And all the horror and slaughter round him, he reflected, was to gratify the ambition of one man

From Waterloo A Near Run Thing by David Howarth. Page 186.

Mercer also spent the night among the carnage, because he could not move the wreck of his battery. All the survivors of his troop lay down together a little distance away from the wreckage, which they said was too horrible to sleep with; but he made a kind of tent of a canvas cover on one of his limbers, and crept under that. His mind was too active for sleep. About midnight, he got up to contemplate the battlefield, now calm and still below the fitful moon.

Five paces away from him, a young French soldier was groan­ ing: otherwise, deaf as he was, the scene of violence seemed to him to be quiet. Here and there, men were sitting up among the countless dead, trying to stop their own bleeding. From time to time, a man would struggle to his feet and stagger away a few steps to look for help, and fall again. Horses too would sometimes try to rise, or writhe convulsively. One in particular sat all night on its tail, looking about as if it expected help. It seemed to have lost both its back legs, and he knew it would be a mercy to shoot it, but after the bloodshed of the day he could not find the courage to do it, or even tell anyone else to do it: and when he moved away the following afternoon, the horse was still sitting there.

Looking up at the moon, Mercer thought of the homes it was shining on far away, and the people peacefully sleeping in them, not knowing yet that the men they loved were dead. From where he stood on the top of the ridge - so small was the battlefield - he could see the moonshine on unravaged woods and peaceful villages, and ripening untrodden corn. And all the horror and slaughter round him, he reflected, was to gratify the ambition of one man, who had risen from a station as humble as his own.

Mercer was a civilized, compassionate man, but while it was dark not even he thought of doing anything to help the wounded. He simply stood in his philosophic mood and watched them. When it was light again, he began to do a little, but by then it was too late for many of them.