Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1893-07-27


riages from the dead animals. At the cry
1.-THE battery is in dangerr' hundreds of
troopers turned back, but Shelby said:
Fifty, only flftyi Bring the battery with
you orremain yourselvesl'' The dead horses
were cleared away, ropes attached and the
guns dragged back safe to the lines. Fifteen
only of the volunteers got out unscathed,
and 20 remained" where they fell
In Shelby's Missouri raid of 1868, when
he rode into the heart of the enemy's coun-
try 800 miles and fought almost hourly for
every day for 90 consecutive days, the artil-
lery was up with the flying column. One
morning the raiders, numbering S00 were
marshaled on naked prairie in front of an
equal number of enemies. The meeting was
sudden, Shelby's men having looked up
from their work of destroying railroads to
find fight on hand. Telling off couple
of squadrons for reserve, the Morgan of the
border shouted to his artillery chieftain,
"Charge with your battery as | charge and
unlimber when you see their line waver,
for Pll ride it down like the prairie grass
under foot" The bugle sounded "Chargen
a shout ran along the line as spurs struck
home, but the enemy didn't wait to be rid
den down. They turned, and Collins can
noneers, with long range shells, were the
only ones to get shot at the flying horse
men.
Collins hottest fight as told by his bat
tie losses was at Prairie d'Ann, Ark, soon
after he returned from the great raid. Shell
by was outpost for Prices army, which lay
intrenched at Camden. The Union army,
under Steele, marched on Camden, and
Shelby offered battle on the prairie, with
the battery in the center and the troops,
n1n1 tad oil gi1 irctf fxrf,
Union batteries opened on Collins, then a
third and fourth, until "a guns were
trained upon the group of six that were
firing rapidly and with precision. The con-
test lasted four hours, and three separate
attacks were repulsed. All of the battery
horses were cut down, and II cannoneers
fell among the guns, which were hauled off
by hand at nightfall.
The carnage was greater in Collins ranks
than in any other battery in the war. The
number killed was 81. Cooper's Pennsyl-
vania battery Union) lost 81 killed, but the
loss fell on probably over 200 men. Collins
battery mustered all told but 81 men, In.
cluding the wounded, which were 30, the
casualties numbered So almost 60 per cent
of the fighting men. The proportion OF
killed to wounded 81 to 80, tells story OF
bloody work. 1t is almost three times as
great as the average The Confederates had
a battery which lost more in numbers than
did Collins'-Slecomb' Fifth company OF
Washington artillery. 1t lost 43 killed. But
the loss fell upon 39S men and amounts to
but about 1 per cent. while the loss among
Collins men was over "a per cent.
The figures are all the more astounding
because they represent losses incurred in
cavalry combats, and in struggling border
warfare at that The crack regiments of the
Union cavalry belonged to the army of the
Potomac and fought in those desperate bat
ties with Stuart, Hampton, the Lees and
Rosser in the Gettysburg, Wilderness and
Shenandoah campaigns Of 1864. Their
losses in killed ranged between and 0per
cent of the number borne on the rolls Sc
the record of Collins horse battery is with
out parallel in the annals of bold and des.
perate cavalry fighting.
GEORGE L. KILMER.