News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-05-18
AN ARTILLERY DUEL.
What it is Like-The Last Day at
Gettysburg.

At 2 o'clock. says NJ. Quad, writing
of the last day of the battle of Gettys.
burg, while there was almost perfect
silence over that great battle field, the
sudden boom of gun was heard from
Lees center. Its echoes were yet roll
ing back and forth, from hill to hill,
when there came crash as if the hea-
vens and the earth had met. Lee had
opened with nearly $50 pieces of artil-
lery. Meade had massed eighty or more
guns in the centre to reply, and now
800 cannon began their awful din.
An officer standing within thirty feet
of three six-pounders which are being
rapidly fired must shout his orders.
One standing as neaz as that to 81 full
battery could not hear thunder clap in
the sky above. The roar of twenty
pieces will drown ordinary voices half
mile away. Mcclellan had sixty or
seventy guns massed at Malvern Hill,
and dishes were shaken down in houses
six miles away. The cannonade at the
first Bull Run was nothing compared to
subsequent battles, and yet the rever-
berations were distinctly heard in Wash
ington, twenty miles away. The can
nonade at Fredericksburg toppled down
farmhouse chimneys eight miles dis
tant, and was heard twenty live miles.
Think, then, of 230 pieces of artillery,
many of them Parrot guns, massed on
4La oF1 l, oll g., ,,4
men could serve them An earthquake
could not thus have shaken the earth.
Men became giddy and staggered, and
houses seemed to lift off their founda-
tions. In ten minutes after the first
gun was fred, one could no longer dis
tinguish single reports. All reports
were consolidated into one terrible
roar, which alarmed cattle IN the fields
fifteen miles away, and was plainly
heard by human ears forty miles away.
Regiments on the fanks of that awful
cannonade could not believe that any
one would live through it.
In talking with Confederates who
were in the center that day, I have
many times asked for the particulars of
the damage done by the Federal fire.
All answered alike. It's effect was ter
ribly demoralizing, but not SO destruc-
tive as one would imagine. Hundreds
of shot and shell flew over their heads
and hurt no one. Others struck into
bodies of men getting into position for
oil I, IL
brigades. Here and there shell mu-
tilated dozen men, killed three or four
horses, or dismounted captain; but
Lees entire loss by the whole cannon
ade did not amount to 500 men.
On the Federal side the loss was no
greater-the Generalization about the
same 'st troops in the world
1. - a. st. ad ia lire rsA- a5tssf~-.s
lre. If t2ey are moving it is different,
xnd the wbirr of shot and scream of
Shell are part of the programme. The
Oonfederates planted almost every shot
into the Federal position, and for time
every living thing Showers
of dirt, flung high in air by the shells,
descended upon men lying in the ravines,
and it is singular fact that two of the
artillerists in Thomas's battery were
killed by stones flung out by shot or
shell. Confederate shot which struck
a breaStwork flung jugged splinter
more than 200 feet at right angles and
killed one man and broke the arm of
second. The Federal guns were short
ammunition on the start, and through
out the cannonade the fire was slower
and more regular than the Confederates.
Thomas alone had four cassions hit and
blown up, and some of our batteries
lost half their horses and fourth of
their men.