Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1884 — Humors of The Battle Field. [ARTICLE]

Humors of The Battle Field.

Many humorons incidents occurred on battle-fields. A Confederate colonel ran ahead of his regiment gt Malvern Hill, and discovering that the men were not following him as closely as he wished, he uttered a fierce oath, and exclaimed: “Come on! Do you want to live forever? 11 " ~ The appeal was irresistable, and many a poor fellow who had laughed at the colonel’s queer exortation laid down his life soon after. A shell struck the wheel of a Federal field-piece toward the close of the engagement at Fair Oaka, and, shivering the spokes, dismantled the cannon. “Well, isn’t it lucky that didn’t happen before we us@d up all’onr amnaition,” remarked one of the artillerists a3he crawled from beneath the gun.” When General Pope was falling back before Lee's advance in the Virginia Y alley, his own soldiers thought his bulletins and orders somewhat stiained ih their rhetoric. At one of the numerous running engagements that marked that. disastrous campaign a private in one of the Westerm regiments was,mortally wounded by a shell. Seeing tho man’s condition, a chaplain knelt beside him, and opening his Bible at random read ont Sampson’s slaughter of the Phillistines with the jaw bone of an ass. Ho had not quite finished when, as the story goes, the poor fellow interrupted the reading by saying: “Hold on, chaplain. Don’t deceive a, dying man. Isn’t the name of John Pope signed to that?” A command of troops was pushing forward over the long and winding road in Thoroughfare Gap to head off Lee, after his retreat across the Potomac, ak the close of the Gettysburg campaign. Suddenly the signahofficer who accompanied the general in command, discovered that :-ome of the men, .posted on a hill in the rear, were reporting the presence of a considerable body of Confederate troops on top of the bluffs to the right. A halt was at once sounded, and the leading brigade ordered forward to uncover the enemy'* position. The regiments were soon scrambling up the steep incline, officers and men gallantly racing to see who could reach the crest first. A young lieutenant and some half dozen men gained the advance, but at the end of what they deemed a perilous climb, they were thrown into convulsions of laughter at discovering that what the signal men took for Ceafederate troops were only a tolerably large flock of sheep. As the leaders in this forlorn hope rolled on the grass in a paroxysm of merriment, they laughed all the louder at seeing the pale but determined faces of their comrades, who, of course, came up fully expecting a desperate hand-to-hand fight. It is perhaps needless to sav the brigade supped on mutton that evening. As the army was crossing South Mountain the day before tho battle of Antietam, Gen. McClellan rode along the side of tho moving column. Overtaking a favorite Zouave regiment, he exclaimed with his natural bonhomie: “Well, how is the Old Fifth this evening?” “First rate, General,” replied one of the Zouaves. “But we’d be better off if we weren’t living so much on supposition.” i “Supposition?” said the General, in a puzzled tone. “What do you mean by that ?” “It is easily explained, sir. Yoty see we expected to get our rations yesterday, but as we didn’t wo are living on the supposition that we did.” “Ah, I understand; you shpll have your rations, Zou Zous, t®-night,” replied the General, putting spurs to his horse to escape the cheers of his regiment. And he kept his promise.— The Century. ’ J v