Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1899-04-13
A VETERANS STORY
THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE TALE OF HOW
THE SERGEANT SENT THE NEWS.

Went A. Spy Into the Enemy's Lines and
Sent the Despatch Home Inside Shell
Which He Fired From the Encmy's Can
non at His Own Command. .p
The veteran, in the dingy uniform
that might have been gray or blue, was
perhaps a shade indefinite as to where
he had experienced the stories he was
telling, but he was an interesting old
fellow, and his listeners had been read
ing too many war tales sent by special
messengers to newspapers to worry
about the details SO long as the re-
suits were good. So they filled up the
narrator's beer mug and set him going
again. se
"One OF the oldest things" he said,
with the calm confidence of truth,
that can remember, happened to my
brother and me, both of us being mem
bers of battery. On one occasion we
had been watching the enemy for a
week. trying to keep him from cross
Ing river until our reinforcements
had got up, but the rains had set in
and men couldn't move, and we were
pretty sure that the enemy was up to
some dodge or other that was going to
wipe us off the face of the earth, for
he had ten times as many men and
guns as we had to meet him with.
Or course, that made the commanding
officer dead blue, and they offered all
sorts OF inducements for some OF our
fellows to go over and find out what
was up. I suppose dozen or more
went, to ten times that many who vol
unteered to 60, but none came back,
and we wasn't any better off than we
were before.
"One morning I told the General
that my brother and me had a scheme
to get the information he wanted, and
IL he would agree to promote us both
if we got it, we'd try for it. He
mighty near agreed to make Brigadiers
Of us, but we compromised on SER
geants, and my brother left for the
other side, after telling me good-by.
For two days we did not hear from
him, and on the third the enemy got a
12-pound gun into position the bat
terry l was with had been fighting him
away from for week, and got blast
from the major, but I never said
word. Neither did the General; and
my poor brother-nobody knew where
he was.
Strange to say, our battery didn't
open up on the enemy, either, in his
new position, and the officers began
to look worried, waiting to hear from
the general in command About 10
o'clock in the morning the enemy's gun
let loose with roar that tore the
ground up, and shell that looked to
me to be as big as barrel came flying
across the river and hit in sand pile
in the rear Of our battery. In a min
ute l had broke for that sand pile and
was scratching like dog at a rabbit
hole, and pretty soon come out with
the shell in my arms and was cutting
across lots for the Generals tent.
II never stopped to ask any ques-
llOHo VI thC lolho oI Jul pottCly, put
got to the General as soon as could,
and, rushing right into his tent, l
dropped that hot shell into bucket of
water and out again, and let into the
vent of it with a hatchet Well, to
make a long story short, on the inside
Of the shell where the blow-up stuff
usually is was a communication from
my brother signed Sergeant John
Smith, giving the General the very
kind Of information he was crazy to git
hold of, and it fixed him so that he
knocked the enemy galley west in no
time. My brother had got into 1t easy
enough, for it wasn't such a great Sc
cret over there what they was going tc
do. The only trouble was we hadn't
been able to git back with 1t when our
men went over after 1t. My brother
got onto a plan, though, by loading
it into the shell and firing it from the
gun in the. position he had got for it,
when the enemy couldn't have done
it in a month. That was the scheme
we worked, and my brother, being a
fine gunner had no trouble getting in
with the artillery company, especially
when he went to the officers with4sa
story about how he could get the gun
in the position that they had been try
ing so long to get and couldn't, owing
to our battery on the other bank of
the river. He was great strategist,
was my brother, and ought to have di-
rected things in this war.
NO." sighed the veteran, "he never
got his promotion, though did mine,
as the General said l should. My
brother was killed at the battery he
fired the shell from, and by the guns OF
his own friends. Just as like as not
dnna Ii mysalf hut that Is WAR;