Even as to this last feature in warfare, which in the war
of brigands and _condottieri_ would for many reasons instantly
decay, no reader can fail to be aware of the marvels effected by the
forces of inventive science that run along side by side with the
advances of civilization; look back even to the grandest period of the
humane Roman warfare, listen to the noblest and most merciful of all
Roman captains, saying on the day of Pharsalia, (and saying of
necessity,) 'Strike at their faces, cavalry,'--yes, absolutely
directing his own troopers to plough up with their sabres the blooming
faces of the young Roman nobility; and then pass to a modern field of
battle, where all is finished by musquetry and artillery amidst clouds
of smoke, no soldier recognizing his own desolations, or the ghastly
ruin of his own right arm, so that war, by losing all its brutality, is
losing half of its demoralization.
War, so far from ending, because war was forbidden and nationally
renounced, on the contrary would transmigrate into a more fearful
shape. As things are at present, (and, observe, they are always growing
better,) what numbers of noble-minded men, in the persons of our
officers (yes, and often of non-commissioned officers,) do we British,
for example, disperse over battle-fields, that could not dishonor their
glorious uniform by any countenance to an act of cruelty! They are eyes
delegated from the charities of our domestic life, to overlook and curb
the license of war.
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