Part 11 (1/2)
The crash of that Napoleon, and the scream of the sh.e.l.l there, in the deep stillness of day-dawn, sounded as if it might be heard all over Virginia! The effect was instant! You ought to have seen the boys, lying all about, ”tumble up.” They flirted up from the ground like snap bugs!
”Gabriel's trumpet” couldn't have jerked them to their feet quicker.
Ned Barnes had lain down right where the gun had been, at the work. When we ran it back to its place, in our excitement, we did not notice him.
Fortunately the wheels went on either side of him. He was lying flat on his back, and right under the gun, when it fired. Ned went on like a chicken with its head off. There was a scuffle, a yell, the whack of a b.u.mped head under the gun. Ned came tumbling out, all in a heap, perfectly dazed, and wanting to know, in indignant tones, ”What in the thunder we were doing that way _for_?”
Before the sound of our gun had died away the whole line was up, shooting like mad, and both guns were going hard. A few minutes of this sent that sneaking line back to the woods, with a good deal more noise, and faster, than it came. We learnt, afterwards, that the idea was to surprise us, if possible. If so, to take, and sweep our line. If not, _not_ to press the attack. The ”surprise” was all they could have wished. Not a picket fired on them. They were in one hundred and fifty yards of our sleeping men, and could have simply walked over them, and captured the whole line at that point. And, _if they had_--fixed as our Army was, a half hour later--it would, I am sure, have meant disaster.
The only thing that averted it was, _humanly_ speaking, the _accident_ that three young ”Howitzers” sat up talking all night, and, happened to look over at that wood at the break of day,--and _had a cannon handy_!
I think the Texans ”owed us another one” for this, and the Army of Northern Virginia ”owed us one” too. Major-General Field _said so_ in his report of this incident.
The very same thing which _would have happened here was happening_ five minutes later up the line to our right, where the Federal troops came right over our works, and caught our exhausted soldiers asleep in their blankets--the start of the b.l.o.o.d.y business of the b.l.o.o.d.y Angle.
Yes! the b.l.o.o.d.y work which was to go on all day long, this dreadful 12th of May, was already beginning, up there in the woods.
The little firing on our part of the line was scarcely over, before we heard the sound of musketry come rolling down the line from the right.
Soon the big guns joined in, and we knew that a furious fight was going on, off there. In a few moments we got the news, called from man to man down along the lines, ”The Yankees have taken the Salient on Ewell's front, and captured Ed. Johnson's Division, and twenty guns. Pa.s.s it down the lines!”
So it was! In overwhelming ma.s.ses the Federals had poured out of the woods, over the Salient Angle, where the men were asleep, and from which the cannon had been withdrawn. And General Lee was trying to drive them out, and retake our works.
This was the great business of the 12th of May. A very cyclone of battle raged round that Salient. The Federals trying to hold it, our men trying to retake it. We heard that the two Parrott guns of our ”Right Section”
had gone over there to help, and they were in the thick of that awful row. We heard it all going on, artillery and musketry, rolling and cras.h.i.+ng away, all day long.
Our part of the line was comparatively quiet, after the fight of the early morning. Several times infantry was seen moving about, down in the woods, in our front, and we would send a few sh.e.l.ls into the woods just to let them know that we were watchful, and ready. Harry Sublett was wounded by a stray ball on this day. But no real attack was made, only the sound of the sharp-shooter's rifle, and the sound of their bullets enlivened the time.
This went on for several days. The idea of breaking our line, here, had been given up as a hopeless job, and no other attempt was made on it.
a.s.saults were made on other points, and we could hear fighting, here and there, but we were left alone.
At last, we got orders to move, about the 18th or 19th. Our pickets had advanced through the woods, and reported that the enemy had left our front.
While waiting for the horses to be brought up to take off the guns, an infantryman told me that a cow had been killed, between the lines, and was lying down there in the woods, in front.
We had had an awful time about food, for the last week, and were hungry as wolves. This news about the cow was news indeed. I told several of the boys, and off we started to get some of that cow! We found it lying just in the edge of the woods. It was a hideous place to go for a beefsteak! All around, the ground was covered with dead Federal soldiers, many in an advanced stage of decay. The woods had been on fire, and many of these bodies were burned; some with the clothing, and nearly all the flesh consumed! The carca.s.s of that cow was _touching five dead bodies_,--which will give an idea of how thick the dead were lying. Many of their wounded had perished in the flames, which had swept over the ground.
=Grant's Neglect of Federal Wounded=
We had witnessed all these horrors, with our own eyes, days before, from our lines, and had been helpless to do anything for them. Hundreds of wounded Federal soldiers lay between the lines, day after day, and perished for want of help. Several of us, unable to bear the sight of their suffering, went out one day to carry them food and water, and the Federals fired upon us, and wounded one of our men, then we had to leave them alone. They could not or would not care for their wounded, and would not let us do it. It _was stated_ among us that General Lee had sent an offer to General Grant to permit him to send, and care for his wounded, near our lines; and he refused. And then General Lee offered, if Grant would suspend hostilities for some hours, that _we_ would care for his wounded rather than see them suffer, and die, before our eyes; Grant refused that proposal too!
Certain it is, these poor fellows were left to their fate and perished, miserably, by wounds and famine, and fire. Their many dead, in our front, lay unburied until the odor from them was so dreadful that we could hardly stay in our works. It may be that General Grant had this in mind, and was determined that, if his _live_ soldiers couldn't drive us out of the works, his _dead_ ones should. Well! he had his way of making war! And on account of his inhumanity to his wounded, his _own men_ thought as _ours did_, that his way was very brutal! I heard his own men curse him bitterly. They called him ”The Butcher” in those days. The feeling of his army to him was widely different from our feeling for our General.
All those dead soldiers along a line of five miles lay rotting on the ground, until we had gone away, and the people of the country neighborhood had to collect them from the fields, and thickets, and bury them, for fear of pestilence. And when one remembers that from Thursday, the 5th of May, to Thursday, the 12th of May, General Grant had lost 40,000 in killed and wounded, the dread sight of death and suffering we looked upon, can be imagined! The thronging lines of unburied dead,--it was a shocking and appalling spectacle!
But we could not just then, mind the sights we saw! We got our beef, all the same! We were the first to get to that cow, and we had to take our knives and cut through the skin, on the rump, and flay it up, and then cut out hunks of the flesh, as best we could, and get back to the guns.
As I got back, carrying my big piece of meat, in my hands, Col. H. C.
Cabell, commanding our Battalion, met me. He said, ”My dear boy, where on earth did you get that meat?” I told him. ”Well,” he said, ”I am almost starved; _could_ you give me a little piece?” I cut off a chunk as big as my fist, stuck it on a sharp stick, held it a few minutes in a fire, close by, and handed it up to the Colonel, sitting on his horse.
He took it off the stick, and ate it ravenously. He said it was the best morsel he ever tasted! It was scant times when a Colonel of artillery was as famished as he was! I cut up the rest of the beef, and divided among several of us, and we cooked it on a stick, the only cooking utensil we had at hand, and ate it, with a keenness of enjoyment that terrapin, canva.s.s back duck, and Lynnhaven oysters could not provoke me to now. _My dear!_ but that hot meat was good, to palates accustomed, mostly, to _nothing_, and _no salt on that_, for about a week. The only meat we had now,--when we had any at all.--was fat mess pork, and we ate that _raw_. Hot beef was a delicious change!
Meanwhile the hours had worn on. We limbered up the guns, and moved several miles off, toward the right, pa.s.sing through Spottsylvania Court House. It was here we went by to see Cary Eggleston for the last time.
He died next day.