Litchfield enquirer., 1881-08-04
Supporting the Guns.
ZINE ON BATTLEFIELD-CARNAGE AND
 GLoRY-OR Is IT PLAIN MURDER?

SCENE ON BATTLEFIELD-CARNAGE AND GLoRY-OR Is IT PLAIN MURDER? Did you ever see battery take position? It hasn't the thrill of cavalry charge nor | the grimness of line of bayonets moving slowly and determinedly on; but there is peculiar excitement about it teat makes old veterans rise in their saddles and cheer. We have been fighting at the edge of the 1 woods. Every cartridge box has been emp- tied once more, one-fourth of tue brigade has melted away in dead and wounded and mis- sing. Not 8 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 go to pieces, and the
 enemy will break through the gap.
 Here comes help! '''f Down the crowded highway gallops a bat | tery withdrawn from some other position to ! save ours The field fence is scattered while l you could count thirty, and the guns rush for | the hills behind us. Six horses to a piece 1 three riders to .gun Over dry ditches, where farmer would not drive his wagon, | through clumps of bushes, over logs a foot
 thick, every horse on gallop, every rider flashing bis team and yelling-the sight be- hind makes us forget the foe in front The guns jump two feet high as the heavy wheels strike rock or log, but not horse slackens his ! pace, not cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, six cassons, sixty horses, eighty men, race for l the brow of the hill as if he who reached it
 first would be knighted.
 A moment ago the battery was confused
 mob We look again, and the six guns are in position, the detached horses hurrying l away, the ammunition chests open, and along our line runs the command: "Give them one more volley and fall back to support the
 guns" We have scarcely obeyed when
 boom! boom! opens the battery, and jets of | fire jump down and scorch the green trees un-
 der which we fought and despaired. The shattered old brigade has chance to breathe for the first tune in three hours, as we form line and lie down. What grim, cool fellows those cannoneers are! Every man is
 perfect machine. Bullets splash dust in
 their faces, but they dc not vince. Bullets sing over and around; they do not dodge. There goes one to the earth, shot through the
 head as he sponged his gun. That machinery loses just one beat misses just one cog in the
 wheel, and then works away again as be- fore.
 Every gun is using short fuse shell. The ground shakes and trembles, the roar shuts
 out all sounds from battle line three miles long, and the shells go shrieking into the swamp to cut the trees short off, to now great gaps in the bushes to hunt out and shatter
 and mange men until their corpses cannot be
 recognized as. human. You would think
 tornado was bowling through the forest, fol-
 lowed by pillows of fire, and yet men live
 through it-aye, press forward to capture tho 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 fired so fast that all reports blend in one mighty roar The shriek of shell is the wickedest sound in war,
 but nothing makes the flesh crawl like demon-
 lac singing purring, whsting grape shot and
 the serpent.like hiss of canister. Mems legs and heads are torn from bodies and bodies cut III two. n IVuI.l .Let A- aEau takes tuo men out of the rank as it crashes through. Crane
 and canister now swath, and pile the dea,l
 on top of each other.
 Through the smoke we see swarm of men.
 It is not batte-line but mob of men deS-
 perate enough to bathe their bayonets in L!ie
 flame of 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. Twen- tv men on the battery arc down, and the firing
 is interrupted. The foe accept it as sign of
 Waverlng, 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 them into the swamp, a blackened. bloody mass.
 Up now, as the enemy are among the gunsl There is silence of ten seconds and then the flash and roar of more than 1000 msfkets and a rush forward with bayonets. For what ? Neither on the right nor left, nor in front of us a 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 a wounded man. The wheels of the guns cannot move until the blockade If dead is removed. Men can not pass from caisson to gun without climbing over winrows of dead. Every gun and wheel is smeared with blood every foot of grass has it's horri- ble stain. o,s..s
 Historians write of the glory of war. Bur ial parties saw murder where historians saw glory.-San Francisco Arg0nGut..