Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1886-10-01
sHARpsHoorERs AT PETERSBURG.

An Ex-COmfed@rmee Tells OF some EXPO
raences While An the Trenches.
aThe narrowest escape ever had. said
we'll known lieutenant of police in Bal
timore, awas In front Of Petersburg
aMy regiment was In Pickett's division
Of Longstreet's corps. and another fellow
and were in trench together. We were
mt the front Of the line. The other fellows
name was Dick. The trench was about
six feet deep. and there was groove cut
in the top OF the front. through which we
did our shooting at the Yankees. When
we wanted to pop away we'd lay the gun
barrel along that groove, get quick sight
on the enemy, pull the trigger, and then
jump down. Dick was pig headed sort
of chap. / told him dozen times he
didn't have sense enough to hold his head
on his shoulders.
"There was a lot of Yankee sharpshoot-
ers in front of us, and cautioned Dick to
look out how he exposed himself ] tell
you 1t was dangerous for even SO much as
aman' s ear to get in sight of those fellows.
heard the bullets whistling lively over
our trench, and / knew by the
sound that they were forced
balls A forced ball, you know Is
a bullet from a bree ch-loader. II is a
little bigger than the diameter OF the gun
barrel, and consequently it goes out with
greater force than the ball from a muz-
zle-loader The way we could distinguish
between the two kinds of guns was that II
1t was q bret :h-loadcr the bullet got to
you before the report; but IL 1t was a
muzzle-loader the report got to you be-
fore the ball. Most all of the Yanks used
the breech-loader, and you can just bet
your boots we were mighty careful how
we got in their way.
@As I was saying, the bullets were
whistling pretty lively over our trench
was loaded, and was about TO put my gun
In the groove and pick off blue-coat
Dick was standing in front OF the groove
putting in charge. He had his eye at
the breech of his gun examining It, and
the side OF his head was turned toward
the groove. While he was standing there
1T was not more than half a minute al
together-one of the forced balls came
singing through the groove and bored a
hole clear through his head as big as o
walnut. He fell dead. I stepped across
to him, and in doing so passed in front Of
the groove. Just as got on the other
side of the trench another bullet passed
through the groove and buried itself in
the rear wall of the trench. Two other
balls followed it, and buried themselves
in the identical hole made by the first
bullet The sharp-shooter who did that
neat job was half-mile away.
"Pretty good shooting suggested one
of the listeners.
II should say So" said the lieutenant,
with an expressive shrug of the shoulders.
.Some of those Yankee sharpshooters
were marvellous. They had little tele-
scopes on their rides that would fetch a
man up close until he seemed to be about
only 100 yards away from the muzz' z'e.
I've seen them pick man OFF who was a
mile away. They could hit so far you
couldn't hear the report OF the gun. You
wouldn't have any idea that anybody was
in sight of you, and all of sudden, with
everything as silent as the grave and not
a sound of a gun, here would come skip
ping along one of those forced balls and
cut hole clear through you.
@How we used to lay for these sharp
shooters, though" he said, chuckling at
the remembrance. "Wed keep lookout
for every little puff of smoke. The sharp
shooters you know, mostly climbed trees
and hid themselves In the bran ches. So,
every time they'd shoot there'd be tell
tale puff of smoke come ont of the tree.
just as soon as we'd see one of those little
puffs of smoke the entire battery would
rain shot and shell into that tree, and
we'd make 1t 30 hot for the sharpshooter
that he'd either tumble or crawl out,
d cad or alive. The best shooters were In
the Union army. Most of them came
from the west, and many Of them had
been scouts in the Indian country. They
rarely missed man at the distance Of
mile. Indeed, they could hit any object
as big as pie plate that far away. Chi
cago Ledger.