He found no smirch of dirt or dampness.
"Clean and clear as a whistle inside," he said, approvingly.

"She'll make music that our Secession friends will pay attention to, though it may not be as sweet to their ears as 'The Bonnie Blue Flag.'" "More likely kick the whole northwest quarter section of your shoulder off when you try to shoot it," growled Abe, who had been paying similar close attention to his gun.

"If we'd had anybody but a lot of mullet-heads for officers we'd a'been sent up here last week, when the weather and the roads were good, and when we could've done something.
Now our boys'll be licked before we can get where we can help 'em." Glen leaned on his musket, and listening to the deepening roar of battle, was shaken by the surge of emotions natural to the occasion.

It seemed as if no one could live through the incessant firing the sound of which rolled down to them.

To go up into it was to deliberately venture into certain destruction.