Part 22 (1/2)
Earth-works were being thrown up on the south bank of the Susquehanna, princ.i.p.ally by the soldiers from other parts of Pennsylvania and from New York.
When it was first announced that the enemy was approaching, only seventeen men volunteered to form a local defense. I saw no such enthusiasm on the part of the inhabitants as I had witnessed at Cincinnati during the previous autumn. Pennsylvania sent many regiments to the field during the war, and her soldiers gained a fine reputation; but the best friends of the State will doubtless acknowledge that Harrisburg was slow to act when the Rebels made their last great invasion.
I was ordered to join the Army of the Potomac wherever I could find it. As I left Harrisburg, I learned that a battle was in progress.
Before I could reach the field the great combat had taken place. The two contending armies had made Gettysburg historic.
I joined our army on the day after the battle. I could find no person of my acquaintance, amid the confusion that followed the termination of three days' fighting. The army moved in pursuit of Lee, whose retreat was just commencing. As our long lines stretched away toward the Potomac, I walked over the ground where the battle had raged, and studied the picture that was presented. I reproduce, in part, my letter of that occasion:--
”Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, _July_ 6,1863.
”To-day I have pa.s.sed along the whole ground where the lines of battle were drawn. The place bears evidence of a fierce struggle. The shocks of those two great armies surging and resurging, the one against the other, could hardly pa.s.s without leaving their traces in fearful characters. At Waterloo, at Wagram, and at Jena the wheat grows more luxuriantly, and the corn shoots its stalks further toward the sky than before the great conflicts that rendered those fields famous. The broad acres of Gettysburg and Antietam will in future years yield the farmer a richer return than he has. .h.i.thto received.
”Pa.s.sing out of Gettysburg by the Baltimore turnpike, we come in a few steps to the entrance of the cemetery. Little of the inclosure remains, save the gateway, from which the gates have been torn. The neat wooden fence, first thrown down to facilitate the movement of our artillery, was used for fuel, as the soldiers made their camp on the spot. A few scattered palings are all that remain. The cemetery was such as we usually find near thrifty towns like Gettysburg. None of the monuments and adornings were highly expensive, though all were neat, and a few were elaborate. There was considerable taste displayed in the care of the grounds, as we can see from the few traces that remain. The eye is arrested by a notice, prominently posted, forbidding the destruction or mutilation of any shrub, tree, or stone about the place, under severe penalties. The defiance that war gives to the civil law is forcibly apparent as one peruses those warning lines.
”Monuments and head-stones lie everywhere overturned. Graves, which loving hands once carefully adorned, have been trampled by horses'
feet until the vestiges of verdure have disappeared. The neat and well-trained shrubbery has vanished, or is but a broken and withered ma.s.s of tangled brushwood. On one grave lies the body of a horse, fast decomposing under the July sun. On another lie the torn garments of some wounded soldier, stained and saturated with blood. Across a small head-stone, bearing the words, 'To the memory of our beloved child, Mary,' lie the fragments of a musket shattered by a cannon-shot.
”In the center of a s.p.a.ce inclosed by an iron fence, and containing a half-dozen graves, a few rails are standing where they were erected by our soldiers to form their shelter in bivouac. A family shaft has been broken in fragments by a sh.e.l.l. Stone after stone felt the effects of the _feu d'enfer_ that was poured upon the crest of the hill. Cannon thundered, and foot and horse soldiers tramped over the resting-place of the dead. Other dead were added to those who are resting here. Many a wounded soldier lives to remember the contest above those silent graves.
”The hill on which this cemetery is located was the center of our line of battle and the key to our position. Had the Rebels been able to carry this point, they would have forced us into retreat, and the battle would have been lost. To pierce our line in this locality was Lee's great endeavor, and he threw his best brigades against it. Wave after wave of living valor rolled up that slope, only to roll back again under the deadly fire of our artillery and infantry. It was on this hill, a little to the right of the cemetery, where the 'Louisiana Tigers' made their famous charge. It was their boast that they were never yet foiled in an attempt to take a battery; but on this occasion they suffered a defeat, and were nearly annihilated. Sad and dispirited, they mourn their repulse and their terrible losses in the a.s.sault.
”From the summit of this hill a large portion of the battle-ground is spread out before the spectator. In front and at his feet lies the town of Gettysburg, containing, in quiet times, a population of four or five thousand souls. It is not more than a hundred yards to the houses in the edge of the village, where the contest with the Rebel sharp-shooters took place. To the left of the town stretches a long valley, bounded on each side by a gently-sloping ridge. The crest of each ridge is distant nearly a mile from the other. It was on these ridges that the lines of battle on the second and third days were formed, the Rebel line being on the ridge to the westward. The one stretching directly from our left hand, and occupied by our own men, has but little timber upon it, while that held by the rebels can boast of several groves of greater or less extent. In one of these the Pennsylvania College is embowered, while in another is seen the Theological Seminary. Half-way between the ridges are the ruins of a large brick building burned during the engagement. Dotted about, here and there, are various brick and frame structures. Two miles at our left rises a sharp-pointed elevation, known to the inhabitants of the region as Round Hill. Its sides are wooded, and the forest stretches from its base across the valley to the crest of the western ridge.
”It must not be supposed that the s.p.a.ce between the ridges is an even plain, shaven with, the scythe and leveled with the roller. It rises and falls gently, and with little regularity, but in no place is it steep of ascent. Were it not for its ununiformity and for the occasional sprinkling of trees over its surface, it could be compared to a patch of rolling prairie in miniature. To the southwest of the further ridge is seen the mountain region of Western Maryland, behind which the Rebels had their line of retreat. It is not a wild, rough ma.s.s of mountains, but a region of hills of the larger and more inaccessible sort. They are traversed by roads only in a few localities, and their pa.s.sage, except through, the gaps, is difficult for a single team, and impossible for an army.
”The Theological Seminary was the scene of a fierce struggle. It was beyond it where the First and Eleventh Corps contended with Ewell and Longstreet on the first day of the engagement. Afterward, finding the Rebels were too strong for them, they fell back to a new position, this building being included in the line. The walls of the Seminary were perforated by shot and sh.e.l.l, and the bricks are indented with numerous bullet-marks. Its windows show the effects of the musketry, and but little gla.s.s remains to shut out the cold and rain. The building is now occupied as a hospital by the Rebels. The Pennsylvania College is similarly occupied, and the instruction of its students is neglected for the present.
”In pa.s.sing from the cemetery along the crest of the ridge where our line of battle stood, I first came upon the position occupied by some of our batteries. This is shown by the many dead horses lying unburied, and by the mounds which mark where others have been slightly covered up. There are additional traces of an artillery fight. Here is a broken wheel of a gun-carriage, an exploded caisson, a handspike, and some of the accoutrements of the men. In the fork of a tree I found a Testament, with the words, 'Charles Durrale, Corporal of Company G,' written on the fly-leaf. The guns and the gunners, have disappeared. Some of the latter are now with the column moving in pursuit of the enemy, others are suffering in the hospitals, and still others are resting where the bugle's reveille shall never wake them.
”Between the cemetery and the town and at the foot of the ridge where I stand, runs the road leading to Emmetsburg. It is not a turnpike, but a common dirt-road, and, as it leaves the main street leading into town, it makes a diagonal ascent of the hill. On the eastern side, this road is bordered by a stone wall for a short distance.
Elsewhere on both sides there is only a rail fence. A portion of our sharp-shooters took position behind this wall, and erected traverses to protect them from a flanking fire, should the enemy attempt to move up the road from Gettysburg. These traverses are constructed at right angles to the wall, by making a 'crib' of fence-rails, two feet high and the same distance apart, and then filling the crib with dirt.
Further along I find the rails from the western side of the road, piled against the fence on the east, so as to form a breast-work two or three feet in height--a few spadesful of dirt serve to fill the interstices. This defense was thrown up by the Rebels at the time they were holding the line of the roads.
”Moving to the left, I find still more severe traces of artillery fighting. Twenty-seven dead horses on a s.p.a.ce of little more than one acre is evidence of heavy work. Here are a few scattered trees, which were evidently used as a screen for our batteries. These trees did not escape the storm of shot and sh.e.l.l that was rained in that direction.
Some of them were perforated by cannon-shot, or have been completely cut off in that peculiar splintering that marks the course of a projectile through green wood. Near the scene of this fighting is a large pile of muskets and cartridge-boxes collected from the field.
Considerable work has been done in thus gathering the debris of the battle, but it is by no means complete. Muskets, bayonets, and sabers are scattered everywhere.
”My next advance to the left carries me where the ground is thickly studded with graves. In one group I count a dozen graves of soldiers belonging to the Twentieth Ma.s.sachusetts; near them are buried the dead of the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh New York, and close at hand an equal number from the Twelfth New Jersey. Care has been taken to place a head-board at each grave, with a legible inscription thereon, showing whose remains are resting beneath. On one board the comrades of the dead soldier had nailed the back of his knapsack, which bore his name. On another was a bra.s.s plate, bearing the soldier's name in heavily stamped letters.
”Moving still to the left, I found an orchard in which the fighting appears to have been desperate in the extreme. Artillery shot had plowed the ground in every direction, and the trees did not escape the fury of the storm. The long bolts of iron, said by our officers to be a modification of the Whitworth projectile, were quite numerous. The Rebels must have been well supplied with this species of ammunition, and they evidently used it with no sparing hand. At one time I counted twelve of these bolts lying on a s.p.a.ce not fifty feet square. I am told that many shot and sh.e.l.l pa.s.sed over the heads of our soldiers during the action.
”A mile from our central position at the cemetery, was a field of wheat, and near it a large tract, on which corn had been growing.
The wheat was trampled by the hurrying feet of the dense ma.s.ses of infantry, as they changed their positions during the battle. In the cornfield artillery had been stationed, and moved about as often as the enemy obtained its range. Hardly a hill of corn is left in its pristine luxuriance. The little that escaped the hoof or the wheel, as the guns moved from place to place, was nibbled by hungry horses during the bivouac subsequent to the battle. Not a stalk of wheat is upright; not a blade of corn remains uninjured; all has fallen long before the time of harvest. Another harvest, in which Death was the reaper, has been gathered above it.
”On our extreme left the pointed summit of a hill, a thousand feet in elevation, rises toward the sky. Beyond it, the country falls off into the mountain region that extends to the Potomac and across it into Virginia. This hill is quite difficult of ascent, and formed a strong position, on which the left of our line rested. The enemy a.s.saulted this point with great fury, throwing his divisions, one after the other, against it. Their efforts were of no avail. Our men defended their ground against every attack. It was like the dash of the French at Waterloo against the immovable columns of the English. Stubborn resistance overcame the valor of the a.s.sailants. Again and again they came to the a.s.sault, only to fall back as they had advanced. Our left held its ground, though it lost heavily.
”On this portion of the line, about midway between the crests of the ridges, is a neat farm-house. Around this dwelling the battle raged, as around Hougoumont at Waterloo. At one time it was in the possession of the Rebels, and was fiercely attacked by our men. The walls were pierced by shot and sh.e.l.l, many of the latter exploding within, and making a scene of devastation. The gla.s.s was shattered by rifle bullets on every side, and the wood-work bears testimony to the struggle. The sharp-shooters were in every room, and added to the disorder caused by the explosion of sh.e.l.ls. The soldiers destroyed what the missiles spared. The Rebels were driven from the house, and the position was taken by our own men. They, in turn, were dislodged, but finally secured a permanent footing in the place.