The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-05-10
UNDER THE
FIRST FIRE.
How the Soldier Feels When HG First
Comes in the Range Of the Enemy.
The Peculiar Effects Burning Powder Pro-
duces-A Weak Man Once Fairly in the
Fight Is No Longer Coward.

If you were to ask dozen or more soldiers
to tell you how they felt when going into
their first battle. perhaps no two would have
precisely the same impressions to relate.
To most men going for the first time into
the fire of an emeny's guns on the field of
battle it is certainly a trying ordeal, an occa-
sion attended with the most thrilling sensa-
tons, feelings full of dread and fear No
other experience in life can fifty compare
with it.
volunteer army is composed OF varied
classes Of men; and in the variety dangers
do not always develop the same feelings or
results. Men who confront death on a
battlefield from sense of duty are affected
differently from those who under the mere
thrill OF excitement rush, like the unthink-
ing horse, into peril needless of cause or
result.
Then there is another class of soldiery,
men who are-they know not why-utterly
Indifferent to fate men who are uneon-
sciously devoid of the sense of danger, even
if they do not possess that sublime trait of
character called valor. Bravery does not
always consist of the power or capacity to
meet and defy danger, and men are often
towards when there is really no danger to
face and overcome.
Such people are like children who are re-
luctant to 60 into the dark room, even
though they are confidently assured there
is no enemy there. Shadows brighten MANY
people as well as chickens.
Among soldiers there is-as observed i'm
our late war-still another class but little
different from those just referred to, men
who may be put under the head of don't
cares young men who go into battle with
about the same feelings with which they
would go into fo0t-race or swim in deep
water.
THEN THERE ARE THE MEN
With the pure, lofty courage, the valiant
and true, who go out coOlly and steadily
under the fire, even though there is the re-
strained dread in the lnneTmOst heart, even
though there may be seen the slight pallor
on their cheeks, the unconscious restlessness
in the eye, and the evident subtle emotion
that moves the lip and the limb. Woe to
the enemy who stands or covers under the
steel OF such foe.
The most trying ordeal in the first battle
aud in all battles, for that matter-is in the
start; in the getting ready when the hour
has come to move on the foe; in the move
mentS preparatory to the action: in the mo-
ments of prelude and before the enemy is in
si2ht; when the drum first beats the loud
alarm when the bugle blast fereely trills
the sudden summons, Boots and saddles!'
and the cry spreads like an electric flash
through the startled camp that the foe is in
front and that the hour of battle is now at
hand.
On then it is that the heart and the brain
of the soldier are pierced with the wild woe
of war. Then it is that the courage spirit
wakes or waneS. Then it is that valor be-
gins TO totter if the sure props are not there.
Then it is that the soldier begins to think;
aud when he begins TO think, he often be-
gins to dread; and when he begins to dread,
fear soon follows.
In the moments between the first bugle
blast or drum beat and the vision of the
enemy in front, the soldier has time for re-
Election; and thought has always been pro-
life source OF fear or reluctance to 90 into
danger. Many tragedies have been the re-
suit of men not thinking or rejecting upon
consequences.
And with the soldier-when there comes
the vision of home and wife or child or
other loved ones when the vision of these
cones and remains between man and
prospective death-he always fingers over
the images upon the heart mirrors; and he
shrinkS from the separation of the grave,
even if he does not exhibit c0wardce.
1t is not merely conscience that makes
towards Of us all; but in the workings of
the brain otherwise, when men have the
TIME TO THINK,
They turn away from the dangers that are
in front to the loved that are behind them;
and then comes, as / have said, the dread
of that something hereafter so keenly felt
and ackn Owledged by Hamlet
But as soon as the soldier gets up under
the enemy's fire, as soon as he finds he is
being shot at, and the opportunity is given
him TO return the FIRE {; as soon as ne sees the
real enemy in his front. and the battle is
upon him-then it is that all the trouble and
all the dread of battle are over with that
soldier who has any of the elements of man
hood in him. Then the man naturally wants
to return the fire; then comes the bending
of the energies for the assault upon the foe;
then the yearning for the fire and the ad-
vance.
Once in the din and flame and roar of the
conflict there Is no time TO think OF conse-
quenees-no time for thoughts of the loved
ones far away in the embrace of home; the
only consuming passion then is how to get
at the enemy and punish him-and hence
the rush and the shout, the Incarnation of
resolve, that always charaCteriZeS the charge,
the on to victory Oradeath.
Once In the fire and tumult of the strug-
gle. with the battle spirit filling and thrill
ing every sense; when the soldier hears and
sees and feels and smells-tastng even the
sulphur0us struggle-then IL is that he
knows no dread, no fear The mind and
heart full of that battle spirit, there is no
room for other feelings.
The man thus wrought upon has no con-
Germ about death, except il is the death of
the enemy; to destroy him, to punish that
Zoe, every impulse and energy and other
facultyof the whole nature are bent in one
supreme, unreasOning. terrific struggle.
If you can once get weak man into the
fight he is no longer coward. The white
liver that quails and carries its possessor
from the field before the enemy is in sight
changes into that of the lion when the man
Is face to face with the foe in the struggle
for life and victory under his flag. Aud it
is the truly brave man at times who can
turn and flee when he sees there is no
longer virtue or honor in battling the I'M
Ia Cd l. L. Ii. Il Il,