And these
were the fortunate ones! Whole divisions often went without bread even,
for two whole days. Thousands had no jackets, no blankets, and no
shoes. Gaunt forms, in ragged old shirts and torn pantaloons only,
clutched the musket. At night they huddled together for warmth by the
fire in the trenches. When they charged, their naked feet left
blood-marks on the abatis through which they went at the enemy.
That is not an exaggeration, reader. These facts are of record.
And that was a part only. It was not only famine and hardship which
they underwent, but the incessant combats--and mortal tedium--of the
trenches. Ah! the trenches! Those words summed up a whole volume of
suffering. No longer fighting in open field; no longer winter-quarters,
with power to range; no longer freedom, fresh air, healthful
movement--the trenches!
Here, cooped up and hampered at every turn, they fought through all
those long months of the dark autumn and winter of 1864. They were no
longer men, but machines loading and firing the musket and the cannon.
Burrowing in their holes, and subterranean covered-ways, they crouched
in the darkness, rose at the sound of coming battle, manned the
breastworks, or trained the cannon--day after day, week after week,
month after month, they were there in the trenches at their grim work;
and some fiat of Destiny seemed to have chained them there to battle
forever! At midnight, as at noon, they were at their posts.
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