Those who cross this vast field of yesterday's battle meet at every step, in the midst of a confusion without parallel, inexpressible despair and suffering of every kind.
Some of the battalions which had taken off their knapsacks during the battle, at last find them again, but they have been robbed of all their contents. During the night, vagabonds have stolen everything. A grave loss to the poor men whose linen and uniforms are stained and torn. Not only do they find themselves deprived of their clothing, but even their smallest savings, all their fortune as well as of the treasures dear to them; small family mementoes given by mothers, sisters and sweethearts.
In several places the dead are stripped of their clothing by the thieves, who do not always spare the wounded who are still living.
Besides these painful sights are others still more dramatic.
Here the old, retired General Le Breton wanders, seeking his son-in-law, the wounded General Douay, who has left his daughter, Madame Douay, in the midst of the tumult of war, in a state of the most cruel uneasiness. There, Colonel de Maleville, shot at Casa Nova, expires. Here, it is Colonel de Genlis, whose dangerous wound causes a burning fever. There, Lieutenant de Selve of the artillery, only a few weeks out of Saint Cyr, has his right arm amputated on the battle-field, where he was wounded.
I help care for a poor sergeant-major of the Vincennes Chasseurs, both of whose legs are pierced through with balls. I meet him again in the Brescia Hospital; but he will die crossing Mount Cenis.
Lieutenant de Guiseul, who was believed dead, is picked up on the spot, where, having fallen with his standard, he was lying in a swoon. The courageous sub-lieutenant Fournier, of the flying-guard, gravely wounded, finishes in his twentieth year a military career commenced in his tenth year by voluntarily enlisting in the foreign legion. They bury the Commander de Pontgibaud, who died during the night, and the young Count de Saint Paer, who had attained the rank of major hardly seven days before. General Auger, of the artillery, is carried to the field hospital of Casa Morino. His left shoulder has been shattered by a six-inch shell, part of which remained imbedded for twenty-four hours in the interior of the muscles of the armpit. Carried to Castiglione he is attacked with gangrene, and dies as a result of the disarticulation of the arm. General de Ladmirault and General Dieu, both gravely wounded, also arrived at Castiglione.