Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-12-16
THE FIRST GUN.
On the Pennsylvania and Maryland
Boundary, July I,
1858.
r"J. R.min CHICAGO News !

["J. R." in Chicago News
The day was torrid--one of those sections
of time which seem to have been moved up
from the internal regions for the special tor
ment of man and beast. Out on the dusty
road, which drew its yellow sinuous length,
like gorgeous serpent, toward the north IN
til it passed out Of sight over q neighboring
hill, few figures moved lazily along. A
sentry by the roadside wiped his heated fore
head at every turn he made on his short beat,
and Noticed that he fingered lovingly and
oftenest at the point where his path passed
under the thin-leaved branches of a parched
cherry tree. 1t was one of those days when
out of the excessive heat and the silence it en-
genders there seems to grow an ominous fore
boding OF something fearful to be relpeIn-
bered through all coming time.
And as we thus lay, partly sheltered from
the glowing sun, offering fragmentary sug-
gestions and then relapsing into the inertia
which seemed to hold all nature in its grasp,
out of the distant north came faint, far-off
sound, qUivering as it passed along the hot
cir and sweeping off to the south.
"Hark!'' exclaimed one Of the recu1nbent
party, as he raised himself on his elbow and
A1StSHCu iIitSAuiI OllstOS q gum!
And then as another and another faint
''boon" came down to us, rather suggestions
of sound than sound itself, we knew that
somewhere beyond the wavy yellow haze
with which the midday sun bordered the
landscape within view, men were sternly
working the engines of death, and shot were
crashing through human lives and crunching
human bones.
1t was not a new sound to any of us, but
weeks had gone by since we had heard it, and
its peculiar significance lay in the fact that,
like the song of the sirens, it would draw
within the vortex all who came under it's
magic spell.
We did not know then, as we afterward
knew, that away up there beyond the cir
cumscrlbed horizon, where those oIninous
sounds had birth, our comrades were fighting
an almost hopeless fight, going down Ike
leaves before an autumnal gale, retreatmg
before force whose long lines Tapped their
scanty 'front.' rallying, fighting On, and dying
to hold the ground upon which should be
fought the most momentous battle of modern
times.
So we lay and listened, and as the faint
pulsations grew in volume men and officers
forsook their shady coyerts and came out to
the edge Of the road, as If thinking they could
better hear along the highway than from the
contiguous field.
And soon, over the brow of the hill, where
the road banded the slope with its bright
golden ribbon, a rider came into view,
furiously squirting his fast-failing horse 1
shall never forget the effect of the sudden
appearance of this desperate horseman as he
burst into view on the summit of the ridge,
surrounded by a halo of glitteEing dust,
which, spattered up by his horses feet, huns
in the still air. an amber cloud. Outinto the
hot sunshine with a rush came hundreds of
halT-clad men, who lined the road on either
side and threw at. him broadside OF
questions as he passed through
Covered as he was with dust, his rank was
indistiDguish&ble; he looked out ahead
through gray mask, and on the sides of his
exhausted horse little rivulets Of blood
streanled away from the spurs until their
courses were choked in a marsh of scarlet
mire
1t was not strange that we crowded about
him with our eager inquiries, for he was the
link which bound us to the tragedy that was
being enacted away over the Pennsylvania
hills. A dozen canteens were held up to hi1n,
but he refused them all, waving them away
with his hand as he asked:
"Where are your headquarters?'
hundred hands pointed to the white tents
bleaching in the sunlight few yards in the
rear, and he lifted his painting beast to its
work, saying, as he moved on:
''The First corps is in and badly cut upn
We knew our call would instantly come,
and each one set about the task of preparing
for the march. In few moments a bugie
blast came up from headquarters and was
echoed at once by the weird melody of the
regimental bugles calling the boys into the
| ranks.
In fifteen minutes we were strapped up and
out on the road, headed to the north toward
the field where the grass was growing Grim
son and mangled soldiers were crawling er.t
of the not sun under the shade in the bushes
to die.
Mile after mile wecovered with weary feet
over the hot, strangling dust, through cool
vistas of forest, by scattered farm houses
whose occupants had left their labor and
leaned on the fences looking with curious,
wistful faces on the long column rolling VI
to the front. Under the terrible heat the
| battery horses struggled On with their tongues
lolling out, dry and cracked by the dust
men gasped and tottered and fell by the road
side unnoticed; brigades were cut down te
| regiments and regiments were reduced to
companies; but through it all came the stern
merciless:
Forward boys, forward" And We
plunged on.
| In front, growing nearer and clearer with
every step we took, the thunder Of the guns
swept along, beating the hot air as with in
visible wings, and as we approached the field
| the long, crashing roll of musketry told us, il
unmistakable tones, the battle of Gettysburg
| was on.
Rather Monotonous.