St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-05-28
THE HoRRID DEVILS OF WAR.
The Scream OF Shell That
Blotted Men Off the Face of the

There is something terribly menacing
in the ping of musket ball as it cuts
the air above the heads of men in line
something to try the nerves of the
bravest in a rush of solid shot; but of
all the devils in war the scream of a
shell is the wickedest. A bombshell flies
with long "w-O-u-s-h!" something like
the rush of big skyrocket, and there are
shells used by the light artillery which
fly with a sort of l0ng-drawn sigh, not
at all terrifying. But the man who
hears the scream of Whitworth shell
will never forget the sound to the day
of his death. 1t is a concentration of
the war-whoop Of an Indian. the snarl
of tiger, and the scream OF woman
in mortal terror. 1t begins afar off with
amutterea threat of vengeance; it grows
upon the ear with howl as of wolves
in pursuit of the lone traveller; it comes
nearer with shrieks of baff1ed rage; it is
at hand with a scream which can be
ikened to nothing but the cries of a
mob mad for death and destruction.
l have seen a dozen men killed by
these Whitworth she'll. and 1 verify
believe that most of them were SO terri
fed by the sounds that they suffered
nothing in the moment of death. One
could tell, after few experiences,
whether the shell was in the direct line
or to the right or left, but the coming
ever broughta feeling of helplessness-
a sort of dumb terror which held the
limbs captive. One could not have run
could one run to? Who could say just
where these terr0rs would fall after
their hight-the instant they were to ex-
plode and send their fragments hither
and thither to search out and claim their
victims?
While the blockaders lay off the
mouth of the Cape Fear river, two or
three of the WhitwOrth guns were in
constant use by the Confederates. They
had range of six miles, and were al
most as accurate as rifles. w henever a
blockader ventured within range by
daylight she became target for a
Whitworth. If the wind was off shore
we could hear one of the ''devils" al
most as soon as it left the muzzle of the
gun. Its flight began with shrek of
fiendish glee, changed to moan
of agony, rose to scream for ven
geance, and the last quarter of
mile was combination OF scream and
and the cold chills to the spine. The
man who pretended not to fear them
was base hypocrite. The man whose
ears can take in those sounds without
affecting his nerves does not live to do
battle. Our vessel was struck two or
three times, and on five or six occasions
had close calls, but the shells which
struck were no more terrifying than
those which dropped into the water
with the hiss of a monster serpent a
hundred feet away.
To be killed by shell bursting at the
instant of contact means more than
death. 1t means such complete ami
hilatiOn as can be effected in no other
manner on earth, except by the expo
sion of gunpOwder or nltrO-glycerine.
The victim may see flash. hear a roar,
but it must come in the fiftieth part of
him the merest iota of time. Those to
the right and left see a flash of flame
and hear an explosion and the
''w-h-i-n-gw Of fragments, but the vic
tims-perhaps the man on his immedi-
ate right and left-has been blotted
off the face of the earth, as if
he had never existed. When the
roar of battle has died away to a
low growl; when the grOwl has become
an occasional mutter: when the mutter
has lapSed to gasp, in which a man in
blue or gray yields up MS life 10 stray
bullet, we will make search. There
is blood on the parched grass, bits of
burned clothing on limb and bush, a
lock of hair here and there with bit of
scalp attached. We may find button
or two, broken and twisted gun barrel
or bayonet, the visor of soldiers cap.
That is all. These are the relics-the
fragments-of a soldier struck by a
shell. That is. they may be. Sometimes
not even button is found, nothing but
a splash ON the earth to show that blood
and fragments fell there.