Thy Work, O War!

Every little while the horrors of War are vividly brought home to us by the appearance of a coffin from the South, enclosing the body of a dead soldier.  But a day or two since, we had occasion to notice a circumstance of this character.  A bereaved wife met the coffin of her dead husband, near Newton!  Never will it be fully revealed until the light of eternity blazes on the melancholy theme, how many fond hearts have been shaken and riven, and [lacerated] by the desolating assault of War.  Think of it!  A poor soldier who had forsaken all the endearments of home and hat taken his life in his hand and marched with his comrades to aid in the deliverance of his country, is assailed by a deadly disease.  He longs to die at home in the bosom of his family.  He longs to greet once more the familiar faces around his own fireside.  He prays that his aching head may receive once more the fond pressure of hands which were wont in other days to minister to his happiness.  He must go home!  He rises from his sick cot, and then in care of sympathizing comrades, he makes haste to reach the place which is consecrated by many blessed memories.  He summons all the energies of his decaying nature to the task before him.  He travels the weary miles of his journey, sustained by the hope that he may not die before his failing ear drinks again the music of familiar voices at home.  No pilgrim seeking the Holy Sepluchre, is more ardent that he is in his weary pilgrimage.  But wife and children will be seen no more.  At the time when, in rapt imagination, he sees but a little distance in advance the smoke curling from the chimney of his home, and sees the forms of loved ones crowding out to greet the dying soldier, the great wheels of his life stand still, and his body sinks into the repose of death.  This is thy cruel deed, O War!  This is thy work, Rebellion!  God grant that the time may soon come when these scenes, which are so dark with the terrible curse of War, will have no recurrence. – Des Moines Register.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, February 20, 1862, p. 2