This photograph, taken after the fall of Vicksburg, shows one of the punishments inflicted on negro soldiers who had committed breaches of discipline. They were set astride of a plank six inches wide and forced to remain in this position which was neither comfortable nor dignified for two or three hours under guard. The negro guard clothed with a little authority over his fellows, is apparently swelling with importance. The two negro soldiers "riding the sawbuck" look apathetic, but it is doubtful if they are enjoying themselves to any great extent.
All quiet along the Potomac tonight, Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon, Or the light of the watch-fire, are gleaming, A tremulous sigh of the gentle night-wind Through the forest leaves softly is creeping; While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes, Keep guard, for the army is sleeping.
"We're coming Father Abraham three hundred thousand strong." This youthful warrior in his "hickory" shirt was a member of the Fourth Michigan and was with the Army of the Potomac from Bull Run to Appomattox.
The lives laid down by the blue-clad soldiers in the first day's fighting made possible the ultimate victory at Gettysberg. All the way from McPherson's Woods back to Cemetery Hill lay the Federal soldiers who had contested every foot of that retreat until nightfall. The Confederates were massing so rapidly from the west and north that there was scant time to bring off the wounded and none for attention to the dead. There on the field lay the shoes so much needed by the Confederates and the grim task of gathering them began. The dead were stripped of arms, ammunition, caps and accoutrements as well--in fact of everything that would be of the slightest use in enabling Lee's poorly equipped army to continue the internecine strife. It was one of the War's awful expedients.
The shot-holes in the little bunker church of Antietam, and the dead in Blue and Gray as they lay after the battle-smoke had lifted, mark the center of the bloodiest single day's fighting in the Civil War. Here the grand armies of the North and South faced one another on September 17, 1862. At sunrise the action began; by four o'clock in the afternoon it was over and dead and wounded numbered twenty-three thousand five hundred. The preponderance of the army under McClellan, with his eighty seven thousand men, was offset by the presence of three great Confederate leaders whose names had already rung round the world--Lee, Jackson and Longstreet--with numbers less than half those opposed to them. On the 18th the armies lay exhausted; and on the 19th, Lee abandoned his invasion of the North.
By "horse artillery" and "flying artillery" as it is sometimes called, is meant an organization equipped usually with ten-pounder rifled guns, with all hands mounted. In ordinary light artillery the cannoneers either ride on the gun carriage or go afoot. In flying artillery each cannoneer has a horse. This form is by far the most mobile of all, and is best suited to accompany calvary on account of its ability to travel rapidly. With the exception of the method of mounting the cannoneers, there was not any difference between the classes of field batteries except as they were divided between "light" and "heavy". In the photograph above no one is riding on the gun-carriages, but all have separate mounts.
It was always a happy moment for the soldiers when "fresh-bread day" came round. It varied the monotony of "hardtack" and formed quite a luxury after the hard campaign through the wilderness and across the James River. Soft bread was obtained only in permanent camp. There was no time for it on the march.
