Morning journal and courier., 1880-07-17
A Field Battery in Action.

Did you ever see battery take position i? It hasn't the thrill of cavalry charge, nor the grimness of line of bayonets moving slowly and determinedly on, but there is 8 peculiar excitement about it that makes o. l veterans rise ill their saddles and cheer.
 We have been fighting at the edge of the woods Every cartridge-box has been emp tied once and more, and fourth of the brig ade has melted away in dead and wounded and missing. Not cheer is heard in he whole brigade. We know that we are being driven foot by foot, and that, when we break back once more, the inc will go to pieces and the enemy will pc rthrough the gap.
 Here comes help
 Down the crowded highway gallops bat tery, withdrawn from some other position to save ours The field fence is scattered while you could count thirty, and the guns rush for the hill behind us. Six horses to a piecs- three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches, where farmer would not drive a wagon, through clumps of bushes over logs a foot thick, every horse on the gallop, every rider flashing his team and yelling-the sight be- hind 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 a cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, six caissons, six horses, eighty men race for the brow of the hills as if he who reached it first would be knighted
 A moment ago the battery was a confused 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 command, t'Give them one 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 despaired.
 The shattered old brigade has chance to breathe for the first time in three hours as we lin of not IaI 4I,ar ooI I;a down. What grim, cool fellows those can noneers are Every man Is a perfect ma- chine Bullets splash dust into their faces, but they do not vince. Bullets sing over and around them, but theydo not dodge. There goes one to the earth. shot through the head as he sponged his gun. The machinery loses just one beat-misses just one cog in the wheel-and then works away again as before.
 Every gun is using short fuse shell. The ground shakes from battle line three miles long, and the shell go shrieking into the swamp to cut trees short off-to mow gaps in the bushes-to hunt out and shatter and mangle men until their corpses cannot be recognized as human. You would think tornado was bowling through the forest, fol- lowed by pillows of fire, and yet men live through it-aye! press forward to capture the battery. We can hear their shouts as they form for rush.
 Now the shells are changed for grape and
 
 all reports blend into one mighty roar The shriek of shell is the wickedest sound in war, but nothing makes the flesh crawl like the demoniac singing purring, whistling grape, shot and the serpent like hiss of can ister. Mems legs and arms are not shot through but torn off Heads are torn from bodies, and bodies cut in two. round shot or shell takes two men out of the ranks as it crashes through. Grape and canister now a swath and pile the dead on top of each oth- CT.
 Through the smoke we see 6 swarm of men. It is not battle line, but 8 mob of men desperate enough to bathe their bayonets in the flame of the gun. The guns leap from the ground almost as they are depressed on the foe, and shrieks and screams and shouts blend into one awful and steady cry. Twenty men out on the battery aredown and the fir ing is interrupted. The foe accept it as a sign of wavering and come rushing on. They are not ten feet away when the guns give them last shot. That discharge picks liv- ing men off their feet and throws them into the swamp, blackened, bloody mass.
 Up now, as the enemy are among the guns. There is silence of ten seconds, and then the flash and roar of more than 5000 mus kets, and rush forward with bayonets. For what ? Neither on the right, nor left, nor in front of us is a living foe There corpses around us which have been struck by three, four, and even six bullets, and nowhere on this acre of ground is a wounded man! The wheels of the guns cannot move until the blockade of dead is removed. Men cannot over winnows of dead. Every gun and wheel is smeared with blood-every foot of grass has it's horrible stain.
 Historians write of the glory of war. Bur- ial parties saw murder where historians saw glory.