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Updated: June 17, 2025
It was time to take some step to baffle that tremendous fire, notwithstanding the danger there was in moving, and the captain unhesitatingly gave orders to bring up the limbers. The risky maneuver was executed with lightning speed; the drivers came up at a gallop, wheeled their limber into position in rear of the gun, when the cannoneers raised the trail of the piece and hooked on.
The battery had wheeled into position on a bare summit to the left, where it brought up all standing; then, quick as a flash, the cannoneers leaped from the chests and unhooked the limbers, and the drivers, leaving the gun in position, drove fifteen yards to the rear, where they wheeled again so as to bring team and limber face to the enemy and there remained, motionless as statues.
The cannoneers of the horse artillery fought as savagely, hand to hand, as the regular cavalry; and the crest became the scene of a mad wrestle, rather of wild beasts than men. All at once the form of Davenant appeared amid the smoke. He had come rapidly from the front, and now threw himself into the combat like the bloodhound to which Stuart had compared him.
Up on the heights to the rear, planted thickly on every knoll and ridge, are the black-mouthed guns, and around them are grouped the squads of ghostly, grisly, fog-dripping cannoneers. One may walk along that line of heights for mile after mile, and find there only grim ranges of batteries and waiting groups of men. All is silence; all is alertness; all is fog.
The jibboom of the Britisher had swung over the deck of the Richard and Jones with his own hands made it fast to the mizzenmast of his ship. The two ships were now locked in a death grip, and so close that when the guns were loaded the cannoneers had to lean into the ports of the enemy vessel to drive the ramrods home. The big British frigate had the advantage.
John's regiment reached the field just in time to see the cannoneers fall in their tracks at the first deadly volley from the charging men. Every horse was down dead or wounded. The pitiful cries of the stricken horses rang over the field above the roar of the battle, pathetic, heartrending, sickening. The two armies had clinched now in the grim struggle which meant defeat or victory.
That's all right, you ain't hurting nothing. "Hold on, boys," says a sharpshooter, armed with a Whitworth gun, "I'll stop that racket. Wait until I see her smoke again." Boom, boom! the keen crack of the Whitworth rings upon the frosty morning air; the cannoneers are seen to lie down; something is going on. "Yes, yonder is a fellow being carried off on a litter."
Every moment the round shot crashed, or the shell tore through the woods about three hundred yards in front of the pieces where the dismounted cavalry of the enemy had effected a lodgment. They kept up a hot fire at the cannoneers, and the steady rattle of carbines further up the river told that Lee was also engaged.
Still he fancied that in the afterglow of the sunset the Indians might discern the color and the style of the costume. Now and then a ball flew from the cannon to the woods, to clear the forest of too close observers, whatever risk there was must needs be dared. The cannoneers summoned to this queer duty looked at "Mrs.
Just within the gate, barely beyond reach of our weapons, with a clear stretch of lawn between, was a battery of four guns, already in position, the caissons at the rear, the cannoneers pointing the muzzles. Back of these grim dogs was a supporting column of infantry, leaning on their muskets. There was no doubting what was meant.
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