Fascinating 1881 Civil War Column of direct observation from a War Correspondent
at the front

UNDER FIRE
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A Soldier's Sensations When Engaged in Battle

  Whenever you can find a soldier who, under fire, aims low and shoots to make every bullet wound or kill, you will find fifty who are nervously throwing away ammunition seeming to reason that the reports of their mukkets will check or drive the enemy. And yet this nervousness need not be wondered at, for they are playing a game at life and death.
  At Malvern Hill, seventeen soldiers, belonging to an Ohio regiment, took cover in a dry ditch, which answered admirably for a rifle pit. A Georgia regiment charged this little band three time, and three times were driven back. The fire was low and rapid, and the loss in front of their guns was more than one hundred killed in ten minutes. Regiments has been engaged for an hour without losing over half that number. The fire of these seventeen was so continuous that McClellan forwarded a brigade to their support, believing that an entire regiment had been cut off.
  At Mine Run the writer was just in the rear of a New York regiment which was suddenly attacked. A single company of Confederates, cut off from the regiment and dodging about to rejoin it, suddenly debouched into a field and found itself face to face with the Union regiments. Fighting commenced at once. A regiment fought a company, both lying down for cover. I lay so near a third Sargeant that I could touch his heels, and I watched his fire. Every time he pulled the trigger, he elevated the muzzle of his gun at an angle of forty-five degrees instead of depressing it for the enemy lying down. I saw him repeat this fourteen different time. The man next to him fired as many bullets plumb into a stump in his front, and the man on the other side shot into the ground about ten feet away. Others must have been wasting bullets about the same way; But that little company was shooting to kill. In that ten minutes of fighting, the New Yorkers suffered a loss of thirty-six killed and wounded, and then a bayonet charge doubled them back and opened a gap for the little band's escape. I walked over the ground and found one dead and one wounded Confederate. Not a gun, blanket, knapsack or canteen had been left behind.
  Any soldier will no doubt fight better than he will in open field, but cover does not always insure good fighting. At Pittsburge Landing, 5,000 Union soldiers skulked, under the river bank, safe from the enemy's fire, and many of them threw their guns into the river rather than fire a shot. Again, at Yellow Tavern, five of Custer's men, dismounted and lying behind a fence, held five companies of cavalry at bay for twenty minutes, and killed twenty-four men, and this without getting a scratch in return.
  At Mile Run a Union regiment went into the fight with sixty rounds of ammunition per man, making a total perhaps of four thousand bullets. This regiment was placed to act a a cheek to any advance of the enemy in a certain direction. They did not see thirty confederates during the whole day, and yet it was twice more supplied with ammunition. It fired away at least 12,000 bullets, and yet only killed two rebel skirmishers.
  One cool man will do more execution with his musket than thirty men fireing at random. One must have a will strong enough to crowd down all emotions, and oblige his hands to cease trembling at the word. Out of every regiment not more than one hundredmen were fighters. These shot to kill. The others shot at random, and killed only by accident. Thirty cartridges would last a good fighter for an all-day's fight. The ordinary fighter would fire hout his sixty in an hour and a half, and like enough have his eyes shut half the time when he pulled the trigger. A member of the Second Michigan infantry hit the case pretty well at Blackburn ford. When the skirmishing began he counted his cartridges, and said:
  "Just sixty of 'em, and I'll fire three a minute, and have these fellers licked in justs twenty minutes to a tick."

REVENGE IS SWEET
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The Thrilling Adventures of an Ambitious Amateur Actor and Playwright.

  Gallagher is satisfied. The facts are these: Gallagher was the President of a dramatic club and wrote a piece for them. It called for nine persons, and everybody in the cast except Gallagher considered that he or she had the worst part, and that it was made so on purpose. At first they didn't propose to play, but finally decided to do so, and concocted a plan to punish Gallagher. He played the hero, and in the first act said farewell to his mother and went off to sea, and when she parted with him she contrived to wrench his head and scratch his nose on a pin fixed in the shoulder of her dress for that purpose. That eased her mind and disturbed his. But he submitted. In the next act he appeared on shipboard, and had to be knocked down by the cruel captain, who hit him so earnestly with a belaying pin that it nearly killed him. And then when he headed the mutiny and cried to the mutineers, "Follow me!" somebody opened a trap and he ingnominiously fell through it and got terribly guyed by the audience. He was awful mad, but determined to conquer in spite of the disaster, and so came up and went on the the play.
  In the third act he was to have a terrible combat with the villain of the play, and whip him. Mr. Hencoop Smythe played the part. He was satisfied that he had the worst part in the piece and that Gallagher made it so to spite him. Gallagher, as he clinched him, cried: "Villain, I'll beat your life out in two seconds." But he didn't. The vilain was the strongest man, and the way he lathered Gallagher about the stage was awful. When it came to that part where the villain was to cry, "Let me up! I'm crushed!" he had Gallagher jammed under the table, and was beating him with a chair-leg, and of course his speach and Gallagher's reply, "I will not spareyour life!" sounded absurd. Before the villain consented to overcome, he had got the audience to shrieking with laughter, and had beaten Gallagher black and blue all over. Gallagher went home terribly enraged, and the rest of the company were delighted.
  The piece was to be played the next night, and Gallagher reported himself to ill to appear. But he sent a substitute. That substitute was a prize-fighter under an assumed name. He hugged the mother so, in the parting scene, that he nearly killed her, and pulled her false hair off accidently. He threw the cruel Captain down the trap. He hurt all the other actors, and in the fight with the villain moppped the whole stage with him, and hurled him clear through the back flat. The company and scenery were completely wrecked, confusion reighned, and Gallagher sat in front and laughed till he nearly died. Revenge is sweet!

COMING! IN FUTURE ISSUES!!

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GOLD IN ALASKA
Excitement Over the New Discoveries–Rich Finds!
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A Snowy, but very Gay, Christmas in the Metropolis
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INDIAN CORN
Interesting Statistics Showing the Extent of its Use
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The Outrageous Price of Coal
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WASHINGTON
The House Engaged in debating the Funding Bill
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SEA WATER FLUSHING
A Plan to Effectively Cleanse San Francisco's Sewers

San Francisco's famed Cliff House in the 1890's

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