The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1882-04-27
Supporting the Guns

Did you ever see battery take positions
1t hasn't the thrill of q 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 up in their saddles and cheer
We have been fighting at the edge of the
woods. Every cartridge box has been
emptied once and more aud one fourth Of
the brigade has melted away in dead and
wounded and missing. Not cheer is heard
in the whole brigade. We are being driv-
on foot by foot and when we break back
once more the line will go to pieces and
then the enemy will pour through the gap.
Here comes help!
Down the crowded highway gullops a
battery, withdrawn from some position to
save ours. The field fence is scattered
" hiIe you count thirty aud 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 a
wagon, through clumps of bushes, over
logs foot thick, every rider lashing his
team and yelling the sight behind 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 caissons, six
ty horses, eighty men race for the brow of
the hill as if he who reached it first would
be knighted.
A moment ago the battery was confus-
ed mob. We lock again and the six guns
are in position and detached horses run
ming to the rear. ammunition chests open,
and along our line runs the command,
"Giye them another yolley and fall back
to support the guns" We have scarcely
obeyed when boom boom! opens the bat
terry and jets OF fire jump down and scorch
the green trees under which we fought and
despnired.
The shattered old brigade has a chance
TO breathe for the first time 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 do not
vince Bullets sing over and around;
they do not do lge. 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 away again as before.
Every gun is using short fuse shell. The
ground shakes and trembles, tho roar shuts
out all sounds from battle line three miles
long, and the shells go shrieking into the
swamp to cut trees short of, tc NOV great
gaps in the bushes, to hunt out and shat
ter and mangle men until their corpses
cannot be recognized as human. You
would think = tornado was bowling the
forest, followed by billows Of fire, and yet
men live through it-ays. 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 fired so that
reports blend together in one mighty roar.
The shrek OF shell is the wickedest
sound OF war, but nothing makes the flesh
crawl like the demoniac singing, purring,
whistling grspe-shot and the serpent-like
hiss OF canister. Mems heads and legsa are
torn from bodies and bodies cut in two.
A round shot or shell takes two men out
OF tho rank as it crashes through. Grape
and canister NOW q swath and pile the
dead on top OF each other
Through the smoke we see swarm of
men. 1t is not like battle line, but a
mob OF men desperate enough 10 bathe
their bayonets in the fame Of the guns.
The guns leap from the ground, almost,
as they are depressed on the foe and
sbrieks and screams and shouts blend into
one awful and steady cry. Twenty men
on, Of the battery are down and the firing
Is interrupted. The foe accept il ass sign
Of wa vering and come rushing on. They
are no, ten feet away when the guns give
them last shot Ths, discharge picks
living men Of their fee, and hurls them