Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1892-06-23
WAR "REMINISCENCES.
"sTRUcK WITH THE sABER."
How silk Handkerchief saved a soldiers
Life,

How silk Handkerchief saved soldiers
Life,
From the time we reached the state
rendezvous until we went into camp on
the peninsula it was drill. drill. drill.
with the saber. 4 corporal would take
half dozen--the captain the whole
company, and for an hour and'a half we
would 60 through the cuts and thrusts
and parties. There was the front cut,
the down cut. the savage thrust, the
back-hand-cut and a dozen others, and
\ we were told that our lives depended on
knowing how to give and receive each
particular one. 1t was good exercise,
perhaps, but on the very first day we
went into a fight as cavalry all of us
came to see the absurdity of it.
was in thirty cavalry fights during
the war and in none of them did / wit
ness or have use for anything like the
saber exercise. Not that / did not see
men struck with the saber, but they
were struck during the confusion and
melee when the other party could claim
no credit. For instance, our regiment
drove full tilt into about six hundred
confederate cavalry at Brandy Station.
j used my revolver until it was empty
and then gripped my saber. The smoke
was very thick ana men and horses were
/ greatly excited. In the mad whirl a
confederate rode upon me and made a
savage slash with his saber 1t missed
my head and cut the pommel of my
saddle Before he could get away
'swiped" at him and know the edge of
the saber struck his face. ! may have
knocked out some of his teeth, but the
edge was as blunt as a hoe and could
not have cut the skin.
At Shepardstown we were charged
about the Same way. There were a
great many sabers flashing as they
came on, but by the time the shock
came the revolvers and carbines were
doing the heft of the work | had
fair show in that fight to give thrust,
! and it was a lamentable failure. / got
the point of the saber in under the enc
my's appraised right arm, but l doubt if
. / drew blood; | simply pushed him half
out of his saddle, and he retaliated
with side cut which uncovered my
head and did no further damage
here were probably more men hit
w the saber at Gettysburg than any
w ere else during the war The main
re son for this was the equality of num-
beIs, together with the fact that very
few of the union cavalry had revolvers.
We charged with our carbines slung to
our backs, and it was saber or nothing.
i had heavy silk handkerchief inside
my new hal that day as a preventive
Iof sunstroke. 1t prevented confeder-
ate cavalryman from splitting my head
open. l had a young, green horse, and
he gave me no end of trouble While |
was trying to prevent him from going
out of the fight backwards a confeder-
ate approached me from the rear and
administered the down cut. 1t dazed
me for moment, but the heavy hat
and handkerchief, backed up by thick
growth of hair, saved my head He
drew blood, and | had a sore head
for week after, but he had wasted his
blow
After the first ten minutes of that
cavalry encounter nothing but sabers
were used. We thrust, hacked and cut,
hitting both horse and man. but doubt
if any one was killed outright on either
side with the steel To make saber
effective it must carry a keen edge
During my three years in the army
did not see above a dozen sharpened
sabers. We had no orders to grind
them, and SO we carried them with
hoe-edge
Then it takes a strong-armed man to
WELD a common cavalry saber so as to
strike an effective blow. His horse
must be reasonably steady, so he can
control him with the bride arm, and
there must be plenty of muscle in the
arm to give weight to the blow. With
a sharp saber a man weighing one
hundred and sixty pounds might split
mans skull, but man weighing
thirty pounds less, with dull weapon,
would only make play towards it. In
fact realizing his incapacity in that
direction, he wouldn't try it.
In cavalry encounter at Kelley's
Ford | struck a confederate fair on the
neck with my saber and struck as hard
as ! could He tumbled from the sad
die and was captured. | did not even
draw blood | gave him such blow as
to stun him for few minutes, the same
as if had struck him with club. but
aside from a stiff neck he was all right
Big, strong men, with keen-edged sa-
bers, would do some awful cutting, and
they would inspire fear wherever they
charged, but average men and average
weapons accomplish very little outside
of the moral effect.
Quanrell proved that there was some
thing far more effective than the saber
Each Of his men was armed with at
least two revolvers. Each one could
shoot right and left-handed. A squad
of thirty Of them thus armed never hes
itated to charge a hundred regular cav
airy, and they never charged without
inficting terrible destruction Detroit
Free Press.
"REMINISCENCES BY MOSBY.