tion>Randall Parrish
My lady of the South
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066063672
Table of Contents
Left Wounded on the Field
CHAPTER I
LEFT WOUNDED ON THE FIELD
I now recall our part in the battle merely in a series of detached pictures, having dull, blank spaces between. Nevertheless, how vividly bright with color each separate scene photographed itself upon the retina of the eye. I remember our battery first going into action along the western edge of the old cemetery, among the billowy graves, the cracked overturned stones; I recall the mass of green leaves, checkered by red blossoms, where the vine clambered over the large monument at one rear and how I entangled my foot in the creepers and nearly fell. I shall never forget the ghastly white face of Rosecran's side, his long brown beard blown backward by force of the wind, as he came furiously spurring up the road, his head bare, his hand pointing forward, screaming out his orders; I remember the wild clang and turmoil as our startled horses plunged to the left, dragging after them the black guns, with muzzles still smoking grimly, on a mad, reckless gallop down into the shelter of a shallow ravine splashing through the running water, and dashing in headlong impetuosity up the sharp incline of the opposite bank. I heard the wild yells of the excited drivers, the blows, the crunching of heavy wheels over the stones; I saw the leap of the caissons, the rush of the men. Panting for breath, stumbling over the rough ground, I raced beside Number Two for the crest, vaguely wondering why Wyatt was lashing his leaders so like a demon. I saw Somers go tumbling forward in a shapeless heap, and one of the straining wheelers on Number One drop dead in the traces, dragged remorselessly onward by his team-mates. Yet I was there, my hands hard on the spokes, sluing the heavy guns into position, the very instant the released caissons were trotted to the rear down the protecting slope. Then it instantly became all clockwork, mechanism, discipline. I could scarcely distinguish faces or even
