Part 12 (1/2)
It was afterwards, that perhaps a presentiment was given him that this was his last march, with the battery, he had fought so often, and loved so much; and _this_ saddened, and softened his usually bold, soldierly spirit, and bearing. I walked and talked with him a good deal that afternoon, and certainly I was struck by a quietness of manner, and a gentleness of speech, not at all usual with him. But we did not know what it meant _then_! So we cheerily swung along that silent road, to meet what was coming to him, and to us, in the unseen way ahead.
About five o'clock we pulled out of the road we had been travelling, and followed a narrow farm road, across a wide, open field, toward a farmhouse, on its farther edge. Beyond the house was a large pine wood, which stopped all view in that direction. As we pa.s.sed across that field, we saw some other artillery, coming from another direction, and converging with us upon that farmhouse. When we drew close together, we discovered that these fellows were the Second and Third Companies of the ”Richmond Howitzers.” Our Company, the First, had been separated from them at the beginning of the war, and they had never met, before now. A little while after, at this spot, the three batteries, ”First,” ”Second”
and ”Third Richmond Howitzers” went into battle side by side, for the first, and _only_ time, during the war. There was great interest felt by the boys that we should go into one fight _together_; but before we went in, the Battalion was broken up again, and scattered, to different parts of the line.
When we got near this farmhouse, all was quiet! We had not seen, or heard of any enemy for many hours, and we did not know where anybody was; didn't even know ”where we were _at_” _ourselves_. The farm road ran past the house, round the barn and on toward that pine woods behind the house.
We halted just by the house, and got some water, at the well, and stood around and wondered what we were here for. There were some cherry trees, with ripe cherries on them, and up them the boys swarmed, Leigh Robinson gallantly leading the way, to enjoy the fruit.
We were thus engaged, when the deep quiet of this rural scene was suddenly, and rudely broken! Over beyond that wood just by us, there burst out a terrific roar of musketry! It was like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky! We did not know any troops were near us, and had no idea that the enemy was in ten miles of us.
But there right through those pines the musketry was rolling, and cracking now! A few cannon shots joined in, and the Confederate ”yell”
rose up out of the thunder of battle. And the bullets began to sing around us. The cherry trees were quickly deserted by all, but Leigh Robinson. He stayed up there with b.a.l.l.s whizzing close to him, and calmly picked and ate cherries,--as if these were humming birds sporting about him,--until he had enough, or more likely, the cherries gave out.
Not knowing who was fighting beyond the woods, or what might come of it, we got the guns into battery, facing the woods, to be ready for what might be.
In a few minutes we saw Colonel Goggin, of Kershaw's staff, dash out of the woods, and gallop toward us. He told us that it was Kershaw's Division over there. They had been attacked by heavy lines of the enemy; that our line was broken, and captured at one point, and that Kershaw wanted some guns, just as quick as they could get to him. Our two ”Napoleons” were ordered in. Goggin said ”for heaven's sake come at double quick;” the need was very urgent. We cannoneers of the Left Section had the guns limbered up, and into the woods, in about a minute; we, double-quicking alongside. We went by a narrow wood road, which entering the woods straight ahead of us, went obliquely to the left down a deep ravine, crossed a little stream, and up the hill, into the open field beyond.
Pa.s.sing through that pine wood was a mean job! The Minie b.a.l.l.s were slapping the pines all about us, with that venomous sound, with which a Minie crashes into green pine wood. It is a mean piece of work anyhow, to go from the rear up to a fighting line! But, away we went, excited and eager to get through, and see what was going on. The road, cut through the steep banks down to the stream, was so very narrow that it barely admitted our wheels, and when they went farther down the cut, our hubs stuck in the bank, on both sides, and the gun was held fast. From this point the road ran straight up to the edge of the wood. We could see men running about, and yelling, and shooting in the open ground. We could not tell whether they were our men or the enemy, and the fear seized us that the enemy might be pressing our people back, and would catch us, helpless and useless, in this ridiculous fix.
Gracious! how the driver did whip, and spur! and how the cannoneers did strain, and tug at those wheels! Captain McCarthy jumped off his horse, and put his powerful strength to the wheel. The men from the other guns joined us, and, at last, when we were nearly wild with excitement, we gave one tremendous jerk, all together, and lifted the whole thing bodily out of that rut, and over the bank. The horses, as excited now, as we were, s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun over the bank, across the stream, nearly upsetting it, and then went tearing, at a full gallop, up the hill; we running at top speed to keep up. The third gun following. At this pace, we dashed into the open field, and were upon the battle ground. We ran the guns into the line of battle, along a slight work Kershaw's men had hurriedly thrown up, just to the left of the part of the line which the Federals had taken, and were still holding. We pushed up, until we got an enfilade fire upon their lines. A few case-shots screaming down their line sent them flying out of that, and our line was restored.
The Colonel of one of their regiments, captured by our men, said that his regiment was lying down behind our captured line, and one of our sh.e.l.ls cut down a large pine tree and threw it on his line, and about finished up what was left of his regiment. The sh.e.l.l burst just as it struck the tree, and the sh.e.l.l fragments, and falling tree together, killed twelve or fifteen men, and wounded a number of others.
The fighting was dying down now, and soon ceased. Our line restored, the enemy made no further effort to take it. The rest of the time, till dark, was taken up with sharp-shooting, and artillery fire. A farmhouse and outbuildings and barn stood right behind our position, and, I remember, the barn swallows in large numbers were skimming and twittering all around, through the sweet, bright air, while sh.e.l.ls and b.a.l.l.s were singing a very different sort of song. I never saw that sight during the war but this once,--birds flying about in the midst of a battle. But here, those dear little swallows circled round, and round that barn, and the adjoining field, for hours, while the air was full of flying missiles. They did not seem to mind it. Perhaps they wondered what on earth was going on. It was a curious scene!
During the night we made some little addition to the slight earth work, which the infantry had thrown up, in front of our two guns. Infantry began to pile into the line on both sides of our guns; we learned that this was the Twentieth South Carolina Regiment, Colonel Keitt, who had been killed, in a fight the Regiment had been in, that afternoon.
This regiment, at this time when some Brigades in the Army of Northern Virginia had not more than one thousand or twelve hundred men, came among us with seventeen hundred men ready for duty. The regiment had been stationed at Fort Sumter; had seen nothing of war except the siege of a Fort, and their idea of the chief duty of a soldier was,--to get as much earth between him and the enemy as possible. When they came into line this night, and saw this slight bank of dirt,--about two feet thick, and three feet high,--and learned that we expected, certainly, to fight behind it in the morning, they were perfectly aghast! They pitched in, and began to ”throw dirt.” They kept it up all night, and by morning had a wall of earth in front of them, in many places eight feet high, and six to seven feet thick.
How much higher, and thicker they would have got it, if the enemy had not interrupted them, gracious only knows! Of course they couldn't begin to shoot over it, except at _the sky_; perhaps they thought _anything blue_ would do to shoot at and the sky was blue. But it was a fact, that when the enemy advanced next morning, this big regiment was positively ”Hors du Combat.”
It is true, that when we woke up at daylight, and found what they had done, we jeered, and laughed at them, and showed them the impossibility of fighting from behind that wall, until some of them got ashamed, and began to shovel down the top, a little. Captain McCarthy sent to let General Kershaw know the absurd situation we were in,--supported by infantry that could not fire a shot, and warning him, that if the enemy charged, they would certainly take the line, unless our two guns alone could hold it. General Kershaw sent orders to them ”to shovel that thing down to a proper height,” but they didn't have time to do it. When the fight began some of them had cut out a shelf on the inside of the bank, and some of them had gotten boxes and logs and a number stood up on them, and did some shooting, and behaved gallantly; but many of them seeming to think that a man should be ”rewarded according to his works”
laid closely down behind that wall, and never stirred.
The next night General Lee took them out of the lines, and gave them picks, and shovels, and made a ”sapping and mining corps” of them,--the military service they were most fitted for, and they _were_ rewarded according to their works.
While these beavers were gallantly wielding the pick and shovel, we, satisfied with our little bank of dirt, were getting ready for next day's work, by a good sound sleep. One of our boys did have misgiving about the strength of our defences. He went in the night, and woke up Sergeant Moncure and said, ”Monkey, don't you think these works are very thin?” ”Yes, Tom, they are,” he replied. ”You just get a spade, and go and make them just as thick as you think they ought to be; Good night!”
He resumed his slumbers, and Tom, not an overly energetic person, walked away grumbling that ”the work _was_ too thin, but he would be derned if _he_ was going out there, in the dark to work on them, all by himself,”
which he didn't.
Somehow when we lay down this night we had gotten the impression that things were going to be rough, in the morning. They were!
Just as the day dawn was struggling through the clouds, we were roused by the sound of several guns, fired in quick succession. We were on our feet instantly, and saw that all was ready for action. Sh.e.l.ls came howling at us from batteries that we could discern in the dim light. We could see the light of their burning fuses, as they started out of their guns, and could trace their flight toward us by that. Some of them would strike the ground in front, and ricochet over us; some would crash into our work, with a terrific _thud_, and some went screaming over our heads,--very close, too, and went on to the rear to look after our Right Section guns, which were still by that farmhouse, where we had left them, the evening before. They knocked down several of the shelter tents our boys were sleeping under, and several of our fellows, there, had the narrowest kind of an escape. One sh.e.l.l ”caromed” over three of the men, who were sleeping side by side, touching the very blanket that was over them. The Right Section boys needed no reveille that morning to get them out! They tumbled up with great promptness and moved round out of the line of fire. Fortunately none of them were actually hurt, just here.
One fellow was sleeping with several canteens of water hanging right over his head. A bullet went through them. He was nearly drowned!
=The Bloodiest Fifteen Minutes of the War=
In our front, this artillery fire kept up for a while, then it stopped!
The next moment, there was an awful rus.h.!.+ From every quarter their infantry came pouring on over the fields, and through the woods, yelling and firing, and coming at a run. Their columns seemed unending! Enough people to sweep our thin lines from the face of the earth! Up and down our battle line, the fierce musketry broke out. To right and left it ran, cras.h.i.+ng and rolling like the sound of a heavy hail on a tin roof, magnified a thousand times, with the cannon pealing out in the midst of it like claps of thunder. Our line, far as the eye could reach, was ablaze with fire; and into that furious storm of death, the blue columns were swiftly urging their way.