Hey Joe
Glad you were able to find some images you were looking for, they look like good ones....
You might find these three accounts interesting. The first is a portion of a book written by Oberstleutnant Gustav von Schubert, Chief of Staff of the 23rd Division, XII Army Corps, during the battle of St.Privat entitled "Life Recollections". A portion of which was translated into English and published by the Staff Officer Press, Fort Leavenworth Kansas in 1914. On the day after the battle von Schubert had cause to accompany the Crown Prince to attend the funeral of General von Craushaar, killed during the attack on St.Privat.
He writes......"The day after the battle shows the reverse of the medal. The ardor had disappeared and given place to cold calculation..... The Prince had heard he (von Craushaar) would be buried at 9 o'clock at Ste Marie and therefor rode with me to that place, our road leading across the field over which the Guards had attacked. It was a sorrowful ride. The entire space between St.Privat and Ste.Marie was covered with the corpses of the brave, strong men who had known no falling back. It was especially painful to hear the calls of a number of dying and wounded lying there still unattended-and we could not help them......The return ride over the battlefield was as sorrowful as the going. With the consent of the Prince I killed the wounded horse of a Guard officer with my revolver. It was a fine English mare, whose nose had been shot off by a shell and was standing with hanging head, slowly bleeding to death. It took five or six shots in the head to bring it to the ground."
A similar account of the aftermath of General von Steinmetz and the 1st Army battle in the Gravelotte sector was written by General Phillip H. Sheridan who accompanied Count von Bismarck on a tour of that field the day after the battle . His account appeared in Scibner's Magazine, vol. IV, no.5 November 1888. Sheridan was most interested to see the results of the Krupp cannon fire on the French positions overlooking the Mance Ravine. Sheridan also writes of the terrible slaughter of men and horses during the assault of the French on the heights. Interestingly (at least for us Pickelhaube types) he specifically mentions the 1000's of abandoned German helmets dotting the fields. Thrown off during the heat of battle.
The last is taken from a book published in 1872 entitled "Reminiscences of a Visit to the Battlefields of Sedan, Gravelotte, Spicheren and Worth". It was written by Lewis Appleton a Quaker. It is a short, well written book with interesting detail. On Tuesday June 11th 1871 he began his ride to the battlefield of Gravelotte-St.Privat and witnessed a heartwrenching scene...."I cantered along the road to Ste.Marie aus Chenes, "The Graves of the Guards". The road was thickly strewn with the debris of the fighting of all kinds.... I observed a group of women draped in mourning and with them a party of gravediggers, engaged in the horrid work of disinterring. They were a company of mourners, having traveled from Germany for the sad purpose of looking for the remains of a young Saxon soldier that fell in the fight, who was a son, a husband and a brother. There stood the distracted mother, the widow and the sister. They had untombed some five or six huge graves without success. A singular circumstance occurred on one of these occasions. On removing the spare earth that covered one of the square graves, it was found to contain twenty-four lacerated Saxon soldiers, packed like sardines in a box, in three rows, eight in a row, their only covering being their dark blue uniforms. The faces of the first row of eight were unrecognisable, gory and ghastly, but on removing them the centre row presented a strange phenomenon, for though they had lain eight months, they appeared as if asleep, their faces unmarred and tranquil in death. Lifting them from that vault of gloom, the last of the slain was, as the first, decaying. What an affecting scene was this. I have felt the pang of grief to which few are strangers; but in that field of blood I felt a pang keener than I had ever felt before".
The reality of experiences to which these individuals bore witness is humbling to me. They paint a vivid contrast to the brave scenes of combat.