The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1885-07-17
A Good War Story.

met with q gentleman who was In the
artillery service during almost the
whole Of the war, being at first in field
service and then shut up in mortar
batteries at different places. When
Petersburg was invested he, a sergeant,
and his brother, a lieutenant, were in
a mortar battery situated near the old
Blanford cemetery, his brother being
in charge. Their principal duty waste
fire at the federal batteries and draw
their fire. When the confederates
made a demonstr&t;aa they had
bomb-prOofs to run into, OF course;
but one can't stay i'll q bomb-proof
and fire the mortar at the same time,
and, as might be supposed, they be-
came more familiar with pyrotechnic
displays than they cared for. There
was one Union battery in particular
that always gave them trouble when
ever they fired at it. 1t was known as
the "railroad-iron" battery, and was
very heavily armed. Moreover, the
gunners therein had the exact range of
the Blandford battery, which was
twice too large, and it rarely required
more than ten minutes to u the
confederates into their bomb-proof.
1t was in this Blandford battery that
one of the most curious and at the
time mysterious events of the wal oc-
cured.
zone night" says Sergt. Eggleston,
1--WE were working there in the battery
firing away in different directions, but
taking care to keep our hands off the
railroad iron battery, and watching
the shells as they flew around, ocea-
sionally jumping into the bomb proof
when one would light in our place, when
two fine-lookingmen, whom we all took
for general officers, suddenly walked
into the works. We could not tell
their exact rank, because they wore
white waistcoats and coats, but they
looked as though they were rank Off
GERS. They walked up to George, adj
dressed him as lieutenant, as though
they knew him, and lisa that they had
come out to see some mortar firing,
and hoped that he would accommodate
them if it was not inconvenient.
George replied that he wouldbe happy
to show them anythingin that line, and
turning to me, said, Touch up the
railroad-iron battery, joe Well, /
wished that those chaps had stayedin
their tents; but / though that it would
not be very long before they would be
glad to get into the bomb-proof, and
that the rest ofus couldg go in then also.
So / commenced to touch up thatrail-
road-iron place. In less than three
minutes we had walked up hehornet's
nest, and they were raining shells into
us at a terrific rate.
'"Those fellows over there seemed To
know that the occasion was an unusual
one. and they were determined to give
us allthat we could askfor. The shells
were dropped into our battery like
haiistones, bursting all around US, and
rolling around like footballs; but
there stood those two officers and
George, leaning up against O piece of
timber and talking as coolly as if they
were leaning on a fence a thousand
miles away from a piece of artillery.
A shell came. along and cut that piece
of timber In two, and scattered splin-
tiers all over place; but all that he
did was to lean against fresh place and
90 on talking. / don't believe that
either one of the three even winked. /
came to the conclusion that they liked
that thing better than / did, andItold
one of the gunners to shift his gun
around and play on something else, and
pretty soon / shifted another, and the
fire gradually died down. 81 knew that
George would stand there and be shot
at till the crack of doom before he
would suggest anything about bomb
proofs, and the other chaps didn't
want to say anything unless he did.
Well, they talked on for ten OF fifteen
minutes after the fire died down, and
then said that they would like to 60 on
to the skirmish line and see what was
going on there, if he would show them
the way. He told them to go out of
the battery on q certain side andfoilow
the path; they could not miss theskir-
mish. They left after expressing their
thanks for our kindness, bat they did
not say what their James were, and
George was too polite to ask them.
Nov the funny part of it comes In.
The next day George tried to find out
| who they were, but none of oursofficers
had been out there. The fact is, /
don't believe that any of our officers
had any white clothes to wear, and if
George had only thought q minute he
might have known that none Of them
would be roaming around at night to
see mortar-iring; they could stay in
camp and get enough of that. But he
could not find out who those men
were, though every effort was made,
as the thing began to get mysterious.
About two years ago, or longer,
George was on an Ohio river steam
boat talking to O. man in the saloon,
when a gentleman came up and said:
Are you not the lieutenant who was
lSn command al a mortar battery near