Shock and Awe
"I found General Hovey's command drawn up in line
of battle, his right resting on the left of the main road, the
enemy, as I learned, having been discovered in force
strongly posted on a high ridge known as Champion's
Hill, and apparently well supported by artillery... The
Eighth Michigan Battery, Captain DeGolyer commanding, having been previously placed in position 200 yards in rear of General Leggett... Company D, First Illinois Light
Artillery, Captain Rogers, occupied the right of General Smith... The Third Ohio Battery, Captain Williams, formed on a commanding ridge in rear of my lines, acting as a reserve."
Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, 3rd Division, 17th Corps
"Our part of the line seemed to
monkey or maneuver all forenoon, and
finally took position in an open
cornfield, on a sloping, sandy hillside,
where the burning rays of a Mississippi
sun had a fair sweep at us. Here we
lay down and spread out, and were
lulled to sleep by the sweet songs of
rebel bullets as they hummed like
honeys bees through the air overhead...
"Presently a fine brass battery
[8th Michigan, DeGolyer] came tearing
into the field in our rear, with their six
cannon, 12 wagons, and 48 fine
horses, with the racket and animation
of a city fire department turning out to
a conflagration; unlimbered, wheeled
into
position went the horses and
baggage away out of range, and began
to poke it to the Johnnies in the woods
beyond an old rail fence in front of us as
they meant to hurt.
"The cannonade was so low and
close to us here that it was very
uncomfortable, the passing shot and
shell causing dizziness and vomiting to
the men lying in line so close to the
guns, also, the lead butts to the pointed
percussion shell, to make them fit the
rifles of the cannon, would fly off us soon
as the shell left the muzzle of the gun,
and often struck, melting hot, in our line,
more to be dreaded then the shell itself.
"After a cannon has been used a
while in active and close firing, it
becomes sloppy from the condensation
of powder, and this black, offensive slop,
scalding hot, splattered on us, adding to
n our discomfiture from our own guns.."
B. F. Boring
30th Illinois Infantry
[Sketch captions]
Bottom left: Theodore Davis' sketch of Grant "in a hurry" with Rawlings and Wilson riding through a nearby cornfield, DeGolyer's 8th Michigan Battery and Confederate prisoners captured by Logan's Division.
St. Nicholas (children's magazine) 1889
Top right: Theodore Davis' sketch of the Union artillery shelling the Confederate forces located in the woods beyond an old rail fence
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