The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1889-01-25
A Battery in Hot Action.
DESCRIPTION OF BATTLEFIELD sCENE.--
NOT AS HISTORIANS TELL OF 1T,
BUT AS FIGHTING MEN
KNOWN 1T TO BE.

NOT AS HISTORIANS TELL OF 1T,
BUT AS FIGHTING MEN
KNOWN IT TO BE.
One who has fought on many q
battlefield writes the following thrill
ing description of the work of a bat
terry Of six guns:
Did you every see battery take po-
81 ion7
1t basu't the thrill of cavalry
charge, nor the grimness of line OF
bayonets moving slowly and determin-
edly on, but there is peculiar excite.
ment about ii that makes old veterans
rise IN their saddles and cheer.
We have been fighting at the edge
of the woods. Every cartridge box
has been emptied once or more, and
one-fourth of the brigade has melted
away in dead and wounded and miss
ing. Not a 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 gallops
battery, withdrawn from some other
position to save ours. The field fence
is scattered while you could count
thirty, and the guns rushed for the
hills behind US. Six horses to piece
three riders to each gun. Over dry
bitches where farmer would not
drive a wagon, through clumps of
bushes, over logs foot thick, every
horse on the gallop, every rider lash
ing 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 sackens his pace, not
cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns,
six caissons, 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 confused mob. We look again
and the six guns are in position, the
detached horses hurrying away, the
ammunition chests open, and along our
line runs the command:
"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 des,
pared.
The shattered old brigade has a
chance 10 breathe for the first time in
three hours as we form a line and lie
down. What grim, cool fellows those
cannoneers are. Every man is a per-
feet machine. Bullets splash dust in
their faces, but they do not vince.
bullets sing over and around; they d"
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 shell.
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 and shatter and
mangle men until their corpses cannot
be recognized as human. You would
hink tornado was bowling through
the forest, followed by pillows OF fire
and yet men live through 1it-aye! press
forward to capture the battery. We
n 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
mighty roar. The shrek of shell is
the wickedest sound in the war, but
nothing makes flesh crawl like the
demoniacal singing, purring, whistling
grape shot, and the serpeEt.like hiss of
canister
Mems legs and heads are torn from
bodies and bodies cut in two. A ro1nd
shot or shell takes two men out of the
rank as it crashes through. Grape and
canister NOV swath and pie the
dead on top of each other.
| Through the smoke wesee swarm of
men. 1t is not a battle line, but mob
of men desperate enough to bathe their
bayonets in the flame 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. Tweu.
ty men out of the battery are down,
and the firing is interrupted. The foe
accepl it as sign of wavering 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, 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
more than 8 900 muskets and a rush
forward with bsyonets. For what
Neither on the right nor left nor in
front of us is living foe! There are
corpses around US which have been
struck by three, four, and even si1
bullets, and nowhere on this acre OF
ground is a wounded man. The wheels
of the guns connot move until the
blockade of dead is removed Men can
not pass from caission to gun without
climbing over windrows of dead
Every gun and wheel is smeared with
blood; every foot of grass has lis hor'
rible stain.
Historians write of the glory of war
Burial parties saw murder where his
torians saw glory.
Ringing Noises.