The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1880-09-30
SUPPORTING THE GUNS.
HOW FIELD BATTERIES COME INTO ACTION.
Did you ever see a battery take position?

1t hasn't the thrill Of calvary charge,
nor the grimness Of line OF bayonets
moving slowly and determinedly on, but
there is a peculiar excitement about il
that makes old veterans rise in their
saddles and cheer.
We have been fighting at the edge OF
the woods. Every cartridge box has
been emptied once more, and fourth Of
brigade has melted away in dead and
wounded and missing. Not q cheer is
heard in the whole brigade. We know
that we are being driven foot by foot,
and that when ye break back once more
the line will 60 10 pieces and the enemy
will pour through tie gap.
Here comes helpl
Down the crowded highway gallops a
battery, Withdrawn from some other
position to save ours. The fien fence is
scattered while you count thirty, and the
hill behind rs. Six horses to piece
three riders to each gun. Over dry ditch.
es where a farmer would not drive wag-
on, 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 il front. The guns jump two
feet high as the heavy wheels strike
rocks or logs, but not a 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 reaches it 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
Lurrying away, the ammunition chests
open, and along our line runs the cam
mand, Give them one more Yolley and
fall back to support the guns," We have
scarcely obeycd, when boom! boom!
opens the battery, and jets of fire jump
down and scorch the green trees under
which ve sought and despaired.
The shattered old brigade has chance
to breathe for the first time in three
hours, and We form line of battle be-
hind the guns an lie down. What grim,
cool fellows those cannoneers are? Every
man is a perfect machine. Bullets splash
aust into their faces but they do not
vince. Bullets sing over and around
them bul they do not dodge. There
goes one to the earth, shot through the
head as he sponged his gun. The ma
CAiuery 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 aud trembles lie
roar shuts out all sounds from a battle
line three miles long, and the shells 60
shrieking into the swamp TO cut trees
short off to NOV great gaps in the
bushes-to hunt out and shatter and
mangle men until their corpses cannot be
recognized rs human. You would think
tornado was bowling through the for
est, followed by pillows of fire. and yet
men live through it-aye! press forward
to capture the batteryl We can hear
their shouts as they form for rush.
Now the shells are changed for grape
and canister, and the guns are served SO
fast that all reports bier d into ono nigh
" roar. The shrek of shell is the
wickedest sound in war, but nothing
makes the flesh crawl like the demoniac
singing, purring, whistling, grapeshot,
and the serpentlike hiss of canister
Mems legs and arms are not shot through
but torn of. Heads are torn from bod
les and bodies cut III two. 4 round shot
or shell takes two men out of the ranks
as it crashes through. Grape and canis-
ter NOW swath, and pile the dead upon
each other.
Through the smoke we see swarm of
men. 1t is not battle line, but 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, and shrieks and
screams and shouts blend into one awful
and steady cry. Twenty men ont on the
battery are down, and the firing is inter-
rupted. The foe accepts it as a sign of
Rayering, and come rushing on. They
are not ten feet away when the guns give
them a last shot. That discharge picks
living men off their feet and throws men
into the swamp, blackened, bloody
mass.
Up now, as the enemy are amoag the
guns! There is 4 silence Of ten seconds,
and then the flash and roar of more than
three thousand muskets, and a rush for.
ward with hayonets. Tor what2 Meth
er on the right nor left nor in front OF
rs is living foe! There are corpses
around us which have been struck by
three, four, and even six bullets. and
nowhere on this acre of ground is q
wounded man. The wheels of the guns
cannot move until the blockade Of dead
Is removed. Men cannot pass from cais-
son 70 gun without climbing over win
rows Of dead. Every gun and wheel is
smeared with blood-every foot OF grass
has its horrible stain.
Historians write OF the glory OF war
Burial parties saw murder where histor-
ians saw glory.