The heights extending from Castiglione to Volta were dotted with the twinkling lights of thousands of fires fed with the debris of the Austrian gun carriages, supplemented with the branches of trees broken off by the cannon balls or during the storm. Round these fires the soldiers made an effort to dry their soaking garments, then tired out they stretched themselves on the stony ground to sleep.
There were whole battalions without a particle of food. Water, too, was lacking and their thirst was so intense that soldiers and even officers were content to drink from the muddy rain-pools, oft-times stained with blood. Everywhere wounded men were crying piteously for “Water!” In the silence of the night could be heard the groans, the stifled cries of anguish, the despairing appeals for help. What pen can describe the agonies of that horrible night!
The sun of June 25th, 1859, rose on one of the most frightful spectacles that the most vivid imagination can conceive. The battlefield was strewn with the bodies of men and horses, and with the battered forms of men in whom the spark of life still remained, they filled up the roads, they choked the trenches and the ravines, they lay piled in heaps in the bushes and the fields, everywhere for miles around the village of Solferino.
The crops were utterly destroyed, the corn was trodden under foot, hedges were piled up, orchards ravaged. Here and there were pools of blood, formerly prosperous villages, now deserted, bore the marks of shot and shell; apparently deserted houses, whose walls were riddled with bullets, stood shattered, gashed and ruined. Their inhabitants, who for the most part had passed the twenty-four hours during which the conflict raged in their cellars without food or light, now began to issue forth from their hiding places, the vacant expression and blank countenances of these poor peasants witnessing eloquently to the reality of the fright they had endured.
The ground was covered with wreckage of all kinds, broken weapons, accoutrements, camp furniture, and blood-stained articles of clothing. The unfortunate wounded who lay around were pale, livid, and utterly exhausted with their sufferings. Some, very badly wounded, had an imbecile expression, seemed not to understand when spoken to, staring with haggard eyes at those who brought them succor, and others in a state of nervous excitement shivered with a convulsive ague. Yet others, with deep, gaping wounds, in which inflammation had already set in, were delirious from their pain, and implored that they might be put out of their misery, and with drawn faces twisted themselves into indescribable positions in their supreme agony. Besides these there were unfortunate men, who had been struck by cannon balls and grape shot, or whose arms and legs had been shattered by pieces of artillery.
In many cases the bodies of the dead and wounded were robbed by marauders, and thousands of poor fellows, who still lived, were thus despoiled of all their savings, to say nothing of the little trinkets, the gifts of mothers, wives and sweethearts.
Besides these tragic scenes were many dramatic incidents witnessed by Monsieur Dunant himself of which he tells; there an old officer on the retired list, General Breton, wandering over the battlefield in search of his wounded son-in-law; here Colonel Maleville, wounded at Casa-Nova quietly breathing his last, Colonel Genlis with a terrible wound that has produced a high fever, Lieutenant de Selve, just out of St. Cyr, whose arm has been shot away; a poor sergeant-major, whose two arms have been shattered, and of whom he writes: “I saw him again at a hospital at Brescia, but he died in passing Mont Cenis.” Officer after officer gave up his life because of wounds in which gangrene set in through lack of attention.
The scarcity of water was acutely felt, for the burning summer sun had dried up almost all the moisture. Wherever the smallest spring was found sentries were placed, who, with fixed bayonets, guarded it for the need of the most urgent cases.
Wounded horses, that had lost their riders, wandered pitiably about through the night. Whenever opportunity afforded they were mercifully shot.
Among the dead were some whose features bore a calm and serene expression, these were those who had been killed outright. But those who had not immediately succumbed had their faces drawn and distorted by the agony they had endured, their hands clutched the ground, their haggard eyes were wide open and their teeth clenched.