Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1886-02-19

not less than five heavy and persistent
assaults, each of which was in succession
repulsed Truly it was one of the most
| desperate battles of the war. The Union
| loss in this days struggle is given at over
eight thousand, while that of the enemy
must have been much greater, without
| counting their loss in prisoners. And
/ then, too, the proportion of killed to
wounded was unusually large. At such
close quarters so many men were struck
in the head, as the result of deliberate
aim. Although to one in the front line
it did not seem rs if many men were fall
! ing about him, but steadily all day long
the firing of the sharp shooters accom-
plished its fatal work until the ground
was literally strewn with the dead. The
weather was warm the men got tired of
/ lying SO long in positions of constraint to
their bodies; they wanted water and n
chance to stretch their Wearied limbs, and
so, although knowing it was almost in
slant death, they would rise and run for
the rear, sure to be followed by vOlley
of bullets from the rebelsharp shooters
never during over four years of active
service in the army witnessed so many in
dlvldual acts of daring and fOOlhardneSS
on the part of soldiers a. on this day In
the company which commanded, out of
thlrty-One men who entered the fight
nineteen were killed and wounded, most
of them killed instantly, and half of that
number shot in consequence of acts of
foolhardy daring. uncalled Tor in the re-
quirements of faithful duty. At the time
| attributed much of this devil-may-care
spirit to the WhiSkey in the Canteens, is
sued to us the day before. There was II
drunken artillery officer who rode up and
down along our line, with gay uniform,
mounted on IA spirited horse, swinging his
hat, and calling on the men to charge,
who seemed to possess a charmed life, for
he escaped unframed. The man stopped
and talked with me a short time, with the
bullets flying all about him, when one of
us dld not dare poke up IL finger for fear
of having it shot of \ cap ON a bayOnct
stuck mp above the breastwork was sure
to he perforated by rebel bullets When
the ammunition of one caisson had been
exhausted, dozen men recklessly rushed
after another between the two lines and
dragged it back with them amid Il per
feet hailstorm of lead Not less than Il
hundred dead bodies lay close around that
brass piece of artillery captured from
the enemy when night drew her sable
curtain over the sanguiuary work of the
day
During the night the enemy abandoned
the salient, and early the next morning
the Union troops could 90 over the scene
of the previous days carnage without fear
of mulestation. "Piles of dead" is often
used as Il figure of speech, but in the
works abandoned by the rebels piles of
dead literally and without eXaggeration
were lying in the compartments which |
have previously mentioned. Two. three,
and four deep, tangled up with each other
bodies and limbs intertWined, actual heaps
of dead, their black and bluated faces up
turned to the sky, in all manner of posi-
tons, and decomposition polluting the at
mosphere with horrible stencil 1t was
such picture of war; as few people, even
those VINO make Il business of war, are per-
mltted to witness. Ii would take the pen
OF Victor Hugo to faithfully describe
such Il scene of death and carnage, such a
hideOus and appalling holocaust of human
lie. In the woods, Immediately in the
rear OF the rebel line OF earthWOrkS, one
could see the fearful effect of the musketry
fire from the Union line. Swintou, in
his history, says that ali the trees with
in range of the musketry were
killed, so blightlng in its effects was the
fire OF the leaden bullets poured into the
forest in the twenty hours the Union
troops were ordered To never cease firing.
On that morning after the battle i saw
two oak trees of vigorous growth. about
Il inches i'll diameter, that had been ac-
tually cut i'll two four or five feet from
the ground 10y the bullets fired from the
Union line in front the day before. This
may give the reader some idea Of
he terrible fire concentrated on the
Confederate line. behind their cart h
works on that neverto- be forgotten
18th of May, 1864. by the troops of the
Army OF the Potomac. In the ial of lstj5,
WAen WAS still III the army, Visited
Washington on official business As en-
tered the war department on each side of
the man entrance, in front and under Il
little projecting pOrtico, | saw two stumps
of trees, the same that had witnessed on
the batlir field of SpOttsylvania. They
had been sawed of and carried To Wash
lngton as mementucs of the blouditst field
of battle which history records of the late
rebellion.