A Tree Cut Down with Bullets.
A MOST vivid idea of the awful storm of death that sometimes sweeps over the battle field, is given in the following instance of a large tree actually cut down by the continual stream of bullets hurled against it “ “Most people,’ says the Richmond Enquirer, ‘have doubted the literal accuracy of the dispatch concerning the battle of Spottsylvania, which alleged that trees were cut down under the concentrated fire of minie balls. We doubted the literal fact ourselves, and would doubt it still, but for the indisputable testimony of Dr. Charles Macgill, an eye-witness of the battle. The tree stood in the rear of our breast-works, at a point upon which at one time the most murderous musketry fire that ever was heard of was directed. The tree fell inside our works, and injured several of our men. After the Battle, Dr. Macgill measured the trunk, and found it twenty-two inches through, and sixty-one inches in circumference, actually hacked through by the awful avalanche of bullets packing against it. The foliage of the tree was trimmed away as effectually as though as an army of locusts had swarmed in its branches. A grasshopper could not have lived through the pelting of that leaden storm, and but for the fact that our troops were protected by breastworks, they would have been swept away to a man.’”