In one of the late movements of our troops in the valley, (near
Upperville, I think,) a strong force of Moseby's mounted guerillas
attack'd a train of wounded, and the guard of cavalry convoying them.
The ambulances contain'd about 60 wounded, quite a number of them
officers of rank. The rebels were in strength, and the capture of
the train and its partial guard after a short snap was effectually
accomplish'd. No sooner had our men surrender'd, the rebels instantly
commenced robbing the train and murdering their prisoners, even the
wounded. Here is the scene, or a sample of it, ten minutes after.
Among the wounded officers in the ambulances were one, a lieutenant of
regulars, and another of higher rank. These two were dragg'd out on
the ground on their backs, and were now surrounded by the guerillas,
a demoniac crowd, each member of which was stabbing them in different
parts of their bodies. One of the officers had his feet pinn'd firmly
to the ground by bayonets stuck through them and thrust into the ground.
These two officers, as afterwards found on examination, had receiv'd
about twenty such thrusts, some of them through the mouth, face, &c. The
wounded had all been dragg'd (to give a better chance also for plunder,)
out of their wagons; some had been effectually dispatch'd, and their
bodies were lying there lifeless and bloody. Others, not yet dead,
but horribly mutilated, were moaning or groaning. Of our men who
surrender'd, most had been thus maim'd or slaughter'd.
At this instant a force of our cavalry, who had been following the
train at some interval, charged suddenly upon the secesh captors, who
proceeded at once to make the best escape they could. Most of them got
away, but we gobbled two officers and seventeen men, in the very acts
just described. The sight was one which admitted of little discussion,
as may be imagined. The seventeen captur'd men and two officers were put
under guard for the night, but it was decided there and then that they
should die. The next morning the two officers were taken in the
town, separate places, put in the centre of the street, and shot. The
seventeen men were taken to an open ground, a little one side. They
were placed in a hollow square, half-encompass'd by two of our cavalry
regiments, one of which regiments had three days before found the bloody
corpses of three of their men hamstrung and hung up by the heels to
limbs of trees by Moseby's guerillas, and the other had not long before
had twelve men, after surrendering, shot and then hung by the neck to
limbs of trees, and jeering inscriptions pinn'd to the breast of one of
the corpses, who had been a sergeant. Those three, and those twelve, had
been found, I say, by these environing regiments. Now, with revolvers,
they form'd the grim cordon of the seventeen prisoners. The latter were
placed in the midst of the hollow square, unfasten'd, and the ironical
remark made to them that they were now to be given "a chance for
themselves." A few ran for it. But what use? From every side the deadly
pills came. In a few minutes the seventeen corpses strew'd the hollow
square. I was curious to know whether some of the Union soldiers, some
few, (some one or two at least of the youngsters,) did not abstain from
shooting on the helpless men. Not one. There was no exultation, very
little said, almost nothing, yet every man there contributed his shot.
Multiply the above by scores, aye hundreds--verify it in all the forms
that different circumstances, individuals, places, could afford--light
it with every lurid passion, the wolf's, the lion's lapping thirst for
blood--the passionate, boiling volcanoes of human revenge for comrades,
brothers slain--with the light of burning farms, and heaps of smutting,
smouldering black embers--and in the human heart everywhere black, worse
embers--and you have an inkling of this war.