The nation was awakened by that deafening shot.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Suddenly, at about ten o'clock, a dull thud sounded somewhere far away from us, and simultaneously we saw a small white round cloud about half a mile ahead of us where the shrapnel had exploded. The battle had begun.
On my left the shooting had the sharp explosion of the infantry artillery, on my right could be heard the sporadic cannon shots thundering from the front, and up above the sky was clear and the sun bright.
For in the first place the American people could not have been swept too fast and too far in this movement without enough alarms being sounded to be heard and heeded.
Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation's heart, the excision of its memory.
The moral effect of the thundering of one's own artillery is most extraordinary, and many of us thought that we had never heard any more welcome sound than the deep roaring and crashing that started in at our rear.
'Awake' was just the most beautiful show. For most of the shooting, we didn't know if they were going to air. You never knew. We were just trying to make it the best it could.
In the beginning, there was silence. And out of the silence came the sound. The sound is not here.
America faces a new race that has awakened.
Our war cries opened the deaf ears of the almighty government and its accomplices.
The closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firemen. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. Big ones died down under the firemen's valor only to break out again later.