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Updated: June 17, 2025
The cannoneers ran to their posts, a cheer rose, the next instant the guns spouted flame; shell after shell in rapid succession screamed through the woods and bursting in the midst of the blue groups, threw them into the wildest disorder. Stuart did not allow the panic to subside.
As they passed through the batteries a little imp, about the size of Pete Skidmore, but with face as black as charcoal, pulled off the leather bag in which cartridges are carried from the limber to the gun, and handed it to one of the cannoneers, who said: "Well, good-by, if you must be going. You done well. You ought to belong to the artillery. You're too good for a dough-boy.
The infantry support had been out-flanked, leaving our guns almost surrounded, so that the cannoneers escaped with difficulty only one of them, Andrew Darnall, being captured. The ranks of the company had been considerably depleted by chills and fever, so prevalent in that swampy region, and one death had occurred that of John Gibbs, a most excellent soldier.
Her gaze was on the glittering mass of men, horses, and brazen guns that came thundering across the plain in double column Irby at its head, Kincaid alone on the flank and sweeping right and left deployed into battery to the front with cannoneers springing to their posts for action.
At the same moment the dismounted troops along my whole front moved forward, and as Custer went through the battery, capturing two of the guns with their cannoneers and breaking up the enemy's left, Gibbs and Devin drove his centre and right from the field.
We had been charging and running, and had stopped to catch our breath right under their reserve and main line of battle. When General George Maney said, "Soldiers, you are ordered to go forward and charge that battery. When you start upon the charge I want you to go, as it were, upon the wings of the wind. Shoot down and bayonet the cannoneers, and take their guns at all hazards."
Our sharpshooters gave the cannoneers a telling fire, and as the enemy's infantry in the fort rose above the parapets to deliver their volley, they were met by volleys from our sharpshooters in the pits, now in rear of the assaulting columns, and firing over their heads.
Then, his form towering amid the smoke, his eyes flashing, his drawn sabre whirled above his head, Breathed shouted, "Limber up!" The cannoneers seized the trail; the horses wheeled at a gallop; the piece was limbered up; and the men rushed down the hill to mount their horses, left there. Then around the gun seemed to open a volcano of flame. The Federal infantry were right on it.
Nevertheless, the Sedition act was enforced to a farcical degree. When President Adams was passing through Newark, N. J., he was saluted by the firing of cannon. One of the cannoneers, who was strongly opposed to him, expressed the wish that he might be struck by some of the wadding. For this remark, he was arrested and compelled to pay a fine of one hundred dollars.
The King was surprised at the slowness of the firing. "La Meilleraie," said he, impatiently, "these batteries do not play well; your cannoneers are asleep." The principal artillery officers were present as well as the Marechal; but no one answered a syllable. They had looked toward the Cardinal, who remained as immovable as an equestrian statue, and they imitated his example.
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