- Joined
- Mar 2, 2019
- Location
- Reno, Nevada
Today I had the privilege of reading a witness's account of my gg-grandfather's detachment going into action during a retreat from Pilot Knob, Missouri, in September 1864. (How many of us get to SEE our ancestors fight?) It makes me very proud, but unfortunately, I can't understand the commands. Can anyone interpret "right dress" and "in nine times" in the passage below for me?
In the midst of all this confusion and alarm I heard the command,
“Fall in here, Fourteenth Iowa. D—n them, we can whip them ourselves!”
How encouraging it was to see that veteran captain, with his sword in his right hand and his hat in his left, forming his men steadily under the muzzles of the right wing of Battery H, and to hear him call out,
“Right dress! Front! Forward, march! Double-quick, march!”
Then forward they went, like Spartans of old; and when about one hundred and fifty or two hundred yards in front of the battery they halted, dressed, and we could distinctly hear the officer call out:
“Load! In nine times, load! Ready! Aim! Fire! Load! In nine times, load!” So simultaneous was their fire, that it sounded like the report of one gun, though as loud as a cannon. After about two hundred shots had been fired by Battery H, and probably twenty volleys by that brave little band of the Fourteenth Iowa, everything quieted down in the valley in front of us as if the enemy had seated themselves to take their after dinner smoke; and the guns limbered up and we went into column and jogged on into Leasburg without further trouble.
In the midst of all this confusion and alarm I heard the command,
“Fall in here, Fourteenth Iowa. D—n them, we can whip them ourselves!”
How encouraging it was to see that veteran captain, with his sword in his right hand and his hat in his left, forming his men steadily under the muzzles of the right wing of Battery H, and to hear him call out,
“Right dress! Front! Forward, march! Double-quick, march!”
Then forward they went, like Spartans of old; and when about one hundred and fifty or two hundred yards in front of the battery they halted, dressed, and we could distinctly hear the officer call out:
“Load! In nine times, load! Ready! Aim! Fire! Load! In nine times, load!” So simultaneous was their fire, that it sounded like the report of one gun, though as loud as a cannon. After about two hundred shots had been fired by Battery H, and probably twenty volleys by that brave little band of the Fourteenth Iowa, everything quieted down in the valley in front of us as if the enemy had seated themselves to take their after dinner smoke; and the guns limbered up and we went into column and jogged on into Leasburg without further trouble.