn, dejected band were the headquarters. Of Krudener’s experiences or whereabouts we knew simply nothing. It was useless to dispatch aides-de-camp or orderlies without being able to rive them a direction in which to ride. All we knew was that there ware wounded men about us, and that we and our horses were dead beaten Nature will assert herself. About one o’clock in the morniDg we turned aside into a field where the barley had been reaped and piled into small stacks. These we tore down, shook some sheaves out as fodder for our horses, and others as beds for ourselves, and. throwing ourselves down, fell into dead slumber. But there was no long rest for us. At three o'clock we were aroused by the tidings that the Bashi-Bazouks were close to us, and the near tiring told of the accuracy of die statement. We huddled a number of wounded into and upon some carta which came up casually, and started them off, whether ip the right direction or not wo had no conception. Ugh, how miserably raw and chill struck the bleak morn just before the dawn I But if the rawness of the air struck to our marrow, hale and sound men as we were, what must have been the sufferings of the poor wounded, weakened by loss of blood, faint in the prostration which follows, so inevitably, tho gun-shot wouud; foodless, without water, lying on the damp grass by the wayside in their blood-clotted clothes! Yet happy were they, pitiable as was their plight, in comparison with their fellows who had littered the battle-field, and had been left behind in Radisovo. The fate of the former we knew from what we had ourselves seen; of the latter, it was told to us by scared messengers that the Bashi-Ba-zouks had, in the dead of night, worked round our left flank, and had fallen upon them and butchered them in their helplessness.