Note 38 — Front matter (continued 3)

Up to the 10th of March, when a reconnoisance was made, as far as the plain of Wavre, the dead were not yet interred, and all the confusion of a battle-field remained, proving that the enemy was too much occupied to give the ordinary attention to these duties. On that day several wagons filled with Russian cuirassiers were sent to Warsaw. Many ruined caissons of ammunition, many gun-carriages, three deserted cannons, and several hundred carbines, sabres, and pistols, knapsacks, and helmets in considerable numbers were strewed over the field, and indicated the disorder in which the enemy had made his retreat. To prevent an epidemical malady, our government made a request to general Diebitsch to send a body of his men to aid in the interment of the dead, which was in fact done.

Contemplating these masses of Russian dead, the victims of a horrible despotism, what reflections were awakened! Those unfortunate men were dragged to the combat to be sacrificed. Not one of that mass of victims could see the justice of the cause for which they were thus sacrificed. What consolation could there be in the last agonies of suffering incurred in such a cause? There could be none. How different must have been the death of the Polish soldier, who felt the sacredness and importance of the struggle on which he had entered. His last moments were consoled with the thought that his life was sacrificed for the good of his country. If the deaths of the Russian and the Polish soldier were thus different, their lives are not less so. What reward awaits the Russian soldier? Is it a service of twenty-five years under the terror of the knout, in which service he most generally dies, or if he survives, is too much broken down to be able to gain a subsistence afterwards? The Russian soldier, besides the fatigues of the general service, is subject to a private service under any one of his superiors, the merest subaltern perhaps, who, far from rewarding him for such services, abuses him but the more freely. The full pay of a Russian soldier is a groat a day; and even out of this little pay his superiors exact a profit. The consequence is, that the degree of his misery is excessive, and he would be in extremity if the proprietors of land where he is quartered did not succor him. What other recompense is given to these wretched men, who are thus led to the sacrifice of their lives for the self-will of a despot, who, while the soldier, covered with wounds, is groaning under his sufferings, spends his time in luxurious enjoyment, and perhaps mocks at the abjectness of men who are thus willing instruments of his pleasure? What other recompense for all this? Perhaps to this soldier is given a medal of brass, which, if his commander in a moment of good humor, as he passes down the line, may have addressed him with the title of 'Staryk' or 'old soldier,' he receives as a token of his having been through a campaign. Compare this with the recompense which awaited the Polish soldier on his return from the campaign. He was received by his countrymen with the warmest demonstrations of joy. Mothers lifted their children in their arms, and pointed him out to them as one of the defenders of their country. No anxiety for the future weighed upon him, for his country had made ample provision for him. It was at his will to remain in the service, or to go to occupy the land designated for him by the national government. He would find there all that his wants might require. Remaining in the military service, he enjoyed the respect of those about him. All were his brothers, and the greatest delicacy of intercourse was observed between him and his superiors. His service was an agreeable duty, in which, besides gaining an honorable subsistence, he received each day some new mark of friendship and esteem.