implore your assistance, is too heart-rending to be dwelt on. My son, my only son, dear to me as he is brave, amiable as he is beloved, only nineteen years of age, a prisoner of war, at present confined in America as an object of reprisal. Figure to yourself, sir, the situation of a family in these circumstances. Surrounded with objects of distress, bowed down with grief, words are wanting to paint the scenes of misery around me. My husband, given over by his physicians some hours before the arrival of this news, not in a condition to be informed of it; and my daughter attacked by a delirious fever, and speaking of her brother in tones of wildness without any interval of reason, unless it be to listen to some circumstances which may console her heart. Let your own sensibility conceive my profound, inexpressible misery, and plead in my favor for a son born to abundance, to independence, and the happiest prospects. Permit me once more to entreat your interference; but whether my request be granted or not, I am confident you will pity the distress by which it is prompted, and your humanity will drop a tear on my fault, and blot it out forever."

Col.

The other case is still more touching. Hayne, of South Carolina, a man of high character, endeared to all that knew his worth, and bound fast to life by six small children, and a wife tenderly beloved, was taken prisoner by the British, and sentenced to be hung! His wife, falling a victim to disease and grief combined, did not live to plead for her husband; but great and generous efforts were made by others for his rescue. A large number, both Americans and Englishmen, interceded in his behalf; the ladies of Charleston signed a petition for his release; and his six motherless children were presented on their knees as humble suitors for the life of their

father. It was all in vain; for war has no heart but of iron. His oldest son, a lad about thirteen years old, was permitted, as a special favor, to stay with him awhile in prison. On seeing his father loaded with irons, and condemned to die on the gallows, the poor boy was overwhelmed with consternation and grief. The wretched father tried to console him by various considerations, and added, "To-morrow, my son, I set out for immortality; you will follow me to the place of my execution; and, when I am dead, take my body, and bury it by the side of your dear mother." Overcome by this appeal, the boy threw his arms around his father's neck, crying, "O my father, I'll die with you! I will die with you, father!" The wretched father, still loaded down with irons, was unable to return his son's embrace, and could merely say in reply, No, my son, never! Live to honor God by a good life; live to serve your country, and to take care of your brother and little sisters."

The next morning, Col. Hayne was led forth to execution. That fond and faithful boy accompanied him; and, when they came in sight of the gallows, the father turned to him, and said, "Now my son, show yourself a man. That tree is the boundary of my life, and all its sorrows. Beyond that, the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are forever at rest. Don't, my son, lay our separation too much at heart; it will be short at longest. It was but the other day your dear mother died; to-day I die; and you, my son, though young, must follow us shortly." "Yes, my father," replied the brokenhearted boy, "I shall follow you shortly; for I feel indeed that I can't-can't live long. And so it was; for, on seeing his much-loved father first in the hands of the executioner, and then struggling in the halter from the gallows, he stood transfixed

with horror. Till then, he had all along wept profusely as some relief to his agonized feelings; but that sight! it dried up the fountain of his tears;he never wept again. His reason reeled on the spot; he became an incurable maniac; and in his last moments, he called out, and kept calling out for his father in tones that drew tears from the hardest hearts.

CHAPTER V.

A FEW SKETCHES OF THE HORRORS OF WAR.

WE have already exhibited some of the horrors attendant on war; but we wish to add a few miscellaneous specimens, culled mainly from the wars of Christendom in the present century.

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Sir," said an old soldier to a peace lecturer in England, "all you have related I have seen, and a great deal more. I was on the field of Waterloo ; and there I saw, on a plot of ground not much larger than a gentleman's garden, six thousand of my fellow-men with mangled limbs, dead and dying."

During the expedition of the French into Egypt, they marched where the whole way was strewed with the bones and bodies of men and animals; there was but one solitary tree to be seen; and to warm themselves at night, they gathered together those dry bones and bodies of the dead, and by a fire composed of such fuel, Napoleon lay down to sleep in the desert! The sufferings and horrors of their march were in some instances so great, that many of his soldiers killed themselves in despair; and

some, going up to the general who had tempted them to embark in this expedition, blew out their brains in his presence, exclaiming, "this is your work."

Napoleon's massacre in cold blood of 4000 Turks at Jaffa, was horrible beyond description. Driven to the sand-hills near that city, they were halted near a pool, when the officer in command divided the mass into small bodies, and ordered them all to be shot down in rows. This horrid operation, though many troops were employed, required much time; and the soldiers, having at length exhausted their cartridges, found it necessary to dispatch the remainder with the bayonet and the sword! There was formed there a pyramid of the dead and the dying, streaming with blood; and the soldiers were obliged to drag away the bodies of those who had already expired, in order to finish the wretches who, hid under this shocking rampart, had not yet been reached!

Take, from an English reviewer, a sketch of the way in which the British troops re-captured the cities of Spain from the French. "Thousands," he

says, "rushed through the breaches, and trampled one another to death at the very mouths of the French guns, which cut them down by regiments; while the shrieks and cries of the wounded, the howls of the maddened, the roar of ordnance, the shouts of an army, the bewilderment of midnight, and the horrible stench of burnt human flesh, lit up by the flash of unnumbered guns and musketry, seemed like the wild burning waves of the bottomless pit rolling over the souls of the shrieking lost. Still on, on they rush. There is no madness like a maddened mob. Hundreds were impaled upon the sharp sword-blades fastened in rows across the breaches; yet hundreds more pressed on, and fell upon other tiers of the same horrible

instruments. Over these, as they writhed and shrieked, mounted others, and trod and crushed them down, till an army passed over, unharmed by the pointed steel beneath; and even horsemen rushed upon this causeway of living beings, and trampled and crushed it into a reeking jelly of human flesh and blood, and still plunged onward through the crimson river which flowed beyond !"

The Russian campaign was a series of horrors from which we will select a few specimens. Take the passage of the Berezina:-"There were two bridges," says Labaume," one for the carriages, the other for the infantry; but the crowd was so great and the approaches so dangerous, that the throng collected on the bank of the Berezina became incapable of moving. In spite of these difficulties, some who were on foot saved themselves by their perseverance; but about 8 o'clock in the morning, the bridge reserved for the carriages having broken down, the baggage and artillery advanced to the other, and attempted to force a passage. Then began a frightful contest between the infantry and the cavalry, in which many of them perished by the hands of their comrades; and a still greater number were suffocated at the foot of the bridge, where the carcasses of men and horses obstructed the road to such a degree, that to approach the river, it was necessary to climb over the bodies of those who had been crushed. Some of them were still alive, and struggling in the agonies of death. In order to extricate themselves, they caught hold of those who were marching over them; but the latter disengaged themselves with violence, and trampled them under their feet. While they contended with so much fury, the following multitude, like a raging wave, incessantly overwhelmed fresh victims.

In the midst of this dreadful confusion, the