File:The recollections of a drummer-boy (1889) (14760462204).jpg

Identifier: recollectionsofd00kieff (find matches)
Title: The recollections of a drummer-boy
Year: 1889 (1880s)
Authors: Kieffer, Henry Martyn, 1845-1930
Subjects: United States. Army. Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, 150th (1862-1865) United States -- History Civil War, 1861-1865 Personal narratives United States -- History Civil War, 1861-1865 Regimental histories
Publisher: Boston, Ticknor and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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be the sound of a burningfuse, but which, on raising my head and looking up and around I findis the sound of pieces of exploded shells flying through tlie air aboutour heads ! The enemy has excellent range of us, and gives it to ushot and fast, and we fall in line and take it as best we may, and with-out the pleasure of replying, for the enemys batteries are a full mileand a half away, and no Enfield rifle can reach half so far. Colonel, move your regiment a little to the right, so as to getunder cover of yonder bank. It is soon done ; and there, seated on abank about twenty feet high, with our backs to the enemy, welet them blaze away, for it is not likely they can tumble a shell downat an angle of forty-five degrees. And now, see! Just to the rear of us, and therefore in full viewas we are sitting, is a battery of our own, coming up into position atfull gallop, —a grand sight indeed ! The officers with swords flashingin the evening sunlight, the bugles clanging out the orders, the
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HOW WE GOT A SHELLING. 89 carriages unlimbered, and the guns run up into position ; and now, thatever-beautiful drill of the artillery in action, steady and regular as thestroke of machinery ! How swiftly the man that handles the swablias prepared his piece, while the runners have meanwliile brought upthe little red bag of powder, and the long, conical shell from thecaisson in the rear. How swiftly they are rammed home! Thelieutenant sights his piece, the man with the lanyard, with a suddenjerk, fires the cap, the gun leaps five feet to the rear with the recoil,and out of the cannons throat, in a cloud of smoke, rushes the shell,shrieking out its message of death into the lines a mile and a halfaway, while our boys rend the air with wild hurrahs, for the enemysfire is answered. Now ensues an artillery duel that keeps the air all quiveringand quaking about our ears for an hour and a half, and it is allthe more exciting that we can see the beautiful drill of the batteriesbeside us, with

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