Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1880-08-04

~ IN hCIlON.-Dlu 1Ol
ever see battery take position? II hasn'
the thrill of cavalry charge. nor the
grimness of line of bayonets moving
: slowly and determinedly on. but there is I;
peculiar excitement about it that make;
old veterans rise in their saddles anC
cheer
We have been fighting at the edge o
the woods. Every cartridge box has beer
emptied once and more, and fourth o.
the brigade has melted away in dead ant
wounded and missing. Not cheer is
heard in the whole brigade. We know
that we are being driven foot by foot. ant
that when we break back once more tho
line will so to pieces and the enemy will
pour through the gap.
Here comes help
Down the crowded highway gallops Il
battery, withdrawn from some other posi-
tion TO save ours. The field fence is scat
tered while you could count thirty, and
the guns rush for the hill behind us. Six
I horses 10 II piece--three riders TO each
gun. Over dry bitches, where farmer
would not drive II wagon, through clumps
of bushes, over logs foot thich, every
horse on the gallop. every rider lashing
his team and yelling-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 Il horse
slackens his pace, not cannoneer loses
his seat. Six guns, six cassions, sixty
horses, eighty men race for the brow oil
the hill rs if he who reached il first would
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 gunsH 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 achance
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 cannoneefs are Every man
is a perfect machine. Bullets 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 inst one
beat-misses uSt one cog in the wheel
and then works away us before.
Every gun is using short fuse shell.
The ground shakes and trembles roar
shuts out all sounds from battle line
three miles long,and the shell go shrieking
into the swamp to. cut trees short of-to
NOW great 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, followed by
billows of fire, and yet men live through
it-aye! press forward to capture the bat
terry! We can hear their shouts rs they
form for rush.
Now the shells are changed for grape
and canister, and the guns are served SC
fast that all reports blend into one mighty
roar. The shrek of a shell is the wicked
est sound in war, but nothing makes the
flesh crawl like the demoniac singing, pur.
ring. whistling grape shot, and the ser.
pentlke hiss of canister. Mems legs and
A 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 other.
Through the smoke we see swarm o.
men. 1t is not n battle line. but mob o
men desperate enough to bathe their bay
onets in the flame of the guns. The guns
leap from the ground almost as they are
depressed on the foe, and shricks and
screams and shouts blend into one awfu
and steady cry. Twenty men out on the
battery are down, and the firing is inter
rupted. The foe accept it as sign O
waverng 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 the
guns There is II silence of ten seconds
and then the flash and roar of more than
three thousand muskets, and rush for
ward with bAyonets. For what? Neither
on the right nor left nor in front of us is ;
living foe There are corpses around u,
which have been sturck by three, four anC
even six bullets, and nowhere on this acre
of ground is n wounded man! The wheel.
of the guns cannot move until the block
ade of dead is removed. Men cannot pas!
from caisson to gun without climbing owe
winrows of dead. Every gun and whee
is smeared with blood-every foot of grass
has its horrible stain.
Historians write of the glory of war
Burial parties saw murder where histori
ans saw glory.-DctroH Free Press.