Instead of selecting a certain soldier in the enemy’s line as a target to shoot at, a soldier merely leveled his gun and fired at the line of battle of the enemy, dimly seen through the smoke and dust, then loaded his gun with another cartridge and repeated. In a hotly contested fight soldiers often shot fifty rounds of cartridges and their guns got so hot that they could scarcely grasp them with their hands.
Battles.—A succession of battles is by no means a monotonous repetition. Each battle has its peculiar phases. A battle is often an exhibition of the artistic skill of officers in arranging and maneuvering, and of men carefully executing, and may be a trial of physical endurance and the well trained handling of the weapons of warfare used. In any event a battle is a spectacular scene imposing and grand.
Opposing armies, on the warpath, require but little provocation to induce them to get up a rumpus. Battles are by no means precipitated in a uniform cut and dried way, but are brought about in as many ways as there are battles fought. A single shot fired by a picket from his post may cause the picket lines to exchange shots and fall back, and the commands represented by them to settle the disturbance by engaging in a battle. Cavalrymen sometimes make a raid and start a fight into which the entire armies are drawn. Cannonading is a very common way to start a fight. Sometimes a command is surprised by a detachment from the opposite army and a battle ensues, and sometimes the armies come together apparently without any preconcerted plan on either side, simultaneously line up and get busy, with their work of carnage.
On the battlefield soldier life is delineated in its most revolting phase. Two contending armies present a spectacle grand and awful to contemplate. The surging masses of human beings intent on each others destruction with the death dealing artillery with its terrific roar and the more destructive missiles of small armies with their hateful hissing sounds, together with the deafening cheers of the moving armies, and the heartrending screams and moans of the wounded and dying make the scene agonizing to the extreme. Two contending armies engaged in battle present to the eye of the beholder an indescribable panorama.
Two contending: armies aligned for a fight
Present to the eye an imposing-sight,
When the pickets begin to exchange their shots,
The battle is on and soon gets hot.
With terrific noise of destructive shells
And hissing minnie balls and soldiers’ yells,