New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-09-22
WHOLFE NUMBER 143
Supporting the Guns...A Graphic Hat.
tie Picture.
Did you ever see a battery take posi-

Supporting the Guns-..A Graphic Bat.
tie Picture.
Did you ever see a battery take posi-.
ton?
It hasn't the thrill of cavalry charge
nor the grimness of line of bayonets
moving slowly and determinedly on.
but there is a peculiar excitement about
it that makes old veterans rise in the
saddle and cheer.
We have been fighting at the edge of
the woods. Every cartridge box has
been emptied once and more, and
fourth of the brigade has melted away
in dead and wounded and missing. Not
cheer is heard in the whole brigade.
We know that we are being driven foot
by foot and that when we break back
once moro 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battery, withdrawn from some other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 a piece-three
riders to each gun. Over dry bitches
where farmer would not drive q
wagon, through clumps Of bushes, over
logs a 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 strike
rock or log, but not a horse slackens
his pace, not q 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.
Amoment ago the battery was con-
fused mob. We look again and the six
guns are in position, the detached horses
hurrying away, the ammunition-c 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 tho
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 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 spongcd his
gun. The machinery loses just ono
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 and trembles-the
roar shuts ont all sounds from battle
line three miles long and the shells 90
shrleklng into the swamp to cut trees
short otf-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 a tornado was bowling through
the forest, followed 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 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 shell is
the wickedest sound in war, but nothing
makes the flesh crawl like the dcmoniac
singing, purring, whistling grape shot
and the serpent-likc hiss of canister.
Mems legs and arms are not shot
through, but torn off. Heads are torn
from bodies, and bodies cut in two. A
round shot Or shell takes two men out
Of the ranks as it brushes through.
Grape and canister NOV a sWath and
pile the dead on top each other.
Through the smoke we see a swarm
of men. 1t is not a battle line, but q
mob of men desperate enough to battle
their bayonets in the flame 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 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 the
guns! There is a 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 a 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 a wounded
man! The wheels of the guns cannot
move until the blockade of dead is re-
moved. Men cannot pass from caisson
to gun without climbing over winrows
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.-Detr0H Free Press.