“Havin' had consider'ble experience in sech affairs, I must say I don't believe I ever witnessed such a dissa'pintin' battle ez that one turn't out to be. The prevailin' notion on both sides seemed to be that the opposin' forces should march bravely toward one another ontil they got almost within long range and then fur both gangs to halt ez though by simultaneous impulse, and fire at will, with nearly everybody shootin' high and wide and furious. When this had continued till it become mutually bore-some, one side would charge with loud cheers, ashootin' ez it advanced, but prudently slowin' down and finally haltin' before it got close enough to inflict much damage upon the foe or to suffer much damage either. Havin' accomplished this, the advancin' forces would fall back in good order and then it was time fur the other side to charge. I must say this in justice to all concerned--there was a general inclination to obey the rules ez laid down fur the prosecution of tie kind of warfare they waged. Ez a usual thing, I s'pose it would be customary fur the battle to continue ez described until the shades of night descended and then each army would return to its own base, claimin' the victory. But on this occasion something in the nature of a surprise occurred that wasn't down on the books a-tall. “Right down under the little rise where us fellers sat waitin', stood them four guns that the Liberals bought off of Shelby. Ef brass cannons have feelin's--and I don't know no reason why they shouldn't have--them cannons must have felt like something was radically wrong. The crews were loadin' and firin' and swabbin' and loadin' and firin' ag'in--all jest ez busy ez beavers. But they plum overlooked one triflin' detail which the military experts have always reguarded ez bein' more or less essential to successful artillery operations. They forgot to aim in the general direction at the enemy. They done a plentiful lot of cheerin', them gun crews did, and they burnt up a heap of powder and they raised a powerful racket and hullabaloo, but so fur ez visible results went they mout jest ez well have been bombardin' the clear blue sky of heaven. “Well, fur quite a spell we stayed up there on the brow of the hill, watchin' that there engagement. Only you couldn't properly call it an engagement--by rights it wasn't nothin' but a long distance flirtation. Now several of our boys had served one time or another with the guns. There was one little feller named Vince Hawley, out of Lyon's Battery, that had been one of the crack gunners of the Western Army. He held in ez long ez he could and then he sings out: