e, which might be at any moment. Who can describe such a
conflict as is raging around us? To say that it was like a summer storm,
with the crash of thunder, the glare of lightning, the shrieking of the
wind, and the clatter of hailstones, would be weak. The thunder and
lightning of these two hundred and fifty guns and their shells, whose
smoke darkens the sky, are incessant, all pervading, in the air above
our heads, on the ground at our feet, remote, near, deafening,
ear-piercing, astounding; and these hailstones are massy iron, charged
with exploding fire. And there is little of human interest in a storm;
it is an absorbing element of this. You may see flame and smoke, and
hurrying men, and human passion at a great conflagration; but they are
all earthly and nothing more. These guns are great infuriate demons, not
of the earth, whose mouths blaze with smoky tongues of living fire, and
whose murky breath, sulphur-laden, rolls around them and along the
ground, the smoke of Hades. These grimy men, rushing, shouting, their
souls in frenzy, plying the dusky globes and the igniting spark, are in
their league, and but their willing ministers. We thought that at the
second Bull Run, at the Antietam and at Fredericksburg on the 11th of
December, we had heard heavy cannonading; they were but holiday salutes
compared with this. Besides the great ceaseless roar of the guns, which
was but the background of the others, a million various minor sounds
engaged the ear. The projectiles shriek long and sharp. They hiss, they
scream, they growl, they sputter; all sounds of life and rage; and each
has its different note, and all are discordant. Was ever such a chorus
of sound before? We note the effect of the enemies' fire among the
batteries and along the crest. We see the solid shot strike axle, or
pole, or wheel, and the tough iron and heart of oak snap and fly like
straws. The great oaks there by Woodruff's guns heave down their massy
branches with a crash, as if the lightning smote them. The shells swoop
down among the battery horses standing there apart. A half a dozen
horses start, they tumble, their legs stiffen, their vitals and blood
smear the ground. And these shot and shells have no respect for men
either. We see the poor fellows hobbling back from the crest, or unable
to do so, pale and weak, lying on the ground with the mangled stump of
an arm or leg, dripping their life-blood away; or with a cheek torn
open, or a shoulder mas