Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-11-19
WAR ANNALS.
Gid Soldiers Of Both Armies Fighting
Their Battles Over
Again.
Anecdotes Of the Battle field, the Weary
March, and the Cheerful
Campfire.
Queer Things in =

Men might write for {. Z. wears Of
the curious phases OF war, anu still leave
the sublec fresh. War is a lottery. and
the prizes are shot, shell. wounds and
death. Tens of thousands of men served
lour years in the late war and returned
home. In a thousand cases recruits We're
kllled within twenty four hours after reach
ing the front. Wars missiles are no re-
specters of persons, and the soldier who
fights an all days battle without receiving
q wound may be killed in his tent at night
by the accidental discharge of musket.
AT the battle of Franklin, says the .Army
Buttetin, the first shell sent from the first
Union tield-piece to open fire killed twen-
ty-six Confederates. The next five shells
from the same gun either failed to explode
or cleared the advancing lines. In this
same fight, the horse Of a Confederate
Colonel was cut square in two by shot,
and the rider escaped unhurt. Ten min
utes after, Union officer behind the
breastworks stumbled and fell forward on
the ground, breaking his neck.
In one of the assaults on Fort Wagner.
in Charleston harbor, the iron-clad feet,
assisted by land batteries numbering
twenty-seven heavy cannon, bombarded
the fort for two hours before killing q
SINGLE soldier. From seventy to eighty
heavy cannon were hurting three tons of
iron into the fort each minute, and vet no
one was hurt until over three hundred tons
OF solid DEATH had been wasted. AS an
offset TO this, witness the work Of q single
solid shot thrown from Federal gunboat
on the Lower Mississippi. A Confederate
flying battery was just taking position, and
one piece had already opened fire. The
Federal shot was aimed at this piece. The
big mass OF iron struck the Six FOUNDER
square on the muzzle aud upset gun and
carriage. piece Of the muzzle, weighing
about twenty pounds, was broken, and this
flew to the left and killed two men. Three
men were hurt by smaller fragments Or fly
ing splinters. The big shot next struck and
exploded q caisson, killing three more
men and woundiug two others. From the
caisson it turned to the right, killed a
horse, smashed wheel of tield-piece,
and crushed the leg of sergeant to q
bloody mass. That one shot SO disorgan-
lied the battery that it limberea up and
wheeled away to cover.
While heavy ordnance is necessary in re-
duclng forts and carthworlSs, it is doubtful
il there was any profit in the work of the
big guns carried by the IRON clads Oh the
rivers. When Mcclellan fell back he had
the cover of gun boats, and some writer's
have claimed that their fire saved his army
from capture. So far as the Confederacy
records show, the loss by the hundreds Of
enormous shells thrown over the heads of
our troops into the woods by these great
cannon amounted to no more than one
hundred men. They We're q new thing
then, and the effect of the awful crash and
terrific explosion On the men was democrat
izing on the troops in line.
A Union gunboat on the White River
threw three shells into Confederate camp,
killed nearly fifty men aud routed force
of 500. Within week after that event the
Confederate General Shelby planted fou,
pieces of flying artillery on the levee, with
i'll four hundred feet Of the same gunboat
at anchor, and without the least cover for
men or guns kept up the fight for over an
hour, or until the gunboat backed out Of it
and steamed away.
The chances in 81 lottery can be figured
down fine, and u certain percentage of es-
capes is allowed in q steamboat explosion;
but he who goes to war has nothing to con-
sole him. He may dodge two-bundred-
pound shell and be killed by two buckshot.
He may receive dozen bullets and live
on, or the first may be fatal. He may ride
in the widest charge unhurt, and he may
be killed by a stray bullet around his camp
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