Forest warfare

“ Scarcely had he spoken, when the forest was alive with cries of warfare. Wild whoops rang through the great avenues of wood, and sudden glimpses of the red-men, followed by flights of arrows, warned the Frenchmen still more emphatically to prepare against the danger. But the arrows, though discharged with skill and muscle, were sent from far;—the dread of the European fire-arms prompting a decent caution, which, in a great degree, lessened the superiority which the savages possessed in numbers. The woods were now filled with enemies. ”

“ The scouts and a few of the provincials who had been accustomed to forest warfare, took up their position behind trees and fought the advancing enemy in their own way. The mass of the defenders, however, were altogether puzzled by the stealthy approach of their foes, who advanced from tree to tree, seldom showing as much as a limb to the fire of the defenders, and keeping up a deadly fire upon the crowd of soldiers. ”

“ How much more noble is such courage, how infinitely superior is such a warfare, one which mows down forest trees instead of men, which creates green pastures, broad meadows, and fields of waving grain, instead of smouldering cities, and desolated homes! How much more pleasant is the sound of the woodman's axe, than that of the booming cannon! How much more cheerful the smoke that goes up from the burning fallow, than that which hangs in darkness over the desolation of the battle field, beneath which lie the dead in their stillness, and the wounded in their agony! ”

“ Presently from a dense clump of bushes came a little puff of white smoke, and then the stillness was broken by the report of a rifle. A bullet buried itself in one of the trees on the hill, and Shif'less Sol turned over with a sniff of contempt.
"If they don't shoot better'n that," he said, "I might ez well go to sleep."
But the forest duel had begun, and it was a contest of skill against skill, of craft against craft. Every device of wilderness warfare known to the red men was practiced, too, by the white men who confronted them. ”

“ Nothing could be more disastrous in the way of warfare than an attack with poisoned arrows, in the midst of the forest, during the night. Your men would fall right and left without having been able to defend themselves in any way. ”

“ FIGHTING IN CLOSE COUNTRY Close country has a marked influence on Tactics owing to the restrictions it imposes on view and on movement. Forest, jungle, and bush, mountains and ravines, rivers and streams are natural obstacles, while cultivation adds woods and plantations, fences and hedges, high growing crops, farm houses, villages and towns, with sunken roads below the surface of the adjoining land, and civilisation brings in its train a network of railways and canals with embankments and bridges, and the natural difficulties of close country are thereby increased. ”

“ To add to this discontent, there was an understanding that their leaders had been entrapped into this Wilderness fighting. Certainly it was no place which an invading army would have chosen for battle.
It was a vast, sprawling forest district, densely covered with low timber, scrub-oak, dwarf junipers, and tangled cedars and pines, all knit together breast-high and upward with interlacing wild vines, and foul underfoot with swamp or thicket.
In this gloomy and sinister wilderness men did not know where they were, nor whom they were fighting. ”

“ In the Forest proper our boys encountered machine-gun nests, artillery pieces of every caliber, and the Boche with whom the woods were infested. Besides the opposition of an active enemy, were the natural barriers of deep ravines, stony ridges and cliffs, and in many places an almost impassable barrier of dense underbrush and fallen limbs and trees. ”

“ Our total loss this day was only three men killed and seven wounded, after having driven the enemy from an almost impenetrable stronghold—a dense forest with close thorny underwood, and endless barriers of huge masses of detached rock. ”

“ Through this marvellous museum our three spectators wandered in hourly peril of death. The Afreets of the waters and the Afreets of the rocks, guarding the gateway which they had jointly builded, waged incessant warfare with the intruders. Although the current ran five miles an hour, it was a lucky day when the boat made forty miles. Every evening the travellers must find a beach or shelf where they could haul up for the night. Darkness covered destruction, and light exposed dangers. ”

“ Pressed backward to a perilous length they recover from the first blow, and dart their heads in furious waves forward, and the glory of the war between the forest and the storm is at its height. Legion after legion of clouds ride over the wind-tost crests, there is a crashing and roaring, a loud soughing and moaning, shrill screaming of squalls, and groaning of countless woods. There are mighty sweeps from the great tree-kings, as though mighty strokes were being dealt; there is a world-wide rustling of foliage, as though in gleeful approval of the vast strength of their sires ”

“ It is not prepared for by fire, since it is desirable to lose no time. We must strike as quickly as possible, keeping in contact with the neighboring division. And it is marching forward abreast of ours.
With long, hard strides we approach the black fir trees at the forest's edge. A sign from the commandant and the naked bayonets are adjusted to the gun barrels. Many of them have cast for a moment a reflected ray of sunlight into the darkened wood.
The soil clings thicker to our shoes and our pace gets [297] hotter. The faces of the men redden. They know what that means—wood fighting. ”

“ The sun is sinking behind the bluffs, and its last rays fall on a bullet-riddled ambulance; on the stiffening bodies of a half dozen slaughtered animals—a horse and some mules; on a grim, determined little band of soldiers—two of them sorely wounded. The red shafts gleam on a litter of empty cartridge-shells and tinge the canvas top of the overturned wagon. Out on the rolling prairie several hundred yards away, the turf is dotted here and there by Indian ponies, the innocent victims of this savage warfare. ”

“ A hail of bullets rattled through the forest, and as volley after volley was fired, the confusion and dismay occasioned in the camp were indescribable. Soldiers and officers could be plainly seen by the light of the fires walking helplessly about, horses were galloping wildly in all directions, and the sound of bugles and drums mingled with the cries of the wounded and flying, who sought in the distant woods a shelter against the murderous fire of their unseen enemy. ”

“ The first approaches, occupying the further range of the enemy’s guns, bore fearful witness of the wild devastation made by the ball and shell which had over-shot the mark. Large trees were entirely splintered off within ten feet of the ground; heavy branches lay in every direction, and pieces of exploded missiles were scattered over the forest sward. The carcasses of horses and the wrecks of wagons strewed all the woods and marked every step of the way.
Half a mile further on, and the most terrible results of the struggle were brought to view. Lifeless bodies lay thickly in the woods ”

“ To the extreme left and north, near the river, the warfare became general, while toward the centre the firing became less rapid.
What a beautiful landscape lay out before us! Far in the distance lay the cultivated hills—some already yellow with grain, while on other hills and in the valleys the deep green of the trees formed the shadows in the fair landscape.
It was amid the clump of trees on the far distant hillside, that the Federal batteries could be discerned by the frequent puffings of smoke from the guns. ”

“ The Bivouac!—I sit by the night camp-fire; around are warlike forms and bearded faces. The blazing log reflects the sheen of arms and accoutrements—saddles, rifles, pistols, canteens, strewing the ground, or hanging from the branches of adjacent trees. Picketed steeds loom large in the darkness, their forms dimly outlined against the sombre background of the forest. A solitary palm stands near, its curving fronds looking hoary under the fire-light. ”

“ The sound seemed to release a spring, for instantly the fawn bounded away, his white flag raised, and joined the others in the safety of the wilderness.
Providence was kind to the buck and his family and in spite of their many enemies late autumn found them still together. Through October, the hunters' month, when the law permits the shooting of males, they all grew exceedingly wary. The sound of a gun in the still forest would send them fleeing swiftly and tirelessly toward the denser coverts to the north. ”

“ In the tangled underwood of the Wilderness artillery and cavalry were of little use, and the battle became a fierce struggle between the foot soldiers of either army. The forest was so thick that officers could only see a small part of their men, and could only guess at what was going on by the sound of the firing, and the shouts exultant or despairing, of the men who were drive to and fro in the dark and dreary thickets. In the end neither side gained anything except an increased respect for the foe. ”

“ The units in the middle of the Forest saw nothing but trees and underbrush. All the world was forest to them. Those who found themselves on the edge looked out on stretches of the great battlefield under puffs of shell smoke, and to the going and coming of aeroplanes in another world, and possibly were forced to seek shelter in the Forest by bursts of machine-gun fire to which they were exposed from other divisional sectors. ”

“ Consequently, if men come against them with firearms, when, as is usually the case, the long grass is all burned off, the tribe attacked are as helpless as a wooden ship, possessing only signal guns, would be before an iron-clad steamer. The time of year selected for this kind of warfare is nearly always that in which the grass is actually burnt off, or is so dry as readily to take fire. The dry grass in Africa looks more like ripe English wheat late in the autumn, than anything else we can compare it to. ”

“ Without were already gathered hundreds of warriors attracted by rumors of war and promise of pillage; and these were growing in number and increasing in ferocity each day. I had ridden through them once, when their mood was only to annoy, and realized with a shudder of horror what it would mean to face them in our retreat, with all restraint of their chiefs removed. I thought of those long leagues of tangled forest-land stretching between us and the nearest border settlements, of ambuscades, of constant and harassing attack on the ever-thinning column as we fought for each foot of the way. ”

“ But the destruction of the forest was not what disturbed the watching people. That which alarmed them was that the fire had not rid them of their foe. Many of the beast-men must have been slain, for did not every returned warrior boast of killing his scores? Yet, to judge from the throng that collected by the river bank, one would have thought that the dead had all come to life again. Swarming up-stream from the devastated areas to the fringe of the remaining woods, the beast-men had made camp serenely beneath the very eyes of their rivals, although well beyond range of stones. ”

“ In the lull of the crash of battle, when a hundred giants seemed to be falling in the forest, men listened in horror to the groans of comrades suffocating, burning alive in the woods which had been fired by hot shot and shell, and they were powerless to aid them. ”

“ The forest on either side was filled with creeping forms, white or red, men with burning eyes seeking to slay each other, meeting in strife more terrible than that of foes who encounter each other in open conflict. There was something snakelike in their deadly creeping, only the moving grass to tell where they passed and sometimes where both white and red died, locked fast in the grip of one another. Everywhere it was a combat, confused, dreadful, man to man, and with no shouting now, only the crack of the rifle shot, the whiz of the tomahawk, the thud of the knife, and choked cries. ”

“ The little white army left thirty dead in the dripping forest, and, as many more carried wounds, the most of which were curable, but it was as full of fight as ever. It merely drew back to protect itself against being flanked in the forest, and the faces of the borderers, sullen and determined, were still turned to the enemy. ”

“ But neither road, nor field, nor forest, were this time permitted to afford many of them the means of escape, or shield them from the harassing pursuit of the exasperated Americans, who, in furiously-charging columns, overthrew, shot down, or captured, all their broken and flying bands within reach, in the road and open grounds, or in small parties, or singly, closely followed and boldly encountered them in the woods, whose dark recesses soon resounded with the scattering fire, the clashing steel, and the hurrying shout, of the pursued and pursuing combatants. ”

“ Our soldiers fighting in an unexplored wilderness, along the dark borders of swamp and morass, crawling many times on hands and knees through the tangled matted underbrush, fighting these children of the forest who knew every inch of their ground could hope for little less than defeat. ”

“ Trees staggering from their shattered trunks, and [234] limbs hanging everywhere, show where the shrapnel shells have been bursting. Yard by yard the ranks and lines of the enemy were driven back, but the nearer their retreat brought them to the open country west of the wood the hotter the contest became; for each man in his own mind must have known how they would fare when, once driven from the protecting forest, they attempted to retreat through the open country without shelter. ”