Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-06-07

now gave the gunboats in Turkey Bend the
range and location Of the confederate right,
and dozen monster guns suddenly opened
fire. Great shells rose with terrible whirr,
sailed over the heads Of Porter's men, and
fell with crash which was heard miles
away. Branches as thick as a mans body
and fifty feet long crashed down on the
massing confederates, or were whirled about
like straws, and pines which had brayed the
hurricane and the lightning flash for half a
century were splintered and riven and
dashed to earth at a blow. Under the cover
of the wood9-amidst the awful explosions
and the fearful crashes, the confederates re-
formed and moved out again.
The instant those gray lines were clear of
the forest Malvern Hill shook and trembled
again with the roar Of cannon, and the gun
boats redoubled their fire. Shot and shell,
and grape shot and canister whistled and
screamed until there was one awful and con-
tinuous shrek. Every man in gray looked
into the eyes Of horrible death, and yet the
columns moved forward without an instant's
halt. "A Regiments were decimated before
they had traversed third of the distance,
and yet the survivors moved forward. One
shell from the gunboats killed forty-one
men, but the gap was closed and eleven men
left TO represent the company. Think of
the three hundred cannon, the shrieking
screaming tons Of iron hurled into that
crowded mass, and then wonder how men
faced it With heads bent forward as if
breasting snow storm-with teeth hard
clenched and muskets tightly grasped, the
confederates again dashed at the hill 10 be
again confronted and withered by the fire Of
COUGHS men. A single volley and the gray
lines were no more In place of them were
1f .1.l III e..
battalions rushing back to cover.
Then silence fell upon hill and forest,
broken for the next two hours only by the
sulen boom of the PARROTS on the gun-boats,
as their fire was still trained on the woods.
McClelan's left was his weakest point, and
that weakest point had beaten back two
desperate charges by 10000 men, and had
lost above hundred in killed and wounded.
| II the left could not be routed, the center
must be impregnable. Did the silence
mean that the enemy had abandoned his
purpose Men looked down upon those
fields sucking the blood Of 5000 corpses and
answered, yes.
Silence is never more ominous than dur
ing battle. Then it means that batteries
are taking new positions, battle-lines being
changed, and new plans being brought into
play. Let the roar of battle suddenly die
away on the right or left and grim silence
takes its place, and those who were fighting
| like heroes a moment before will turn pale
and tremble.
At four O'Clock the birds sang in the old
trees around the Malvern House, and COM
manders of brigades and divisions asked
each other what that silence meant. Not a
living confederate could be seen and what
was passing under the pines no man knew
Beaten back in those two desperate charges
the confederates were the more determined
| They had attacked by regiments and failed.
Now they would attack by brigades and di-
sun hung like a great ball Of fire above the
trees, fury was let loose. Scarcely gun
was fired as warning. All of sudden
two hundred confederate field pieces were
galloped to positions along the far edges of
the fields and and at once opened terrible
fire on Malvern Hill. Three hundred guns
instantly replied, and the roar of that terri
BILE artillery duel was plainly heard thirty
miles away.
For half an hour hill and plain were envel-
oped in semi-darkness, through which flames
darted and missiles shrieked. Then the con-
federate batteries suddenly ceased and the
gray infantry moved out of the woods. Over
| the bloody grass--over the dead-a mighty
torrent of war swept forward to do or die.
Death swooped down from the plateau and
claimed scores and hundreds. The gunboats
hurled death to hundreds more, but those
lines never stopped till within thirty yards
of the creek. Then Couch's men rose up
and swept them off their feet with one terri
BILE volley.
The federal cheers had not yet died away
when the gray masses came again. Brig
AIDES reduced TO 700 men by that fire rallied
and reformed where the corpses lay three
deep, and dashed at the mn T., tho aomhle-
quick, but not to reach it. Three-fve
seven successive times those gray lines
rallied and rushed, and field batteries crept
forward over the corpses until the color of
the gunners' eyes could be told by the men
under the hill. When the sun went down
the fight was ended. McClellau's position
was impregnable. His left wing alone had
beaten back five times its strength, and the
army which had so exultantly pursued
and which was so persistently determined
to destroy was scattered TO the core
Those who looked down from Round Top
at Gettysburg after Longstreet's charge
did not see such a sight as the men who
looked across the meadows of Crews farm
The horrors of war left the footprints there
which fifty years of time cannot efface.
Not hundred trees are missing from
that dark, silent forest. There they stand
Just as when that July sun went down OIL
those scenes of horror 1t was not tor
nado which rent and twisted and shivered
and left scars and traces to astound. II
was not the sudden sweep of whirlwind
which brought down tree tops and spin
tered trunks.
There it lay. In the sandy bed of dry
ravine in those woods which hid Magruder's
men that day, found a startling reminder
of that fierce grapple. There lay an unex
poded UNDERGROUND shell, Just as il
crashed through the trees. Relic hunter
have carried away thousands of bullets ant
hundreds of pieces of shell, and the battle
field has sent to the Richmond junk DEALER
tons upon tons of lead and iron, but no mar
, has been bold enough to disturb this sleep
, ing monster.
All day long as cannon roared and mus
kets cracked, Mcclellan was hurrying hi
! trains through Deep Bottom to the river
! whose glimmer his soldiers could see wher
the smoke lifted. Night brought him vic
q tory, but it also brought retreat. Only wheI
! the river was reached could the army be fec
l., and reorganized.
' The afternoon is waning as turn for
last look at the old brick house with its scar
! of ball and bullet. The rent and shivere'
. trees cast their shadows on the bricks. NJ
[ hand has traced word letter there but still
r | read
' "Twenty thousand federals lie dead be
tween this hill and Chickahominy VIII
a sacrificed them p"-COr. Detroit Free Press
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