LVII
Fair Oaks, near Richmond, Va.,Sunday, June 15, 1562.
Fair Oaks, near Richmond, Va.,Sunday, June 15, 1562.
Fair Oaks, near Richmond, Va.,Sunday, June 15, 1562.
Fair Oaks, near Richmond, Va.,
Sunday, June 15, 1562.
IThas been some time since I last wrote, and you are doubtless getting anxious. We are now camped on the battlefield of Fair Oaks. We were not in the battle, but were in line, with skirmishers thrown out and batteries posted, waiting for the attack that never came and listening to the rattle of musketry off to our right. We did not come here until the second day after the fight. Before we started all our baggage was sent to the rear, and with my knapsack went my writing materials. We are having rough duty now. Every third day the entire regiment goes on picket duty for twenty-four hours, which means, as a rule, not even a cat-nap in that time. I was just settling myself for a good sleep today, when the cry went up that our knapsacks had come; so I sorted mine out from the heap and set to work to write some letters.
We arrived here about three o’clock in the afternoon and immediately went on duty for twenty-four hours. It rained all night—a steady downpour—and the whole country was flooded. Coming up, we waded for considerable distances through ponds from ankle to knee deep. Here it was just mud and water. The trenches we would have jumped into in case of an attack were half filled with water. Even if it had been permitted, there was no chance to lie down—no chance for much of anything but to stand up and take it through the long hours of the night. I did manage to get a few slicks of cordwood together and cobbled up a roost that gave two or three of us a sort of perch out of the mud. Directly in front of me lay a dead horse and a dead rebel. Within a short distance were perhaps a hundred dead horses—all killed when the rebels made their rush on our batteries on the first day. These have about all been cleaned up now, by burning, wood being piled upon them and great bonfires made.
The battlefield presented one of the most horrible sights imaginable. Many bodies of men killed in the later stages of the battle were still unburied. Some were in shallow graves, but as a rule burial consisted merely in covering the bodies as they lay. The heavy rains, washing away the covering, had left many gruesome sights. I was an advanced picket the other night, my position beingin the midst of several dirt piles, with enough in sight to show that each covered a dead rebel. That day Eugene Hazewell accidentally shot himself through the foot and had to have a toe taken off. We were posted so near the rebels that we could hear them talk. We had orders not to shoot wantonly at their pickets, and we understood they had similar instructions; but if so they disregarded them and took a shot at a Yankee whenever they could draw a bead on one.