The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1880-07-29
Supporting the Guns---A Graphic Bat
tie Picture.
Did you ever see q battery take posi-

lti0np
1t hasn't the thrill of cavalry charge
nor the grimness of line of bayonets
moving slowly and determinedly on,
but. there is peculiar excitement about
it that makes old veterans rise in the
saddle and cheer. }t3i ,aff sl5 n
We have been fighting at the edge of
the woods. Every cartridge box has
been emptied once and more, and q
fourth of the brigade has melted away
In dead and wounded and missing. Not
q cheer is heard in the whele brigade.
We know that we are being driven foot
by foot and that when we break back
once more the line will 60 to pieces and
the enemy will pour through the gap.
Here comes help!
/ Down the crowded highway gallops
battery, withdrawn from some other
| position to save ours. The field fence
is scattered while you could count thir-
ty and the guns rush for the hill behind
us. Six horses to piece-three
riders to each gun. Over dry bitches
where a farmer would not drive a
wagon, through clumps Of bushes, over
logs foot thick, every horse on the
gallop, every rider lashing his team aud.
yelling 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 if he who reached it first was to be
knighted.
A moment ago the battery was 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!''5
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 4
'despaired.
The shattered old brigade has a
chance to breathe for the first time in !
three hours as we. form line of battle,
behind the guns and lie down. What >
grim, cool fellows those cannoneers are! '
Every man Is perfect machine. Bull.
lets plash dust into their faces, but 'they
do not vince. Bullets 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. Just one
beat-miss es just one cog in the wheel.
and then works away again as before.
Every gun is using short-fuse shell. I
The ground shakes and trembles-the
roar shuts out all sounds from a BATTLE
line three miles long and the shells GO !,
shrleking iEto the swamp to cut trees
short Off-to NOW great gaps in the r
bushes hunt out and shatter and
mangle men until their corpses cannot
be recognized as human. You would J.!
think tornado was bowling through i.
the forest, followed by pillows of fire, g
and yet men live through it-ayei press lf
forward to capture the battery! We can
hear their shouts as they form for the
rush. L.. H g 43s- tlsss,s4 .tf4sl
Now the shells are changed for grape
and canister, and the guns are served
so fast that all reports blend into one
mighty roar. The shrek of a shell is
the wickedest sound in war, but nothing.
makes the flesh crawl like the edemoniac n
singing, purring, whistling grape shot i.
and the serpent-like hiss of canister.
Mems legs and arms are not shot i
through, hut torn off. Heads are torn
from bodies, and bodies cut in two. A e
round shot or shell takes two men out 81
OF the ranks as it crushes through. =
Grape and canister NOV a swath and
pile the dead on top each other. aa3 slsa
Through the smoke we see a swarm
OF men. 1t is not battle line, but a
mob OF men desperate enough to bathe
their bayonets in the fame of the guns. -.
The guns leap from the ground, almost,
as they are depressed. on the foe, Jand D
shrieks and screams and shouts blend
into one awful and steady cry. Twenty
men out Of the battery are down, and
the firing is interrupted! The foe ac-
cepts it as sign of wavering and come
rushing on. They are not ten feet away
when the guns give them last shot.
That discharge picks living men off
their feet and throws them into the
swamp blackened, bloody mass. ~
Up now, as the enemy are among theai
guns! There is silence of ten seconds, A..
and then the flash and roar Of more than
three thousand muskets, and a rush for4 i
ward with bayonets. For whatp Neither
on the right. nor left, nor in front of us
is living foe! There are corpses around
US which have been struck by three,
four and even six bullets, and no where
on this acre of ground is wounded
man! The wheels of the guns cannot
move until the blockade of dead is re-
moved. Men cannot pass from icaisson !
to gun without climbing over winrows q.
of dead. Every gun and wheel is
smeared with blood-eyery foot of grass
has its horrible stain.
Historians write of the glory Of war.
Burial parties saw murder where his
torians saw glory. Detroit Free Press.
1ba8 tla q 81 !.