Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1894 — WAR MEMORIES [ARTICLE]

WAR MEMORIES

A sl,i>6o Meal That Was Spoiled by an Inconsiderate Missile. Connected with the Tobacco Exchange at Richmond, Va., is a gentleman who, according to the Detroit Free Press, was living “under the hill” in Petersburg during the perilous days. After several shot and shell had passed over his house, his family left it for safer quarters, but one evening decided to return. Everything was quiet for an hour, and then a shot came booming over. This was enough for wife and children, but the husband got mad and declared he would stay there that night if every gun in the Federal intrenchments was turned loose upon him. Half an hour went [by, and he was patting himself on the back over his grit, when tne h ederals suddenly opened five or six heavy guns at the hill. Shot and shell roared and hissed and screamed, and the man’s hair began to crawl. He stuck there, however, until boom! bish! crash 1 came a cannon ball as big as his head plump through one side of the house and out of the other, and then he flew outdoors and struck a gait Just a little faster than greased lightning. Singularly enough, that was the only shot which ever hit the house, though dozens fell around it.

After Grant had his guns in position, and more especially after he began reaching out for the Weldon railroad, he could have knocked Petersburg to pieces in twenty-four hours. He would probably have done so had there been any excuse for it, but there was none. The Confederate lines were a mile and a half away, and Petersburg was only held by non-combatants. Nevertheless, Grant did not propose that any one in reach of his guns should sleep soundly or forget his presence. Occasionally shots were therefore pitched into the city to cheek any enthusiasm, and if anybody got over an hour’s sleep at a time it was considered something to boast of. One night during a heavy firing to the left of the crater, tne Federal guns were for a time so elevated that every missile cleared the Confedeiate lines, howled over Petersburg and fell among the houses under the hill. One shell entered the window of a house and exploded in the parlor. A part of the front of the house was blown out, one side demolished, the chamber floors driven through the roof and the whole building weakened. The people had moved out, but left all their goods and a dog to watch them. No one could say just where the dog was when the explosion took place, but he was not killed.

During the same fire, and five minutes after a family had taken up their quarters in a bomb-proof of the back yard, a shell drove in the front door, penetrated the floor and exploded under the house. There were five rooms below and four above, and the explosion shook off every bit of plaster and knocked down every partition in the lower part. The family well was at the back of the house, and so much 'debris was driven into it that no water could bo got for days. In the winter of 1864 a citizen who had unexpectedly received $2,000 in Confederate currency ou an old debt, determined to have a good square dinner, and company to help to eat it. Rye, coffee, baeon, meal, rice and molasses were about the only provisions iu market; but at a cost of $1,960 the citizen scraped together enough to justify him in inviting a company of six friends. The guests were in the parlor, the table set, and the cook was over the stove, when a shell entered the dining room through the side of the house. The explosion so wrecked the room that no one could enter it. The table, pieces of which I saw, could not have been demolished any better with an ax, and the plaster in two or three rooms was shaken down.