Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1880 — Supporting the Guns. [ARTICLE]

Supporting the Guns.

Ithfaart the thrill of I che ® t Wj-AT" ...>• ' mteng. Nrtacheerlfl heard in the whole brigadd. Wo know that we are being driven foot by foot, and that when wo break beck once more the line will go to pieces and the enemy will pour through help! Down the crowded gallops a battery, withdrawn from oome other position to save oun. The field fence is scattered while you count thirty, and the hill behind no. Bix horses to a piece—three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches where a former would not drive a wagon, through dumps of bushes, over logs a foot thick, every hone on the nrilep, every rider laahteam and yelling—the sight behind uamaiMßUs iMßtthe foe in front The guns juare two feet as the heavy wheels strike rods or logs, but not a horse slackens Mo paoo, not a oannoneer loses Ha east, flix guna, dx caimans, sixty harem, men race for the brow of the hill as If he who raadros it first would be knightafi,'A moment ago the battery was aconftrad mob. Wo look again and the six guns are in position, the detached horses hurrying away, the ammunition ehesta open, and along our Uno runs the command, “Give them one more volley and foil back to support the guns!” We have scarcely obeyed, when boom! boom! opens the battery, and jets of fire Jump down and scorch the green trees under which we fought and despoired. The shattered old brigade has a chance to breathe for the first time in three hours, and we form a line of battle behind the guns and lie down. What grim, cool fellows those cannoneers are! Every man is a perfect machine. Bullets splash dust into their faces but they do not wince. Bullets sing over and around them but they do not dodge. There goes one to the earth, shot through the head as he sponged his gun. The machinery loses Just one beat —misses just one cog in the wheel — and then works away again as before.

Every gun is using short fuse shell. The ground shakes ana trembles —the roar( shuts out all sounds from a battle line three miles long, and the shells go ahriekinto the swamp to cut trees short off—to mow great gaps in the bushes—to hunt out and shatter and mangle men until their corpses cannot be recognised as human. Yon would think a tornado was howling through the forest, followed by billows of fire, and yet men live through it—aye! press forward to capture the battery! We can hear their shouts as they form for a rush. i Now the shells are changed for grape and canister, and the guns are served so fest that all reports blend into one mighty roar. The shriek of a shell is the wickedest sound in war, but nothing makes the flesh crawl like the demoniac singing, purring, whistling, grapeshot, and the serpentlike him of canister. Men's legs and arms are not shot through but tom off. Heads are tom from bodies and bodies cut in two. A round shot or shell takes two men out of the ranks as it crashes through. Grape and canister mow a swath, and pile the dead upon each other. Through the smoke we see a swarm of men. It is not a battle line, but a mob of men desperate enough to bathe their bayonets in the flame of the guns. The guns leap from the ground almost as they are depressed on the foe, and shrieks and screames and shouts blend into one awful and steady cry. Twenty men out on the battery are down, and the firing is interrupted. The foe accepts it as a sign of wavering, and come rushing on. They are not ten feet away when the guns give them a last shoL That discharge picks living men off their feet and throws men into the swamp, a blackened, bloody mass. *Up now, as the enemy are among the guns! There is a silence often seconds, and then the flash and roar of more than three thousand muskets, and a rush forward with bayonets. For what? Neither on the right nor left nor in front of us is a living foe! There are corpses around us which have been strack by three, four, and even six bullets, and nowhere on this acre of ground is a wounded man! The wheels of the guns cannot move until the blockade of dead is removed. Men cailbot pass from caisson to gun without climbing over winrows of dead. Every gun and wheel is smeared with blood—every foot of grass has its horrible stain. Historians write of the glory of war. Burial parties saw murder where historians saw glory Free Preu.