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The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car, by W. H. H. Murray This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car 1898 Author: W. H. H. Murray Release Date: October 24, 2007 [EBook #23168] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIDE WITH A MAD HORSE *** Produced by David Widger A RIDE WITH A MAD HORSE IN A FREIGHT-CAR By W. H. H. Murray Copyright, 1898, by William Henry Harrison Murray It was at the battle of Malvern Hill--a battle where the carnage was more frightful, as it seems to me, than in any this side of the Alleghanies during the whole war--that my story must begin. I was then serving as Major in the --th Massachusetts Regiment--the old --th, as we used to call it--and a bloody time the boys had of it too. About 2 p. m. we had been sent out to skirmish along the edge of the wood in which, as our generals suspected, the Rebs lay massing for a charge across the slope, upon the crest of which our army was posted. We had barely entered the underbrush when we met the heavy formations of Magruder in the very act of charging. Of course, our thin line of skirmishers was no impediment to those onrushing masses. They were on us and over us before we could get out of the way. I do not think that half of those running, screaming masses of men ever knew that they had passed over the remnants of as plucky a regiment as ever came out of the old Bay State. But many of the boys had good reason to remember that afternoon at the base of Malvern Hill, and I among the number; for when the last line of Rebs had passed over me, I was left among the bushes with the breath nearly trampled out of me and an ugly bayonet-gash through my thigh; and mighty little consolation was it for me at that moment to see the fellow who ran me through lying stark dead at my side, with a bullet-hole in his head, his shock of coarse black hair matted with blood, and his stony eyes looking into mine. Well, I bandaged up my limb the best I might, and started to crawl away, for our batteries had opened, and the grape and canister that came hurtling down the slope passed but a few feet
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