The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-05-28

one was killed and a second fired upon by
Houghtaling's supports. The men of the
First then lay down and piled their mus
kets into the wood. The ex-United States
Napoleon guns captured at Perryviile
also took hand, having wheeled into bat
terry on the ridge vacated by Bush. Bush
halted just across the pike, turned and
opened and in no time the rail fences be-
came cloud of flying splinters. The First
made another squirt for Bush's guns, but
he was too quick for them, and they only
succeeded in heading of Houghtaling's
remnant, minus IS horses and % men shot
down. The First lost S3 killed and wounded.
Chickalnauga was the next fight of the
regiment and it was in the second line
again. The last of it's old enemies, Bush's
battery, had been captured by the first
line, and the Tennesseeans charged no guns
on that field. They lost SO killed d
wounded in general fighting against Z"
Rock" "Pap" Thomas. At Missionary
Ridge, Nov. IS, there were no guns to
CHARGE but work equally as exciting Gen.
Sherman assaulted the Confederate works
on the mountain to turn them at the rail-
road tunnel. Maney's brigade was in re-
serve, and after the front line had taken
its share of hard knocks, the Tennesseeans
moved up to the barricade.
Sherman's men were within fifteen PAGES
and had taken shelter there under crest.
The ex-United States Napoleons were 81
fenced by the fire that literally rained on
that hillside. The spokes of cannon wheels,
musket stocks swabstaffs, fagstaffs, any
thing large enough to catch bullet, was
splintered. The Napoleons were double
shotted with canister awaiting one more
chance. The men of both sides at the bar
ricades lay SO close that they couldn't aim
across the logs, and they pitched stones
back and forth through the air. Finally,
rs often happens. the soldiers themselves
took it into their heads to end the dead
lock. Three companies of the First, acting
without orders, jumped over the breast
works on the flank of the assailing column
and started to roll up the Union line.
The artillerists on the crest swung their
Napoleons so as to sweep the ridge length
wise, depressed, and let go their grape.
Then the whole brigade, soon followed by
another, leaped the works, and in two sac
onds. SherSnan's column became a mob,
some surgfng up hill, half dragged as pris..
oners, others sliding and tumbling down
hill to get away.
The Atlanta campaign found the regi.
AiiSAo SUN Ill Ip11As kAb ACuSSdWI
June 81, $50 men were in the angle, since
known as the Dead Angle,n when Gen.
Davis division Of the Fourth Union CORPS
sprung an early morning assault upon it.
The point was mountain spur with steep
slopes, and no abatis, slashings, or other
distractions were prepared to aid in de.
Tense. Two brigades i'll columns Of regi-
ments bounded over their own pa<apets
and ry1c IL, tho eta hoIf
they met the unsparing fire Of the Tennes.
seeans.
"Up, men! they are comingp' was the
war cry within the angle and men grasped
their rifles only to see the enemy closing in
at ten PAGES, the leader waving his sword
and saying to his men in tones plainly
heard in the angle: Come on. Well
take''- A bullet cut short the speech,
and the line dissolved under deadly vol
ley from ''Tennessee's Own"
Another line followed and another. and
another, until the rifemen in the angle
found their pieces too hot to hold Two
brigade leaders and score of colonies and
captains among the assailants, fell under
their craftsmanship. The Tennesseeans
had slight breastwork but no head logs
and it wasn't the most comfortable feeling
in the world to see line after line of men
with determined faces pressing their bare
hayonets before them up the hill in a
steady, persistent stream. But there
seemed always a little more left in the re-.
sources of the Confederates, and at the
critical Juncture, when the boys were
about overpowered and outdone, those ex-
United States Napoleons again poked out
their muzzles, growled and spit fire, and it
was all over with Sherman's grand assault
on Kenesaw. The First lost q killed and
wounded, and claims to have stretched out
ten times that many foemen in front of the
"Dead Angle"
After Kenesaw the Confederates changed
tactics and began to deal blows as well as
take. In the daring sosties led by Gen.
Hood in July, before the city fell, the First
paid its dole Of bloca for past omissions.
When Hood turned on his hunters and
lodged back 20 the fair plains of central
Tennessee, the banner of the First tossed
proudly above sne butternut ranks, and the
Maury Graya, The Guards and the Rifles of
Pulaski, Columbia and Franklin stopped
for cheering word, a kiss, a handshake at
the old home, charged the guns at Frank
lin, and patted the Rock City boys on the
back as they stood in sight of their own
chimney fires along the trenches at Nash
rille, saying, "Wefll help you get there
too" But fate decided no, and back they
went sadly and sullenly to Alabama and
across Georgia to the sea to head off Sher-
man before Richmond. In the great sur.
render of April, 1865, 1875 out of an original
roll Of ], 1857 grounded arms to the victors
they had buffeted so often and SO valorous-
ly in days gone by.
GEoLGR L. KILMER.