writing about horrible things shouldn't make me feel happy ~

[lookingland]

but i can't help it ~ it does.

: D

navicat always has such a nice little updater announcement and today i am feeling pretty good after the thoes of death on sunday night, so i thought i would copy the format for funsies.

this is From Slaughter Mountain: take 187 (this scene: "A Horse on the Road").

2,000 / 10,000,000,000 (0.0%)

like my counter? (snark)

scene synop: immediately after the battle at Cedar Mountain, our intrepid D Company squad goes down the hill to see what there is to see before night falls.

darling: The man’s arm was hanging by shreds of skin, but he was in too much shock to realize it. When he moved, the fractured bone twirled so that the limb spun like a bloody wind chime.

mean things: see above. that and the subtitular dead horse and pretty much a whole bunch of other things like the barf in the ambulance (for which, i must add, i showed a great deal of restraint given my original impulse was to wax on about Sharp having holes in his shoes while having to stand in it).

random fun fact: an estimated one and a half million horses and mules died in service to the armies during the Civil War (that's more than two dead animals for every one dead man).

in the future, i'll really have to keep vigilant that all my darlings and mean things don't overlap all the time. of course, perhaps "mean things" is just redundant anyway, given the nature of this story.



national sporting library
Civil War horse memorial
middleberg, VA

Comments

[gwyn-hwyfar.livejournal.com]

When he moved, the fractured bone twirled so that the limb spun like a bloody wind chime.
Oh, that is absolutely beautiful and precious! heeheeheehee I love it :D

[lanyn.livejournal.com]

AHHH! Gruesome. But cool. But the random fact makes me very sad.

[navicat.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, now I feel guilty for taking the night off :(

*guilt*

[utter-scoundrel.livejournal.com]

"From Slaughter's Mountain"

Directed by Quentin Tarantino, from a script by...

[bachsoprano.livejournal.com]

I like navicat's updateries too...they always spur me onwards...(heh)...

As for the horses, I've got a couple of books with photographs of the battlefields in the Boer War and World War One. The loss of human life is terrible, but the horses....it chokes me up every time. There's something so incredibly noble about creatures that would stand their ground in the line of machine fire and pull cannons and lead charges, and something so horribly wrong about the humans who would demand that sacrifice of them.

I would hazard to guess the reason the equine casualities were so high was not only because of death in battle, but starvation. And becoming food sources. And, being put down because of injury. No time to let a lame horse heal when there's a war going on...

Sigh. Now, there's a cheery thought for a Thursday afternoon....

There's a documentary

[(Anonymous)]

called Horses of Gettysburg.

Part of the Civil War Minutes series. I haven't seen it yet--just heard it was good (but my source isn't always reliable).

I think this story should be brutal--it was, and so it has to be. To leave it out, as has often been the case, sanitizes the war and I think this is a war that has been far too sanitized and needs to have the brutal truth told about it--but hey that's how i feel about all wars (but particularly this war).

me, moo