The Gun Line

This picture was taken at the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Cedar Creek. It shows our unit, which was part of Battery C under the command of Captain Barnhart for the event. We were positioned on the side of a hill with a road directly to our rear. We had just rolled our guns forward and loaded the first shot when we began to hear shooting. All of a sudden, there was a gray line moving towards us, and not stopping. We fired a volley at them, and of course none of them fell. We often refer to this as “reblar” which is a mixture of the terms rebel and Kevlar, which is a bulletproof material. We figure this is the only explanation for our cannons doing apparently nothing. Anyway, we were given the order to retreat our guns to escape capture, but seriously, how much faster can we move dragging cannons than a line of people running straight at us. Needless to say, they caught up to us and we died gloriously in hand to hand combat. The battle ensued and we just watched from our guns. We got up and moved around because the public couldn’t see us anyway. It was about five minutes after we were overrun when we heard the cry to charge from our left side. We looked down the hill to see a line of cavalry coming straight toward us. As soon as the first horse arrived, he asked why we weren’t fighting them. “We’re dead,” was our only reply. Maybe 15 minutes later, we were attacked by another small force of infantry who also wondered why we were not fighting back. Then we told them that it was the third time we were being killed, and they went on, depressed that someone had beat them to it. After the battle we packed up and went home. To this day, it was the only time I have ever been killed three times in the course of a half an hour.