The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1881-04-21
Queer Things in War.

Men might write for a hundred years
Of the curious phases of war and still
leave the subject fresh. War is lottery
and the prizes are shot, shell, wounds
and death. Tens of thousands of men
served four years in the late war and re.
turned home. In a thousand cases re-
cruits were killed within twenty-four
hours after reaching the front. Wars
missiles are no respecters of persons, and
the soldier who fights an all days battle
without receiving wound may be killed
in his tent at night by the accidental dis
charge of a musket.
At the battle of Franklin he first she'll
sent from the first Union tield-piece to
open fire, killed twenty.six Confederates.
The next i've shells from this same gun
either failed to explode or cleared tho
advancing lines. In this same fight tho
horse of a Confederate colonel was cut
square in two by shot and the rider es-
capped unhurt. Ten minutes after a
Union officer behind the earthworks
stumbled and fell forward on the ground
and broke his neck.
In one of the assaults on Fort Wagner,
in Charleston harbor, the iron clad fleet,
assisted by land batteries numbering
twenty.seven heavy cannon, bombarded
the fort for two hours before killing a
single soldier. From seventy to eighty
heavy cannon were hurting three tons of
iron into the fort each minute, and yet
no one was hurt until over 800 tons of
"solid death" had been wasted. As an
Offset to this, witness the work of a single
solid shot thrown from a Federal gunboat
on the lower Mississippi. A Confederate
flying battery was just taking position, and
one piece had already opened fire. The
Federal shot was directed at this piece.
The big mass of iron struck the six poun-
der square on the muzzle and upset the
gun and carriage. A piece of the muzzle
weighing about twenty pounds was bro
ken off, and this flew to the left and killed
two men. Three men were wounded by
small fragments or flying splinters. The
big shot next struck and exploded cais-
son, killing three more men and wound
ing two others. From the caisson il
turned to the right, killed horse,
smashed O wheel of q feld-piece and
crushed the leg of q sergeant to bloody
mass. That one shot so disorganized the
battery that it lilnbered up and dashed
away to cover.
While heavy ordnance is necessary in
reducing forts and earthworks, it is doubt
full if there is any profit in the work of
the big guns carried by the iron clads on
the river. When Mcclellan fell back he
had the cover of gunboats, and some
writers have claimed that their fire saved
his army from capture. So far as the
Confederate records show, the loss by the
hundreds of enormous shells thrown over
the heads Of our troops into the woods by
these great canon, did not amount to q
hundred men. They were new thing
then, and the effect of the awful crash
and tremendous explosion was demoral-
iziDg to the troops in line.
A Union gunboat on the White river
threw three shells into a Confederate
camp and killed nearly fifty men and rout-
Ell force of700. Within week after that
event, the Confederate General, Shelby,
planted four pieces of flying artillery on
the levee within 400 feet of the same
gunboat at anchor, and without the least
cover for men or guns, kept up the firing
for over an hour, or until the gunboat
backed out of it and steamed away.
The chances in a lottery can be figured
down fine, and certain per cent. of es-
capes is allowed in steamboat explosion,
but he who goes to war has nothing to
console him. He may dodge 2OO-pound
shell and be killed by two buckshot.
he may receive dozen bullets and live
on, or at first one may be fatal. He may
ride in the widest charge uuhurt, and
he may be killed by stray bullet
beside his camp fre.-DetroH Free Press.