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Updated: June 27, 2025
Four companies of the Eighth spread out to the right as skirmishers, and commenced stealing toward the ridge, from time to time measuring the distance with rifle-balls. The remainder of the regiment lay down in line between the Parrotts and the forest. Far away to the right, five companies of cavalry showed themselves, manoeuvring as if they proposed to turn the left flank of the Southerners.
One moment more and his soul is to pass into eternity, for his answer is, "Never while I hold these colors." But why is he not fired upon? Why do we still see him with the colors flying above his head, now beyond the reach of rifle-balls, when but a moment before he could have been riddled with bullets?
They were protected by high iron sides supposed to be proof against rifle-balls, and, when supplied, had been furnished each with a little boat, a rope, and four rough sweeps or oars. They had no other furniture or belongings, and were to be moved either by steam-tugs or by the use of the long oars which were sent with them.
Whether such direful results were ever produced, we had no means of knowing. Colonel Carle, of the One Hundred and Ninety-first, then in command of the brigade, had his headquarters in the woods about a hundred yards in the rear of the line. Here we were exposed to shells and stray rifle-balls, which occasionally reached us.
Hammers, tongs, hoes, axes, adzes, handles to them; needles, bows and arrows, with the mode of feathering the latter; spears, for killing game, with spear-heads having what is termed "dish" on both sides to give them, when thrown, the rotatory motion of rifle-balls; the arts of spinning and weaving, with that of pounding and steeping the inner bark of a tree till it serves as clothing; millstones for grinding corn into meal; the manufacture of the same kind of pots or chatties as in India; the art of cooking, of brewing beer and straining it as was done in ancient Egypt; fish-hooks, fishing and hunting nets, fish-baskets, and weirs, the same as in the Highlands of Scotland; traps for catching animals, etc., etc., have all been so very permanent from age to age, and some of them of identical patterns are so widely spread over the globe, as to render it probable that they were all, at least in some degree, derived from one Source.
They, also, describe them as having been wounded by 'buck-shot, 'rifle-balls, &c. fired at them by their 'owners, and others when in pursuit; also, as having 'notches, cut in their ears, the tops or bottoms of their ears 'cut off, or 'slit, or 'one ear cut off' or 'both ears cut off' &c. &c.
At this one gunboat steamed back and silenced the artillery for a time, after which she rejoined her fellows. Sharp-shooters in the thickets along the levee then began to grow troublesome; and the whistle of the rifle-balls, with an occasional ping as one struck the smokestack, warned the sailors that the deck of a gunboat in a narrow canal was no safe place in time of war.
It stirs the heart like the rustle of a silken gonfalon dipped in gore, like the whistle of rifle-balls, like the rhythmic dissonance of a battery slinging shrapnel from the heights of Gettysburg into the ragged legions of General Lee.
Men, not brought up from boyhood to such constant use of the rifle as to make sure aim an act of instinct with them, will never repel with certainty a charge of the bayonet by rifle-balls.
The murderous climate will not touch me; and, if I had ten rifle-balls in my body, I should still have the strength to return, and hold you to an account for what you have done to Henrietta. And if you have touched a hair on her head, if you have made her shed a single tear, by all that is holy, it will bring ill luck to you, and ill luck to others!"
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