Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1880-07-04
SUPPORTING THE GUNS.
How q Field Battery Comes into
Action.
Detroit Free Press
Did you ever see a battery take pos

Did you ever see battery take posi-
ton? Ea'
1t hasn't the thrill of cavalry charge,
nor the grimness of line of bayo nets
moving slowly and determinedly on, but
there is a peculiar excitement about it
that makes old veterans rise in their sad
dies and cheer 81
We have been fighting at the edge of
the woods. Every cartridge box has been
emptie once and more, and fourth of
the brigade has melted away in dead and
wounded and missing Not a cheer is
heard in the whole brigade. We know
that we are being DIR ven foot by foot, and
that when we break back once more the
line will go to pieces and the enemy will
pour through the gap.
Here comes help!
Down the crowded highway gollops a
battery, withdrawn from some other posi-
ton to save ours. The field fence is
scattered while you could count thirty and
the guns rush for the hill behind U.S. Six
horses to piece-three riders to each gun.
Oyer dry bitches where farmer would
not drive wagon, through clumps of
bushes, over logs "a foot thick, every horse
on the gallop, every rider lashing his
team and yeiling-the sight behind us
| makes us forget the foe in front. The
guns jump two feet high as the heavy
wheels strike rock or log, but not horse
slackens his pace, not cannoneer loses
his seat Six guns, six caissons, sixty
horses, eighty men race for the brow OF
the hill as il he who reached it first
would be knighted
I, Amoment ago the battery was q con-
fused mob. We look again, and the six
guns are in position, the detached horses
hurrying away, the ammunition chests
open, and along our line runs the com
mand, "Give them one more volley and
fall back to support the guns!" We
have scarcely obeyed when boom! boom!
boom! opens the battery, and jets of fire
jump down and scOrch the green trees
under which we fought and dispaired. e.
The shattered old brigade has chance
| to bre athe for the first me in three hours
as we form line of battle behind the guns
and lie down What grim. cool fellows
those cannoneers are! Every mail is a
perfect machine. Bullets plash dust into
their faces, but they do not vince Bull
Jets sing over and around them, but they
do not dodge There goes one to the
earth, shot through the head as he
sponged his gun The machinery loses
ust one beat-m misses just one cog in the
wheel-and then works away again as be-
fore.
Every gun is using short fuse shell
The ground shakes and trembles-the
roar shuts out all sounds from a battle
| line three miles long. and the shell &C
shriekipg into the swamp to cut trees
short off NOW great gaps in the bush
es to hunt out and shatter and manglt
men until their corpses cannot be recog-
Missed as human You would think a
tornado was howling through the forest
followed by pillows Of fire, and yet mel
live through it-ave! pr ess forward tt
capture the battery! We can hear thei
shouts as they form for rush.
Now the shells are changed for grape
and canister, and the guns are served 81
fast that all reports blend into one mi ght.
roar. The shrek of a shell is ths
wickedest sound in war, but nothing
makes the flesh crawl like the demoniac'
singing, purring, whistling grapeshot an
the serpent like hiss of canister. Men
legs and arms are not shot through, blu
torn off. Heads are torn from bodies, an,
bodies cut in two. A round shot or shell
takes two men cut of the ranks as
crashes through. Grape and ca nistel
NOW a swath and pile the dead on tot
each other. Fa p ,r.l-7
Through the smoke we see swarm o
men, 1t is not a battle line, but mob o
men desperate enough to battle thei
bstyonets in the fame of the guns. Tn
guns leap from the ground almost as the,
. are depressed on the foe, aud shrieks AM
screams and shouts blend into one awfu
} aud steady cry. Twenty men out on tn
J battery are down, and the firing is inter
rupted. The foe accepts it as sign c
wavering and come rushing on. The,
are not ten feet away when the guns Civ
them last shot. That disch arge pick
, living men off their feet and throws then
into the swamp, blacken-d, bloody mas
Up now, as the enemy are among tn
} gnnsi There Ii silence OF ten second!
and then the fash and roar OF more tina
three thousand muskets, aud a rush tol
ward With bayonets For what? Neithe
. on the tight nor left nor in front OF us is
living icel There are corpses around .
which have been struck by three, fon
!, and even six bullets, and nowhere on thi
acre Of ground is wounded mani TIL