Connecticut western news., 1882-05-03
AN ARTILLERY DUEL.
What it is Like-The Last Day at
 Gettysburg.

At2 o'clock, says M. 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 a gun was heard from Lees center. Its echoes were yet roll ing back and forth, from hill to hill, when there came a crash as if the hea- vens and the earth had met. Lee had opened with nearly 15O pieces of artil- lery. Meade had massed eighty or more guns in the centre to reply, and now 300 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 near as that to full battery could not hear 8 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 five miles. Think, then, of 230 pieces of artillery, many of them Parrot guns, massed on &Lo oros% oc b;11o o~,d oil Rripo oo Tocf O q 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 fired, 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 Hanks 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, have many times asked for the particulars of the damage done by the Federal fire. All answered alike. Its 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 assault, and opened lanes through whole brigades. Here and there shell mu- tilated 8 dozen men, killed three or four horses, or dismounted 8 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 demoralization about the same. The best troops in the world will not stand in line under artillery fire. If they are moving it is different, and the whirr of shot and scream of shell are part of the programme. The Confederates planted almost every shot into the Federal position, and for a time every living thing gsoughtcover Showers of dirt, flung high in air by the shells, descended upon men lying in the raviaes, and it is singular fact that two of the artillerists in Thomas's battery were killed by stones flung out by shot ol shell. A Confederate shot which struck ! breastwork flung a jugged splinter more than 200 feet at right angles and killed one man and broke the arm of g second. The Federal guns were short ofammunition on the start, and through out the cannonade the fire was slower and more regular than the Confederates Thomas alone had four cassions hit anG blown up, and some of our batterie' lost half their horses and a fourth O . their men.