Part 3 (1/2)
Later, the Confederates advanced a skirmish line to see if we were still there. They found us there. Toward midnight there was every appearance that they had given up trying to take the hill that night. It was quiet all along the line save for the groans of the wounded and dying men that covered the slope in front of us. It was a beautiful night, and to lie there and listen to the appeals of those poor fellows and be unable to do anything for them was heartrending. Toward midnight we stole quietly away, first moving the cannon back by hand.
General Hill in his report of the second battle of Bull Run stated his loss in the attack on the Henry House Hill the evening of August 30, 1862, as 600 men.
It is impossible to refrain from giving an account of Dr. Cutter's experience in this battle.
Early in the afternoon of the 29th when the first brigade of our division was ordered in, Dr. Cutter went in with it. He was at the time acting as division surgeon. The first brigade got into a bad place, lost heavily and was forced back. As they began to retreat Dr. Cutter drew his sword and tried to hold the men up to their work. At that moment he was seen to fall to the ground and was supposed to be killed. A few minutes later, however, he regained consciousness and looking about saw a Confederate soldier standing over him and apparently about to run him through with his bayonet. Dr. Cutter pointed to his green sash and warned the soldier against killing a non-combatant. ”But you have a sword in your hand now,”
replied the soldier. A Confederate officer coming up at the moment ordered the soldier to move on and took the doctor to the rear. He then discovered what had happened. He had not been wounded at all. A bullet had struck the buckle plate of his waist belt and knocked the breath from his body, the effect of which having now pa.s.sed off, he offered to a.s.sist in taking care of the wounded. This he was allowed to do and worked with the Confederate hospital staff all the afternoon taking care of the wounded, both Confederate and Union.
The Confederates were not slow in discovering that Dr. Cutter was a man of exceptional knowledge and ability and, when night came on, the gray headed old man was taken to General Hills' headquarters and treated as an honored guest. During the evening he told the Confederate officers gathered flatly who he was, and advanced his abolition ideas with perfect freedom. The Confederates saw that they had in their midst one of the fathers of Abolitionism in Ma.s.sachusetts; that they were having the other side presented by one qualified to speak. It was a novel situation. They were at the time confident in the success of their cause, and, while they laughed at his strictures, they encouraged him to go on and listened to him nearly the whole night.
The evening of the second day's fight Dr. Cutter, still a prisoner, was in the vicinity and witnessed the ma.s.sing of troops for the a.s.sault on the Henry House Hill and somehow had an intuition that it was the old second brigade that defended the hill, but not until well into the night did news reach headquarters that the Henry House Hill was defended by Reno's command. This delighted the old doctor. He made the Confederates acknowledge they got all they wanted and then told them who gave it to them.
The second battle of Bull Run was a disastrous battle for General Pope and the ”Army of Virginia” but not for the old second brigade. We had checked the enemy's advance at a most critical moment, for as we moved back to Centreville that night we found the road choked with trains and artillery, much of which must have fallen into the enemy's hands had they not been stopped at the time. As it was they made no further effort to advance after the engagement at the bridge until the next day. Meanwhile our artillery and trains got straightened out and well out of their way.
Nothing of importance occurred to us on the 31st. We lay quietly in camp near Centreville the whole day.
September 1st, about two o'clock, we broke camp and started towards Fairfax Courthouse. As we started off, the report got around among the boys that Stonewall Jackson was in our rear, or threatened our communications with Was.h.i.+ngton. About four o'clock as we were marching along we heard a bugle on a small ridge to the left and in front of us. On looking up we saw a cornfield, and the upper edge of it filled with Johnnies picking green corn. We were not more than a fourth of a mile from them and could see individual men distinctly. We halted and loaded our guns. Then we moved along past the Johnnies leaving them to our left, they disappearing behind the ridge. We soon came to some wood lying in front and extending off to the left. The 51st New York entered the wood ahead of us with a picket line advancing in front of it. It was soon evident that each command had lost all connection with the other, and was advancing no one knew where or why. The 21st seemed to have obliqued to the left of the 51st. We then came upon a line of Johnnies. We, thinking them to be the 51st, did not open fire until we received a most murderous fire from them. In the meantime a heavy thunderstorm had come up, and we were soaked to our skins. My gun went all right the first time, but it was impossible to load it in such a downpour. I then got out my revolver and fired away with that. Every one who had a revolver fell back on that when his gun refused fire I expect. Captain Walcott seeing his men could not keep up much of a fire drew his revolver, stepped in front of his company and opened fire. When he had emptied his revolver he glanced around for his men,--they had gone. It was the same in all the companies, with their guns out of order, they could do nothing but fall back. We left a lot of poor fellows in that wood for whom nothing could be done but to bury their lifeless bodies. A little way back we re-formed and marched back to the edge of the wood.
As we emerged from the wood General Phil Kearney rode up and ordered us to advance through the fields to the left of the wood we had just come out of, without a moment in which to put our guns in order. By that time it had stopped raining and the colonel begged for a few minutes that the men might put their guns in order, but without avail. Kearney could not be reasoned with and swore that if we did not move at once he would have the regiment put under arrest, and forward we went. It was then getting dark, and all we could see was lines of fire off to the left; we soon entered a cornfield and marched nearly through it. At the farther side was a Virginia rail-fence, beyond that, was a pasture half grown up. As we arrived within three or four rods of the rail-fence the order was given to halt and no sooner did we halt than the enemy opened fire from behind the rail-fence. What could we do? Not one in ten of our muskets was serviceable. Those who had revolvers used them; I used mine for the second time that day. We stood there a minute or two and then we retreated. When the Johnnies saw we were unable to return their fire they appreciated the situation and over and through the fence they came to capture prisoners, and before I knew it one of them was quite near me shouting: ”Halt, throw down your gun,” etc. But I did not halt, nor did I throw down my gun, but I did run and he ran after me. I soon decided in my mind that he was not gaining on me, then I thought I was increasing the distance between us; directly, I discovered a ditch in front of me. It looked very wide. My shoes were loaded with Virginia mud; could I jump it? I realized that everything depended on that jump, and I made a great effort. I struck the farther edge just far enough on to balance over, picked myself up and started off up the other slope. Glancing back, I saw the Johnny who had chased me ordering some of our boys out of the ditch; they had made the fatal error of trying to secrete themselves in that ditch. I kept on going to the rear, until I reached the part of the field from which we started on that last advance with General Kearney; then I began to hunt around to find the boys.
General Kearney went in with us as we advanced into and through the cornfield; he rode along beside the colonel. When we got to within about four rods of the fence, the colonel was sure he saw soldiers move behind the fence and said to Kearney, ”There is a Rebel line of battle behind that fence.” ”No, there isn't,” said Kearney and spurred his horse forward to get a nearer view. As he got to within a rod and a half or two rods of the fence, the Johnnies opened fire and General Kearney was one of the first to be killed at that time.
When I began to hunt about for the boys, Billy Morrow was one of the first I run across. We soon found others and then the colors. Billy and I then thought of one of our friends, a fellow by the name of Bradish, a Company E man, who was. .h.i.t in the wood. Billy had seen him at about the same time I did as we came out of the wood, and believing we were near the place, we started out to see if we could find him. Bradish had been one of the nine who had played ball at Newport News, and we were both very fond of him. We thought he was badly wounded and wondered if we could not find him and do something for him. It took but a few minutes to find the place.
Then began the lone search. The last I saw of Bradish was as we neared the edge of the wood coming out. He was hobbling along trying to keep up with us. I did not know where he was. .h.i.t, but I thought in the thigh or about the hip, for one of his legs seemed quite powerless. There were a number of dead men lying about but we were unprepared to believe our comrade was dead, but when we examined the dead men we found Bradish was one of them.
We found a place under a great pine tree; we dug a shallow grave and buried him near the place where he fell. We put a stone at each end of the grave, carved his initials on the trunk of the tree and left there one of our beloved comrades and one of the best soldiers in the regiment.
The expression on his face I shall never forget, it was so changed and so painful. Had we not been searching for him and turned him over, for as he lay his face was partially concealed, and so got a good view of it, I should not have recognized him. He had probably died soon after we left him as we started on the advance into the cornfield, for he was entirely cold. The face of Pat. Martin, as I saw him after he was killed at the Battle of Newbern, was entirely expressionless; he was shot through the brain and probably never knew what hit him. The Confederate who died while I was gone to get him a canteen of water, the morning after the Battle of Bethseda Church had a rather peaceful and happy expression on his face.
Many of the men I helped to bury after the Battle of Fredericksburg had drawn, distressed, painful expressions on their faces; some of them gave one the impression that they had suffered the most intense agony just before death. I never watched a man die who was killed in battle--the private soldier is too busy to watch his best friend die at such a time.
In this Battle of Chantilly, the losses in killed, wounded and prisoners in the regiment were 140, the heaviest loss we had sustained, in a single battle, up to this time. Three of our finest officers were killed; Lieutenant-Colonel Rice, Captain Fraser and Captain Kelton. We felt the loss of these men very deeply; but the worst thing about the whole matter was, we felt we had been sacrificed to no purpose. Every one felt that had General Reno been with us it would all have been different, but he was sick back to the rear in an ambulance off duty, and with him absent everything went wrong. General Kearney seems to have been entirely off his base that night; the way he ranted and swore around there was disgusting.
The fault in the wood seems to have been that the officers of the 21st did not keep in touch with the 51st New York, and wandered off no one knew where.
At roll call the next morning, September 2, there was but a shadow of the 21st present. After a while we started for Alexandria, moving very slowly, marching and halting by turns, the roads being choked with artillery and trains. During one of these halts, as we lay beside the road, a thing occurred which showed the stuff at least one boy of that army was made of.
There was a boy in our company by the name of Harding Witt. Harding was a Dana boy. I had known him a long time and I knew him well. We had been school companions and had enjoyed fis.h.i.+ng excursions together many a time.
Harding was on the picket line at the time of the fight in the wood and so was absent from the company. But late at night after the fight was all over I heard he had been wounded. I heard nothing more and saw nothing of him until the next day when halted in the road on our way back to Alexandria, I saw some one approaching. He had no gun and no knapsack; he had a canteen, his right sleeve was slit up and I could see a white bandage on the arm. The same could be seen on one of his legs. The trouser's leg was slit up and a bandage could be seen on the leg. He also had a bandage on his head. As he approached nearer I recognized Harding.
He came up and as we shook hands I said to him: ”Well, Harding, they called for you last night.” ”Yes, Mad,” said he, ”they called for me five times but I am all right.” That boy had been hit five times, in the wood the night before, but he wasn't taken prisoner nor was he in the hospital.
He was, however, obliged to go to the hospital later.
We moved back to the vicinity of Alexandria and went into camp where we stayed until September 4th. During those days a number of the boys found their way back to the regiment. They had strayed away after the fight, some of them perhaps, making as famous runs as were made by some of the soldiers after the first Battle of Bull Run.
Among those to return at that time was our beloved surgeon, Dr. Cutter.
Imagine our surprise and delight one afternoon on seeing him march into camp. When the Confederates were ready to move on, he was set at liberty and had made his way back to Alexandria where we were in camp. To us, he seemed to have risen from the dead. The officers of the first brigade had reported him among the killed, and that report had been accepted by the men of the regiment, and to see the old hero again so unexpectedly, startled us.
If I remember rightly, it was in this campaign, as we were falling back along the east side of the Rappahannock River, I first noticed a colored man, we later called Jeff Davis, hanging around the cook's quarters trying to make himself useful. He would gather wood for the cook's fire, tote the water, and on the march help carry the cooking utensils. In due time it was discovered that Jeff was an important acquisition to the company. He was good natured and just as willing to do things for the other boys as for the cook. Jeff Davis was a runaway slave, middle-aged, medium sized, wore top boots with his trousers tucked in, his s.h.i.+rt front was never b.u.t.toned either at the throat or lower down. His hat of black felt looked as if it had been thrown at him and he had caught it on one corner of his head. He had an easy going, rollicking gait and laugh, and was as full of fun as an egg is full of meat. Still, Jeff was full of business, too, and when, later on, he became company cook, the cooking was never better done, or the interests of the company more carefully guarded than by him, and it was as cook of Company K we realized his supreme usefulness and worth.