The history of the battery
was bound up with the history of Lee's army. A rivalry sprang up
among the detachments of the different guns, and their several records were
jealously kept. The number of duels each gun was in was carefully counted,
every scar got in battle was treasured, and the men around their camp-fires,
at their scanty messes, or on the march, bragged of them among themselves
and avouched them as witnesses. New recruits coming in to fill the gaps
made by the killed and disabled, readily fell in with the common mood
and caught the spirit like a contagion. It was not an uncommon thing
for a wheel to be smashed in by a shell, but if it happened to one gun
oftener than to another there was envy. Two of the Evangelists
seemed to be especially favored in this line, while the Cat was so exempt
as to become the subject of some derision. The men stood by the guns
till they were knocked to pieces, and when the fortune of the day
went against them, had with their own hands oftener than once saved them
after most of their horses were killed.
This had happened in turn to every gun, the men at times working like beavers
in mud up to their thighs and under a murderous fire to get their guns out.
Many a man had been killed tugging at trail or wheel when the day was
against them; but not a gun had ever been lost.
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