Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1898-12-15
WEIRD BATTLE SCENES.
FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS
RECOLLECTloNS OF CUASlNA.

All the Men He Saw Shot Went Down
in a Lump-The ''Chug'' of The Bullets
They Don't"shrieix" or"sing',-PIuok or
lest Songs Human Beings Ever Sang
Edward Marshall, the New York
Journals correspondent who was
wounded at Guasina, has written his
''Recollections" for Scribner's Maga-
zine from which the following ex-
extracts are made
Il saw many men shot. Every one
went down in lump, without cries,
without jumping up in the air, with
out throwing up hands. They just
went down like clods in the grass.
1t seemed to me that the terrible thud
with which they struck the earth was
more penetrating than the sound of
guns. Some were only wounded.
some were dead.
There is much that is awe-inspir-
ing about the death of soldiers on the
battlefield. Almost all Of us have
seen men and women die, but they
have died in their carefully arranged
beds with doctors daintily boarding
the Pickering spark; with loved ones
clustering about. But death from
disease is less awful than death from
bullets. On the battlefield there are
no delicate scientific problems of
strange microbes to be solved. There
is no petting, no coddling-nothing
nothing, nothing but death. The
man lives, he is strong, he is vital,
every muscle in him is at its fullest
tension when, suddenly, 'chugr he is
dead. That 'chug' of the bullets
striking flesh is nearly always plainly
audible. But the bullets which are
billeted, so far as L know, do not
sing on their way. They go silently,
grimly to their mark, and the man is
lacerated or torn or dead. 1 did not
hear the bullet shrek that killed
Hamilton Fish; I did not hear the
bullets shrek which struck the many
others who were wounded while 1 was
near them; 1 did not hear the bullet
Shrek which struck me.
There is one incident Of the day
-"Aich shines out in my '--~--.--J
above all the others ~0w as lie IN
New York hospital writing. 1t oc-
CURED at the field hospital. About
dozen of us were lying there. A con-
tinuous chorus of moans rose through
the tree branches overhead. The sur
geons, with hands and barred arms
dripping, AMI clothes literally satur
ated, with blood, were straining every
nerve to prepare the wounded for the
journey down to Siboney. Behind
me lay Captain McClintock with his
lower leg bones literally ground to
powder. He bore his pain as gallant
ly as he had led his men, and that is
saying much. / think Major Brodie
was also there. 1t was doleful group
Amputation and death stared its mem
bers in their gloomy faces.
Suddenly voice started softly:
My country, It's of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
or thee sing.
"Other voices took it up:
Land where my fathers died,
Land--of-t6C -Pilgrims pride
"The quivering. quayering claro
punctuated by groans, and maol -5-
modic by pain, trembled up from .a7
little group of wounded Amer-cans in I
the midst of the Cuban solitude the
pluckiest, most heartfelt song that
human beings ever sang.
"There was one voice that did not |
quite keep up with the others. 1t
was so weak that did not hear it un-
til all the rest had finished the line:
Let Freedom ring
'Then halling, struggling, faint, it
repeated slowly:
Land-of-the-Pilg pride,
Let Freedom
'The last word was a woeful cry.
One more son had died as died the