Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1891-07-09
A FIGHTING GIRL.
Her Terrible Battle With Dozen De
termined Soldiers.

termined Soldiers.
As our brigade advanced. crossing
pasture land, sweeping through thickets
and fording a creek which seemed to be
all turns and elbows, a man about ten
feet from me on the left dropped dead.
My company was on the extreme left Of
the line, you see, and the man was
tanker. He had been shot from the
window of a humble looking cabin
which stock in open ground about rifle
shot away.
Sergeant, take ten men and clean
those bushwhackers out and burn the
house" was the order / got from my
captain, and a minute later l had
squad marching away.
There had been more or less fighting
over this same ground all the forenoon,
and the artillery and musketry fire had
been pretty hot. We were now driving
the line, and as we advanced we found
many of the dead still lying where they
fell 1t wasn't lawful warfare for a
bushwhacker to hide away In a farm
house and shoot soldier in the back.
Even If a battle was raging such deed
smacked of murder If he could shoot
it was his business to be in the lines OPP
posed to us. Then if his bullets found
a human target it was the chances of
war, and if he happened to be captured
by US he would be treated as prisoner
OF war
We marched straight for the house,
expecting that the bushwhacker had
fled as soon as he fired the shot, but we
had not covered over half the distance
when rife cracked and one of my men
dropped with bullet in his heart. The
nearest cover to the house was stone
fence hundred feet in front
of it and a shed-barn about
the same distance from the back
door. Dividing my squad and now
adopting all the precautions we could,
all of us finally gained the shelters men
toned. 1t was log cabin, story and
half high, with two windows in front,
one on each side, and one in she rear.
The two doors were front and back.
How many men were in the house we
could not say, but as soon as in position
we opened fire on the doors and VIM
dows. Not shot was fired in return
for three or four minutes. Then one of
my men at the wall, who had exposed
himself, got bullet in the shoulder
and crawled away to hide under bank
of earth Our bullets soon riddled doors
and windows, and must have searched
every part of the house. We expected
to see three or four men dash out and
make run for it, or white flag to be
displayed in token of surrender, but all
was grimly silent. About ten minutes
after my man had been shot one of the
men at the shed got his head out too far
while shooting and received bullet in
return. 1t didn't kill him, but carried
away the right half Of his upper lip and
mustache, passed through his cheek,
carried away four teeth and split his
ear, and after term in the hospital he
was discharged and sent home
That was two killed and two wound
ed, and all apparently by the same wea-
pom. We knew it to be an ordinary
rife by the whip-lilke crack Of its re-
port, but there might be three or four
men in the house for all we could de-
termine. We kept blazing away at
doors and windows on the chance of hit
ting some one, and from the silence of
the next ten minutes l felt confident
that we had disabled them Then
gave the signal for rush at the house.
All of us were up and half way there
when a rife barrel was poked through
a broken pane and flash followed
The ball grazed my cheek and struck
the man behind me in the forehead and
dropped him dead. Next moment we
were at the doors, front and back, and
they were banged open with crash
This is what saw: "A boy soldier
lying dead on the aoor with an arm
torn off by fragment of shell. On the
bed was a gray-haired woman, with a
bullet wound in her face Standing in
the corner of the room, proud and de-
faint, with the unloaded rifle in her
hands, was girl of sixteen-a regular
country belle in grace and beauty.
II can do no more. Shoot us If you
will!' she said as she confronted us.
AYE! shootp' added the mother.
There lies my only boy, killed by your
guns this morning lie here wounded,
and my gal jim has dropped four or five
of you to get even! One gal to dozen
soldiers! Come and finish your work."
But we simply took the rife away and
left them with their dead, and we pitied
them even as we smarted with the sense
of our own Loss Detroit Free Press.
Went Into His Open Mouth.
D11rino tha war n soldier. woo I,.o,,r.1,4