Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1898-08-28
MISSILES OF WAR.
Death Dealing Messengers Which Are Fired to
Kill But Go to Waste.

be held responsible for the waste, but
there is terrible waste nevertheless.
An army with cannon would be q
strange organization, and yet the vet
eran soldier learned to hold field
battery in far more contempt than a
company of infantry Grape and CAMS
ter are wicked missiles, but they fail
of their target quite as often as bull
lets. Let couple of guns be posted
on a knoll, ana a regiment dasn at
them. The distance is half mile.
The first discharge will be shells. The
chances are even up that they VIII
piow through the double-ranks with
cut bursting, killing only four or fve
men. At the worst, If they burst IN the
faces of the advancing men, not over
dozen will be killed. Then comes
grape and canister. The aim may be
100 high or too low. The lines may fali
fat and escape scot free. If striking
the lines score out OF the thousand
may be done for. Before the gunners
can lead again the lines are upon them.
At point blank range, with lines stead
lily advancing, grape and canister Will
do terrible execution. but battery may
go through q campaign and not ma
It's opportunity. AT Gettysburg, again,
at least fifty guns played ON PICKETT 5
front with grape and canister, and the
wierd. wicked sounds of the missiles
cutting the air made ones hair crawl,
but Of the tons of iron DeIched 1orth,
nine-tenths WIS wasted. OF $50 dead
men, all Virginians, | saw lying ready
for burial, not over score mad Deeh
hit by anything but bullets. After the
second year of the war | do not DeileVe
there was a Federal or Confederate
who would not have charged up
against grape and canister from neld-
guns sooner than to have been one OF
a party to attack stout breastwork.
There was wild whistling and shrek
ing of the iron missiles, but that was
generally the extent of it.
SHOOTING SOLID SHOT.
The amount of iron wasted in firing
solid shot during the late war have
made the heads of the ordnance de-
partments groan in despair. OF a hum
dred cannon balls fired by field-pieces
in action, except to batter at buildings
or earthworks, single one might count
by killing a single man. doubt II
more that one soldier out OF five saw
a man killed by cannon ball. bat
terry used them at long range and nine
tv times out of hundred they fell
short. On striking the ground they
would bound over the heads of the men
or come rolling along so slowly that
the ranks would open TO give them
room. A six-pound solidshot striking
a man fairly in the breast might also
wound or kill a man in the rear, but
this was not always the case. At the
worst. only two men would become VIC
tins. The firing of a solid shot was
generally q subject for jokes and jibes,
and it was only when one struck tree
, aud hurled splinters for hundred feet
around that anybody looked serious.
At Stone River, for the first and only
time, | saw a soldier hit by a cannon
ball. 1t struck him fair on the KNAPP
sack strapped on his back. and he was
flung a distance of hundred feet. He
was not mangled, but simply reduced TO
pulp from his chin to his hips. Again
| saw an ambulance horse struck. The
shot struck the ground twenty rods
away, rolled along for half the distance
end then struck a stone and jumped
a fence and hit the horse on the fore
shoulder His neck was broken, and
all the bones back to his middle seem
ed to have been puIveci4el. With the
, coming of the breech-loading cannon,