Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1882-06-27

| Of war rolling back and forth in its efforts
to beat down the living walls which i'm
prisoned it. At in the morning Ewell
put forward fresh troops, and then the
|climax came. Above the steady crash
of musketry and the roar Of artillery the
shouts of the advancing Confederates
could plainly be heard as they advanced
to the last grapple. On came the gray
lines, massed for assault, some singing,
some cheering-all ready to die. The
blue answered cheer for cheer, and then
came the shock. Slocum said it was the
coolest, fercest fighting he ever saw.
Birney said he never saw such reckless
fear of death. Geary said the Confeder-
a,es charged into his lines again and
again, and no fire could push them back.
Ewell said, as his men closed in for the
climax "Such fighting must soon de-
eide the day or leave no one alive to
fight" Slocum stood firm for half an
hour. Then. as the fire of several regi-
ments began to slacken for want Of am
munition, the Confederates began to
push him. Reinforcements were sent
from the sixth Corps, artillery advanced
and then Ewell had to give way in turn.
He had done his best. Slowly the gray
lines were pushed back over the winrows
of dead and wounded-fghting grimly
dying sullenly, and an hour before
noon Slocum had recovered all the ground
los, the day before, and Lee had played
another card and lost. He had only one
more left.
From IL until . o'clock there was a
treacherous armistice, broken now on
the right BY boom of a cannon-in the
center by the fire Of sharp-shooters-on
the left by ripple of musketry. Ewell
had lost, Lee had in turn attacked both
wings, and both attacks had been repul-
sed. He was now to attack the centre.
EVERY MAN IN BOTH ARMIES KNEW
WHERE THE BLOW WAS TO FALL.
and one had but to cast his eyes over
that center to realize at what cost Lee
would attack. Every exposed situation
had been fortified, hundreds Of rifle pits
excavated, and every ravine would be
packed with Federal infantry. There
were stone walls, hills and ridges as nat
ural covers for the defenders, and no
field of war offered better positions for
artillery. The Federal artillery on Gem
etery Ridge could pour in its fire over the
heads of the infantry on the slopes, and
the grim cannon in position on Cemetery
Hill would enflade all the front at grape
and canister range. Meade was ready
at noon-Lee not until 2 o'clock. One
by one his guns were massed in the CEN
tire, his choicest troops put forward as
wedge, and when he took last survey
of his lines he knew that the climax OF
three days of terrific fighting was at hand.
Every order had been carried out, every
suggestion considered. If he could PEN
citrate the Federal centre Meade was
beaten if he failed to do it he must fall
back to the Potomac. At 2 o'clock,
while there was almost perfect silence
over that great battlefield, the sudden
boom Of gun was heard from Lees
centre. It's echoes were yet rolling back
and forth from hill to hill when there
came a crash as if the heavens and the
earth had met. Lee had opened with
nearly $50 pieces Of artillery. Meade
had massed eighty or more guns in the
centre to reply, and now 800 cannon be-
gan their awful din. An officer stand
| ing within thirty feet Of three six-pound-
ers which are being rapidly fired must
shout his orders. One standing as near
as that to full battery could not hear a
thunder.clap in the sky above. The
roar of
TWENTY PIECES OF ARTILLERY WILL
| DROWN ORDINARY VOICES HALF A
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 reverberations were distinctly
heard in Washington, twenty miles away
The cannonads at Fredericksburg top
pied down farmhouse chimneys eight
miles distant and was heard twenty. FIVE
miles. Think, then, Of $50 pieces Of
artillery, many Of them Parrot guns,
massed on the crest of hills and all firing
as fast as men could serve them! An
earthquake could not thus have shaken
the earth. Men became giddy and stag
rered, and houses seemed to lift of their
foundations. In ten minutes after the