Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-01-24
ABatteryi nHot Action.
A Battle Scene, Not as Historians
Write, But as Soldiers See 1t.
There is no Dress Parade i'm the Scenes
BePe Described.

One who has fought on many a battle
field writes the following thrilling de-
scription of the work of a battery of six
guns:
Did you ever see battery take posi-
toni
1t hasn't the thrill OF a cavalry charge.
nor the grimness of q line of bavonets
moving slowly and determinedly on, but
there is peculiar excitement about il
that makes old veterans rise in their ssd-
dies and cheer.
We have been fighting at the ed. , of
the woods. Every cartridge box has been
en- piled once or more, and one-fourth of
the brig ade has melted away in dead and
wounded and missing. Not cheer is
heard in the whole brigade We know
that we are being driven foot by foot, and
that when we break once more the line
will go to pieces and the enemy will pour
through the gap.
Here comes help!
Down the crowded highway galiops a
battery, withdrawn from some other po-
sition to save ours. The field fence is
scattered while you could count thirty,
us. Six horses to piece-three riders
to each gun. Over dry bitches where q
farmer would not drive wagon, through
clumps of bushes, over logs foot thick,
every horse on the gallop, every rider
flashing his team and yelling-the sight
behind us making US forget the foe in
front. The guns jump two feet high as
the heavy wheels strike rock or log, but
not horse slackens his pace, not can
noneer loses his seat Six guns, six can
mons, sixty horses, eighty men, race for
the brow of the hill as if he who should
reach it first would be knighted
A moment ago the battery was CON
fused mob. We look again and the six
guns are in position, the detached horses
are hurrying away, the ammunition chest
open, and aIong our line runs the COM
mand:
"Give them one more volley and fall
back to support the guns" We have
scarcely obeyed when boom! boom! opens
the battery, and jets of fire jump down
and scorch the green trees under which
we fought and despaired.
The shattered old brigade has chance
to breathe for the first time in three
hours, as we form a line and lie down.
What grim, cool fellows these cannoneers
are. Every man is perfect machine.
| Bullets splash dust in their faces, but
they do not vince. Bullets sing over and
around; they do not dodge. There goes
one to the earth, shot through the head
as he sponged his gun. That machinery
loses just one beat, misses just one cog
In the wheels and then works away again
as before.
Every gun is using short-fuse she'll
The ground shakes and trembles, the roar
shuts out all sounds from line three
miles long, and the shells go shrieking
into the swamp to cut trees short off, to
NOW great gaps in the bushes, hunt out
| ana shatter and mangle men until their
| cOrpses cannot be recognized as human
You woald think a tornado was bowling
through the forest, followed by pillows OF
| ire, and yet men live through it-aye,
press forward to capture the battery. We
can hear their shouts as they form the
rush.
Now the shells are changed for grape
| and canister, and guns are fred SO fast
that all reports blend into one mig hty
roar. The shrek of shell is the wicked
| flesh crawl like the demoniacal singing
| pent like hiss Of canister.
Mems legs and heads are torn from
bodies and bodies cut in two. round
short shell takes two men out of the rank
as it brushes through. Grape and CAMS
ter NOW swath and pile the dead on top
| of eaoh other.
Through the smoke we see swarm of
men. It is not battle line, but mob
of men desperate enough to battle their
bayonets in the fame of the guns. The
guns leap from the ground, almost, as
they are depressed on the foe, and shrieks
| and screams and shouts blend into one
awful and steady cry. Twenty men out
of the battery are down, and the firing is
| interrupted. The foe accept it as sign
| of waver1ng and come rushing on. They
| are not ten feet away when the guns give
them the last shot. That discharge picks
living men off their feet and throws them
| into the swamp a blackened bloody mass.
Up, now, as the enemy are among the
guns. There is silence of ten seconds,
and then the flash and roar of 800 mus
Kets and a rush forward With bayonets.
For what? Neither to the right nor left
is a living foe! There are corpses around
Us which have been struck by three, four,
and even six bullets, and nowhere on this
acre of ground is a wounded man. The
wheels of the guns cannot move until the
blockade of the dead is removed. Men
cannot pass from caisson to gun without
passing over windows of dead. Every
gun and wheel is smeared with blood
every foot of grass has its horrible stain.
Histori ans write of the glory of war.
Burial parties saw murder where histor-
ians saw glory.