340 SKETCHES IN PROSE. 



townspeople, who admit that he fought the enemy on 

 Seminary Ridge, claim that he did it while he was so drunk 

 he did not know a Union soldier from a rebel. He was a 

 patriot and had been a soldier, and maddened by the sight of 

 the preparation for the strife, and the efforts of the citizens to 

 avoid it by flight or concealment, he got down his old flint- 

 lock, and putting his powder-horn and some bullets in his 

 pockets, prepared to take the field. Always bold and 

 determined, he was now full of passion. One who saw him told 

 me he would never forget him as he was that morning, when, 

 with rifle on his shoulder, he cursed every male non-combat- 

 ant he found above ground, calling them squaws, cowards and 

 " chicken-hearts," and similar names, and urging them to go 

 home and melt up their pewter into bullets and go and defend 

 their homes and firesides, but ceasing his unavailing oaths 

 and entreaties he joined the troops now hurried to the front. 



The scenes and sounds around were intensely impressive. 

 There was the distant booming of cannon and rattle of musketry, 

 the smoke curling above the Ridge, the frightened country- 

 men fleeing to the dubious protection of the town, the cattle, 

 wild with terror, running and bellowing across the fields 

 until shot down by interrupting missiles, and the waves on 

 waves of infantry and artiller}^ rolling toward the scene of 

 battle and meeting and almost burying the influx billows of 

 wounded and demoralized men. Toward where the noises of 

 battle smote the air the loudest, with set teeth and furrowed 

 brow, marched old John Burns, neither looking to the left nor 

 right, unless to cast a professional eye on the worn foot-gear 

 of the tired soldiers, and, jostled by the armed throngs who 

 crowded b}^ him, he slowly worked his way to the summit of 

 the Ridge. 



The Seventh Wisconsin Regiment was a part of the " Iron 

 Brigade," an organization which has a good record in the 

 campaign of the Army of the Potomac. In that brigade 



