Firing squad

“ Furthermore, care should be taken that all do not fire at the same [64] individual. The one on my left should aim at the one in the party to the left, and the one firing on my right should select some one in the group to the right of the center, while the center of our firing squad will aim at the center of their band."
These precautions were necessary with the new recruits. The two firing squads were arranged in this order: The Professor, with George and one of the boys at his sides, and John with Harry and the other boy assisting him. ”

“ Alan queried. “Buck can’t be shooting at them and cutting the rope off Bob’s hands at the same time?”
“No, I don’t think so,” answered Ned. “I believe that it is customary for only a certain number of guns in a firing squad to be actually [114] loaded with bullets. Blank cartridges are used in the others, and no soldier knows just who carries the fatal weapons. This is to keep any self-respecting man among them from feeling that he is committing cold-blooded murder by shooting down a prisoner with his hands tied. ”

“ It takes a good many bullets to get a man. However, don’t think of that. Do your duty. That’s what you’re here for!”
The lieutenant looked somewhat anxiously into the faces of the relief squad he was to command. Every officer likes to know that he has the bravest of men in the army, and this young officer was no exception. The firing line where the Motor Boys now were—the front-line trenches—was no place for cowards. ”

“ Prevents increasing vulnerability of squad while preparing for a rush, and rushes as soon after cease firing as possible. When other squads of his platoon, are rushing, or the platoon which is covering the same target as is his platoon, is rushing he has his squad increase its rate of fire to make up for lost fire effect of the rushing element. In rushing causes men to spring to feet running at full speed, all men to drop to the ground at the same time, and those who are in rear to crawl up to the line. When re-enforcing the firing line, takes over the duties of disabled squad leaders. ”

“ If the enemy attacks and the outguards are driven in they will fall back on the flanks so as not to mask the fire of the squads on the firing line. This will enable them to drift toward an assembly point or trench in rear of the firing line proper where they will be available to the section commander as a small local support to be thrown in any of the squad firing positions where casualties have been relatively heavy or to put them in where they are most needed to repel the attack. ”

“ It is probable, all the same, that many German soldiers, on entering Belgium or France, were obsessed by the idea of civilians firing on them. The cry of a soldier trembling with fear, drunk, or thirsting for pillage—"Man hat geschossen (they have fired) "—is enough for a locality to be delivered up at once to the wildest fury. "When an inhabitant has fired on a regiment," said a soldier at Louvain, "the place belongs to the regiment." What a temptation for a Boche soldier to fire a shot that will at once unloose pillage and massacre! ”

“ The feet of the men left blood-marks on the ice, the hands of the men were frozen where they rested on the gun stocks. Men lay down by the roadside and died or were gathered by the blue force hard on the heels of the rear guard. The ambulances bore their load, the empty ammunition and commissary wagons carried as many as they might, the caissons were overlaid with moaning men, the mounted officers took men up behind them. ”

“ Staff-officer says: 'These are our men, there is some mistake; wait awhile, and the firing will stop.' Firing does not stop, and the aim is better. Staff-officer goes to report, hastens for orders and instructions, and never comes back. Our position is terribly embarrassing, frightfully uncomfortable. Our ignorance of the place, the darkness, the wood, the uncertainty whether the firing is from friend or foe, increase the horrors of that night's battle. The writer walked from the centre to the head of the regiment and asked Colonel Wead what the firing meant. ”

“ Fear of the defenders plainly visible at the windows had hitherto kept the space between the flagstaff and the house free of intruders, and now the sturdy frontiersmen, covered by the rifles of their friends behind, advanced against the foe, laying about them as they came with hearty goodwill. Gradually the mob yielded their ground. Firing they might perhaps have faced, but this extremely unheroic method of fighting disgusted them with the sport. ”

“ He saw Sergeant Billy Maydew, passing down the line, pause just a moment when he saw Dave. “I reckon I’ll be coming, too, directly, Dave,” said Billy, then went on with his duty. He saw Allan, tall and strong and fair, set in a great smoke wreath firing steadily. Fire!—Fire!—Fire!—Fire! There rose a question of ammunition. Jim Watts was one of those who went for cartridges and brought them while the air was a shriek of shells. Steve saw the cartridge-bearers askance, coming, earnest-faced, through the cloud—then the cloud grew red-bosomed, and he saw them no more. ”

“ The trenches grew slippery with blood. It mixed with the rain and ran in red streamlets. The bayonet point felt first the folds of cloth, then it touched and broke the skin, then it parted the tissues, then it grated against bone, or, passing on, rending muscle and gristle, protruded, a crimson point. Withdrawn, it sought another body, sought it fast, and found it. Those men who had room to fire kept on firing, the blue into breast and face of the grey, the grey into breast and face of the blue. Flame scorched the flesh of each. ”

“ To extend whole companies in the firing-line at the outset, the supports being formed from other companies, is a proceeding which can seldom be justified; leading as it must to a premature admixture of tactical units, and to the surrender, at an unnecessarily early period, of the control of the firing-line. The rule that all reinforcements should be furnished as long as possible by the same unit should never be infringed.
4. When the battalion is acting in concert with other units, the frontage assigned to it, if the attack is intended to be decisive, must be in proportion to its strength. ”

“ If a crowd attempted to seize hold of the guns of my command, I should certainly give an order to fire. I would not give the order recklessly to fire. I would give the crowd time to get out of the way, by simply announcing to them that I would fire if the crowd did not disperse. If they had been firing into me, and committing acts imperiling the lives of my men, I do not know that I would give them that warning. These are little things a man would have to judge of as they occurred. I believe an overt act committed by a mob justifies the officer who commands the troops to fire. ”

“ And on the firing line, if they were lucky enough to escape being shot, they would find no superior officers in any case, but only men charged with the duty of looking after their small, individual tasks, and too busy to pay any attention to them. It was the staff headquarters they wanted to reach. ”

“ The fellow was quartered in a village near Lille, doing sentry duty on a house occupied by German officers. There was an uprising of citizens. From across the way native franc-tireurs fired shots into the house, killing one officer and wounding a second. Tracing the firing across the street, the remaining officers entered a bakery-shop where they found several men and a woman, all armed. They ordered the men to be shot. The woman had in her hand a revolver with one of the cartridge chambers empty. The German lieutenant saw that she was about to become a mother. ”

“ Statements, differing as to wording but tallying in meaning, travelled from grade to grade, back to Headquarters. “It is totally impossible, and the men know it. They are not to be blamed.”
By noon even Grant, who rarely knew when he was beaten, knew that he was beaten here. The firing sank away. “The dead and dying lay in front of the Confederate lines in triangles, of which the apexes were the bravest men who came nearest to the breastworks under the withering, deadly fire.” Dead and wounded and missing, ten thousand men in blue felt the full force of that hour. ”

“ Human nature at last gave way. A few of the soldiers at the head of the column turned and fired into the mocking, vituperative crowd and for their rash act were promptly put under arrest. By that volley happily no one was injured. But the firing enhanced the fury of the disloyal in the gathered and gathering multitude. Some, pressing upon the soldiers, spat upon them. Some threw stones into their ranks; there were two or three shots from the turbulent throng, when, at the lower end of the columns of soldiers, one or two volleys were poured into the excited throng. ”

“ The heavy fire which the powder smoke had drawn upon the two companies was also being felt by the 22d and its choleric commander, Major Van Horn, came rushing over with, "For God's sake, Second Massachusetts, stop firing! You're making us a regular target for the enemy." This was not all he said, either, but it was stronger language than politeness required. The firing did stop, that is, the volley firing did, but the company commanders gave their men orders to fire at will. ”

“ We left Sherman's Brigade maintaining a confused fight, Hildebrand's about gone, Buckland's and McDowell's158 holding their ground more tenaciously. The firing aroused McClernand's Division. At first they supposed it to be a mere skirmish; perhaps even only the irregular discharge of muskets by guards and pickets, to clean out their guns—a practice which, to the disgrace of our discipline be it said, was well nigh universal—and rendered it almost impossible at any time to know whether firing meant anything at all, beyond ordinary disorder of our own soldiers. ”

“ I found myself lying in a shell-hole pretending to myself that I was listening, and watching, and so on, but really absolutely stuck, trying to make myself go on ... and I couldn't.... I'm finished as a scout ... that's all.'
Well, it was all for the present. No thinking, human C.O. is going to run a man in for being beaten by a job like that. It is a specialist's affair, like firing a gun. It is his business to put the right man on the job, and if he doesn't, he can't complain.
So we made Harry Lewis gun officer. ”

“ They were fighting hard. From each metal bore sprang yellow-red flowers of death. The hill shook and became wreathed with smoke. Through it she saw the gun detachments, rhythmically moving, and other figures, officers and men, passing rapidly to and fro. Shouted orders came to her, then the thunder of the guns covered all other sound. The antagonist was a blue battery on a shoulder of the ridge and blue infantry somewhere in the thick wood below. This battery’s range was poor; most of the shells fell short of the grey hill. But the sharpshooters on the nearer spur were another guess matter. ”

“ Horses and men lay beside it, mangled. Farther away yet, and earlier yet, they had seen a reconnoitring party enter a finger of land crooking toward the Federal lines, and beyond the cover of the grey guns. The blue, too, had seen, and thrusting forward a regiment cut off the grey party. The bulk of the latter hewed its way through, back to the shelter of the grey Parrotts, but there were officers and men left wounded in the wood.—The day was gloomy, gloomy! The smoke from Stephen Lee’s guns and from the answering Federal batteries hung clogged and indiffusible, dark and hard. ”

“ I telephoned to our adjutant, who said he would speak to our batteries. "We are not firing there at all," he informed me five minutes afterwards, and I reported to the brigade-major.
Ten minutes later the brigade-major rushed angrily out of his hut. "Look here!" he said, "that artillery fire has started again. They've killed a subaltern and a sergeant of the East ——s. You must do something!"
I rang up the adjutant again. "It isn't our people," he replied tersely. "It might be the —th Division on our left," I suggested. "Can you get on to them?" ”

“ Our men on the right, as they were brought in against the enemy, came in on higher ground, and upon his flank, giving us every advantage to be derived from the lay of the country. Our firing was also very much more rapid, because the enemy commenced his retreat westward and in firing as he retreated had to turn around every time he fired. The enemy's loss was very heavy, as well in killed and wounded as in captures. Some six general officers fell into our hands in this engagement, and seven thousand men were made prisoners. ”

“ When a line halts at its points of firing, no time is to be lost in scrupulous dressing, and the firing is instantly to commence. But when a line halts, and is not to fire, the usual dressings must be attended to; and every thing will depend upon the coolness and attention of the officers and non-commissioned officers.
It should be observed with respect to firings in general, that after the march in front, and halt of the battalion, company, or platoon, firing ought invariably to begin from the centre, and not from the flank. ”

“ As ammunition was becoming scarce, on the 15th of the same month the general issued an order that cannon were not to be fired at single men, for the younger officers of the garrison, becoming weary of confinement, were wont to turn their guns 'at Bagats, or figures dressed like men, which the enemy exhibited in ridicule of our ineffectual firing,' and, curiously enough, this order was one of the chief charges brought against him, by Sir William Draper, at a subsequent time. ”

“ The brigade advances with quick onward dashes by battalions that spring up, race a hundred yards and disappear for a breathing space among the boulders. Gradually they draw into the shelter of the intervening ridge, and battalion after battalion tops it and [Pg 159] moves down to the aid of those in front. A strong firing-line remains on the crest, keeps up a steady stream of bullets against the long grey line still whelmed in dust by an unceasing hail of shrapnel. The brigadier ensconces himself in a rock shelter at the end of this firing-line, the telephone receiver still ready to his hand. ”