The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1880-07-22
Supporting the Guns.

Did you ever see a battery take posi-
tion9
1t hasn't the thrill of cavalry charge,
nor the grimness of a line of bayonets
moving slowly and determinedly on, but
there is peculiar excitement about it
that makes old veterans rise in the sad
die and cheer.
We have been fighting at the edge of
the woods. Every cartridge box has
been emptied once more, and fourth of
the brigade has melted away in dead,
wounded and missing. Not a cheer is
heard in the whole brigade. We know
that We are being driven foot by foot, and
that when we break back once more the
line will 80 to pieces and the enemy will
pour through the gap.
Here comes helpl
Down the crowded highway gallops a
battery, Withdrawn from. some other po-
sition 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 piece-three riders to
each gun. Over dry bitches where far.
mer would not drive wagon, through
clumps of bushes, over logs foot thick,
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 strikea 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 him 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 10 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 despaired.
The shattered old brigade has chance
to breathe for the first time in three hours
as we form aline of battle hehind the guns
and lie down. What grim cool fellows
those cannoneers are! Every man is a
perfect machine. Bullets plash dust in
their faces, but they do not vince. Bull
lets sing over and around them, but they
do not dodge. There goes one to the
earth, shot through the head as he spong-
ed his gun. The machinery loses just
one beat-misses just one cog in the
wheel, and then works again as before.
Every gun is using short-tused shell.
The ground snakes aud trerubles-the
roar shut out all sounds from battleline
three miles long, and the shells 60 Shrek
ing into the swamp to cut trees short off
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 battery! We can hear their shouts
as they form for the rush.
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 iu war, but nothing
makes the flesh crawl like the demoniac
singing, purring, wbistling grape shot
aud the serpent like hiss of canister
Mems legs are not shot through, but torn
off. Heads are torn from bodies, and
bodies cut in two. A round shot or she'll
takes two men out of the ranks as it
crashes through. Grape and canister NOW
swath and pile the dead on top of each
other.
Through the smoke we see a swarm Of
men. 1t is not battle line, but mob
of men desperate enough to bathe their
bayouets in the flames of the guns. The
guns leap from the ground, almost, as
they are depressed on the foe, and shreks
and screams and shouts blend into one
awful and steady cry. Twenty men out
of the battery are down, and the fir
ing is interrupted. The foe accept it as
sign of waveriug, and come rushing on.
They are not ten feet away when the guns
give them q last shot. The discharge
picks living men off their feet and throws
them into u swamp, blackcned bloody
mass.
Up now, as the enemy arc among the
guns There is silence of ten seconds,
and then the flash and roar of more than
5000 muskets, and rush forward with
bayonets. For what? Neither on the