Arrival of the First Corps
In the midst of this anxious and high wrought feeling, an excited voice yelled out, “Look out down the road. Here they come!” We were driven nearly wild with excited joy, and enthusiasm by the blessed sight of Longstreet’s advance division coming down the road at a double quick, at which pace, after the news of Hill’s critical situation reached them, they had come for two miles and a half. The instant the head of his column was seen the cries resounded onevery side, “Here’s Longstreet. The old war horse is up at last. It’s all right now.”
On, the swift columns came! Crowding up to the road, on both sides, we yelled ourselves nearly dumb to cheer them as they swept by. Hearty were the greetings as we recognized acquaintances and friends and old battle comrades in the passing columns. Specially did the “Howitzers” make the welkin ring when Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade passed. This was the brigade to which our battery had long been attached, to which we were greatly devoted, with whom we had often fought, and admired as one of the most splendid fighting corps in the army. And loud was the cheer the gallant Mississippians flung back to the “Howitzers.”
Everything broke loose as General Longstreet in person rode past. Like a fine lady at a party, Longstreet was often late in his arrival at the ball, but he always made a sensation and that of delight, when hegotin, with the grand old First Corps, sweeping behind him, as his train.
This was our own Corps, from which we had been separated for some months. The very sight of the gallant old veterans, as they poured on, was enough to make all hearts perfectly easy. Our feeling of relief was complete and as the Brigades disappeared into the woods in the direction of Hill’s breaking right, where the thunder of their still heroic resistanceto overwhelming odds was roaring, we all felt, “Thank God! it’s all right now! Longstreet is up!”
And itwasall right. The first brigades as they got up formed, and rushed right in, one after another, to check the advance of the enemy. And as they successively went in we could hear the musketry grow more angry and fierce. Before very long, a crashing peal of musketry broke out with a fury that made what we had been hearing before seem like pop-crackers. Our crowd quickly perceived that the sound was receding from us; at the same time the bullets,—which had been falling over among us entirely too lively to be pleasant to fellows who were not shooting any themselves,—stopped coming. We knew what this meant; Longstreet was putting his Corps in, and they were driving the enemy. Soon, to confirm our ideas, lines of Federal prisoners, from Hancock’s Corps, they told us, came by, and Longstreet’s wounded began to pass. These fellows told us that our Corps had gone in like a whirlwind, had already recovered Hill’s line, gone beyond it, and were forcing the Federals back.
They said Hancock’s Corps was doubled up, and being torn to pieces and they thought we would “bag the whole business.”
The Love that Lee Inspired in the Men He Led
All this was very nice and we were expressing our delight in the usual way. Just then, an officer rode up who told us a bit of news, that made us feel more like tears than cheers, and put every fellow’s heartinto his mouth. He said that just before, General Lee had come in an ace of being captured. A body of the enemy had pushed through a gap in our line and unexpectedly come right upon the old General, who was quietly sitting upon his horse. That, these fellows could with perfect ease have taken, or shot him, but that he had quietly ridden off, and the enemy not knowing who it was, made no special effort to molest him.
I wish you could have seen the appalled look that fell on the faces of the men, as they listened to this. Although the danger was past an hour ago, they were as pale and startled and shocked as if it were enacting then. The bare idea of anything happening to General Lee was enough to make a man sick, and I assure you it took all the starch out of us for a few minutes.
I don’t know how it was, but somehow, it never occurred to us that anythingcouldhappen to General Lee. Of course, we knew that he was often exposed, like the rest of us. We had seen him often enough under hot fire. And, by the way, I believe that the one only thing General Lee ever did, that the men in this army thought heought not to do, was going under fire. We thought him perfect in motive, deed and judgment; he could do no wrong, could make no mistake, but this,—that he was too careless in the way he went about a battlefield. Three different times, during these very fights, at points of danger, he wasurged to leave the spot, as it was “not the place for him.” At last he said, “I wish I knewwhere my place ison the battlefield; wherever I go some one tells methatis not the place for me.”
But, he would go! He wanted to see things for himself, and he wished his men to know, that he was looking after them, both seeing that they did their duty, andcaringfor them. And certainly, the sight of his beloved face was like the sun to his men for cheer and encouragement. Every man thought less of personal danger, and no man thought offailureafter he had seen General Lee riding along the lines. Nobody will ever quite understand what that old man was to us, his soldiers! What absolute confidence we felt in him! What love and devotion we had, what enthusiastic admiration, what filial affection, we cherished for him. We loved him like a father, and thought about him as a devout old Roman thought of the God of War. Anything happen to him! It would havebroken our hearts, for one thing, and, we could no more think of the “Army of Northern Virginia” without General Lee, at its head, than we could picture the day without the sun shining in the heavens.
An incident illustrating this feeling was taking place up in the front just about the time we were hearing the news of the General’s narrow escape.
As the Texan Brigade of Longstreet’s Corps, just come up, dashed upon the heavy ranks of theFederals, they passed General Lee with a rousing cheer. The old General, anxious and excited by the critical moment, thrilling with sympathy in their gallant bearing, started to ride in, with them, to the charge. It was told me the next day by some of the Texans, who witnessed it, that the instant the men, unaware of his presence with them before, saw the General along with them in that furious fire, they cried out in pleading tones—“Go back, General Lee. We swear we won’t go on, if you don’t go back. You shall not stay here in this fire! We’ll charge clear through the wilderness if you will only go back.” And they said, numbers of the men crowded about the General, and begged him, with tears, to return, and some caught hold of his feet, and some his bridle rein, and turned his horse round, and led him back a few steps,—all the time pleading with him. And then, the General seeing the feelings of his men, and that he wasactually checking the chargeby their anxiety for him, said, “I’ll go, my men, if you will drive back those people,” and he rode off, they said, with his head down, and they saw tears rolling down his cheeks. And they said, many of the men were sobbing aloud, overcome by this touching scene. Then with one yell, and the tears on their faces, those noble fellows hurled themselves on the masses of the enemy like a thunderbolt. Not only did they stop the advance, but their resistless fury swept all before it and they followed the broken Federals half a mile. They redeemed theirpromise to General Lee. Eight hundred of them went in, four hundred, only, came out. They covered with glory that day, not only themselves, who did such deeds, but their leader, who could inspire such feelings at such a moment in the hearts of these men. Half their number fell in that splendid charge, but—they saved the line, and they gloriously redeemed their promise to General Lee—“We’ll do all you want, if you will only get out of fire.” I cannot think of anything stronger than to say that—This General, and these soldiers, were worthy of each other. There is no higher praise!
As the Brigades of Field’s division, that followed the Texans, went in, a little incident took place, which illustrated the irrepressible spirit of fun which would break out everywhere, and which we often laughed at afterwards. General Anderson’s Brigade was ahead, followed hard by Benning’s Brigade, gallant Georgians all, and led by Brigadiers, of whom nothing better can be said, than that they were worthy to lead them. Among the men General Anderson had somehow got the soubriquet of “Tige” and General Benning enjoyed the equally respectful name of “Old Rock.” On this occasion, Anderson was ahead, and as he moved out of sight into the woods, his men began to yell and shout like everything. One of Anderson’s men, wounded, blood dropping from his elbow and running down his face, was coming out, when he met General Benning,at the head of his column, pushing in as hard as he could go. As this fellow passed him, taking advantage of his wound to have a little joke, he pointed to the woods in front and called out to the General, “Hurry up ‘Old Rock,’ ‘Tige’ has treed a pretty big coon he’s got up there; you’d better hurry up or you won’t get a smell.” The brave old Benning, already hurrying himself nearly to death, flashed around on the daring speaker, and saw at once the streaming blood—“Confound that fellow’s impudence,” said the disgusted General. “I wish he wasn’t wounded, if I wouldn’t fix him.” The fellow well knew that he could say what he pleased to anybody with that blood-covered face.
I think it was about eleven or twelve o’clock we heard that General Longstreet was badly wounded, and soon after he was brought to the rear, near our guns. With several of the others I went out and had some words with the men who were taking him out. To our grief, we heard them say, that his wound was very dangerous, probably fatal. He had fallen, up there in the woods, on the battle front, fighting his corps, in the full tide of victory. He had broken and doubled up Hancock’s Corps, and driven it, with great slaughter back upon their works at the Brock road, and in such rout and confusion, that, as he said, he thought he had another “Bull Run” on them. And if he could have forced on that assault, and gotten fixed on the Brock road, it is thought that Grant’s armywould have been in great peril. But, just in the thick of it, he was mistaken, while out in front in the woods, for the enemy, and shot, by his own men. His fall was in almost every particular just like “Stonewall” Jackson’s, in that same wilderness, one year before. Both were shot by their own men, at a critical moment, in the midst of brilliant success, and in both cases their fall saved the enemy from irretrievable disaster. Longstreet’s fall checked the attack, which after an inevitable delay of some hours, was resumed. But the enemy seeing his danger had time to recover, and make disposition to meet it.
“Windrows” of Federal Dead
Again, at four o’clock, after this interval of comparative quiet, the thunder of battle crashed and rolled. General Lee, himself, fought Longstreet’s Corps. The attack was fierce, obstinate, and fearfully bloody. Wilkinson, of the Army of the Potomac, an eye-witness of this charge, says, in his book, “Recollections of a Private Soldier”: “The Confederate fire resembled the fury of hell in its intensity, and was deadly accurate” and that “the story of this fight could afterwards be read by the windrows of dead men.” As to its effect he also says: “We could not check the Confederate advance and they forced us back, and back, and back. The charging Confederates broke through the left of the Ninth Corps and would have cut the army in twain, if not caught on the flank, and driven back. Massed for the attack on the Sixth Corps, they were skillfully launched, andably led, and they struck with terrific violence against Shaler’s and Seymour’s Brigades, which were routed, with a loss of four thousand prisoners. The Confederates came within an ace of routing the Sixth Corps. Both their assaults along our line were dangerously near being successful.” Such was the description of a brave enemy, an eye-witness of this assault. At last, as dark fell, the fire slackened and died out.
The Battle of the Wilderness was done. Grant was pinned into the thickets, hardly able to stand Lee’s attack, no thoroughfare to the front and twenty odd thousand of his men dead, wounded and gone. That was about the situation when dark fell on the 6th of May!
That night we drew off some distance to the right, and lay down, supperless, on the ground around our guns; it was very dark and cloudy and soon began to rain. There had been too much powder burnt around there during the last two days for it to stay clear. And so, as it always did, just after heavy firing, the clouds poured down water through the dark night. Lying out exposed on the untented ground, with only one blanket to cover with, we got soaking wet, and stayed so.
The comfortless night gave way, at last, to a comfortless day—May 7th—gloomy, lowering, and raining, off and on, till late in the evening. During the morning, a little desultory firing was heard in front, and then all was quiet and still. We knew enough toknow that Grant’s push was over at this point. Some of us had gone up to look at the ground over which Longstreet had driven the enemy yesterday. We knew that the Federal troops could never be gotten back over that awful, corpse-covered ground to attack the men who had driven them. We knew we had to fight somewhere else, but where? By and by, talk began to circulate among the men that Spottsylvania, or around near Fredericksburg, might be the place. Of one thing we were all satisfied, that we would know soon enough.
In this waiting and excited state of mind, the long, long, rainy day wore on, and dark fell again. We had managed to conjure up some very lonesome looking fires out of the wet wood lying about (fence rails were not attainable here in the wilderness), and were engaged in a hot dispute about where the next fighting was to be, which warmed and dried us more than the fires did, when “the winter of our discontent” was made “glorious summer,” so to speak, by the news that the wagons had got up, and they were going to issue rations. Tom Armistead made this startling announcement in as bland, and matter of course a tone as if he were in the habit of giving us something to eateveryday, which he was not, by a great deal. Tom was the dearest fellow in the world, and the best Commissary in the army, and we all loved him. Many a time when, in the confusion of campaign, the wagonwas empty, or was snowed in by an avalanche of wagons, far in the rear, he could be seen struggling up to the front with a bag of crackers, sugar, meat, anything that he had been able to lay hands on, across his horse, so that the boys should not starve entirely. Hunting us up through the woods, or along the battle line, he would ride in among us with his load, and a beaming face, that told how glad he was to have something for us. And when, as too often it was, the whole Commissary business was “dead busted,” our afflicted Commissary would tell us there was nothing, with such a rueful visage, that it made us sorry we did not have something to give him, and made us feel our own emptiness all the more, that it seemed to afflict him so.
The present rations were quickly distributed, and as quickly devoured, and not a man was foundered by over-eating! Then we sat around the fires and discussed the news that had been gathered from various sources.
It was just ten o’clock and each man was looking around for the dryest spot to spread his blanket on, when a courier rode up, with pressing orders for us to get instantly on the march. In a few moments, we were tramping rapidly through the darkness, on a road that led, we knew not whither. We were, as we found out afterwards, leading the great race, that General Lee was making for Spottsylvania Court House to head off Grant in his efforts to get out of the Wilderness in his “push for Richmond.” We were with the vanguard of the skillful movement, by which Longstreet’s Corps was marched entirely around Grant’s left flank, to seize the strong line of the hills around Spottsylvania Court House and hold it till the other two Corps could come to our aid.
We marched all night, a hard, forced march over muddy roads, through the damp, close night. Soon after the start from our bivouac, a brigade of infantry had filed into the road ahead of us, and we could hear, behind us on the road, though we could not see for the darkness, the sound of other troops marching.The Brigade ahead of us, we soon found, to our gratification, to be Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade, now under command of General Humphreys, since the gallant Barksdale fell at the head of his storming columns at Gettysburg. This was the Brigade to which we had belonged in the earlier organization of the artillery. It was a magnificent body of men, one of the most thorough fighting corps in the army, as they had showed a hundred times, on the bloodiest fields, and were soon, and often to show again. There was a very strong mutual attachment between the First Richmond Howitzers and Barksdale’s Brigade, and we were much pleased to be with them on this march. We mingled with them, as we sped rapidly along, and exchanged greetings, and our several experiences since we had been separated.
The morning of the 8th of May broke, foggy and lowering, and found us still moving swiftly along. The infantry halting for a rest, we passed on ahead, and for some time were marching by ourselves. I well recall the impressions of the scene around us on that early morning march. Our battery seemed all alone on a quiet country road. The birds were singing around us, and it seemed, to us, so sweet! Everybody was impressed by the music of those birds. As the old soldiers will remember, the note of a bird was a sound we rarely heard. The feathered songsters, no doubt, were frightened away, and it was oftenremarked, that we never saw birds in the neighborhood of camp. So we specially enjoyed the treat of hearing them, now and here, in their own quiet woods, where they had never been disturbed. All was quiet and still and peaceful as any rural scene could be. It seemed to us wondrous sweet and beautiful! All the men were strangely impressed by it. They talked of it to one another. It made our hearts soft, it brought to the mind of many of those weary, war-worn soldiers, other quiet rural scenes, where lay their homes and dear ones, and to which this scene made their hearts go back, in tender memory, and loving imagination. All the eyes did not stay dry as we passed along that road. We talked of this scene many a time long afterwards. And I expect some of the old “Howitzers” still remember that quiet Spottsylvania country road, winding through the woods, on that early Sunday morning, when the birds sang to us, as we hurried on to battle.
Well! the morning wore on, and so did we. By and by, the sun came out through the fog and clouds, and began to make it hot for us. The dampness of the earth made this an easy job. The sun got higher and hotter every minute. The way that close, sultry heat didroastus was pitiful. We would have “larded the lean earth as we walked along,” except that hard bones and muscles of gaunt men didn’tyieldany “lard” to speak of. Thebreakfasthour was not observed,i. e., not with any ceremony. “Cracker nibbling on the fly” was all the visible reminder of that time-honored custom. We were not there to eat, but, to get to Spottsylvania Court House; andstepswere more to that purpose thansteaks, so we omitted the steaks, and put in the steps; and we put them in very fast, and were putting in a great many of them, it appeared to us. At last, just about twelve o’clock our road wound down to a stream, which I think was thePo, one of the head waters of the Mattaponi River, and then, we went up a very long hill, a bank, surmounted by a rail fence on the left side of the road, and the woods on the other.
Stuart’s Four Thousand Cavalry
Just as we got to the top (our Battery happened just then to be ahead of all the troops, and was the first of the columns to reach the spot), the road came up to the level of the land on the left, which enabled us to see, what, though close by us, had been concealed by the high roadside bank. A farm gate opened into a field, around a farmhouse and outbuildings, and there, covering that field was the whole of Fitz Lee’s Division of Stuart’s cavalry. These heroic fellows had for two days been fighting Warren’s corps of Federal infantry, which General Grant had sent to seize this very line on whichwehad now arrived. They had fought, mostly dismounted, from hill to hill, from fence to fence, from tree to tree; and so obstinate was their resistance, and so skillful the dispositionsof the matchless Stuart, that some thirty thousand men had been forced to take about twenty-six hours to get seven or eight miles, by about forty-five hundred cavalry. But, it was incomparable cavalry, and J. E. B. Stuart was handling it. It was some credit to that Corps to have marched any at all! Thanks to the superb conduct of the cavalry, General Lee’s movement had succeeded! We had beaten the Federal column, and were here, before them, on this much-coveted line, and meant to hold it, too.
I note here in passing, that this Spottsylvania business was a “white day” for the cavalry. When the army came to know of what the cavalry had done, andhow they had done it, there was a general outburst of admiration,—the recognition that brave men give to the brave. Stuart and his men were written higher than ever on the honor roll, and the whole army was ready to take off its hat to salute the cavalry.
And, from that day, there was a marked change in the way the army thought and spoke of the cavalry; it took a distinctly different and higher position in the respect of the Army, for it had revealed itself in a new light; it had shown itself signally possessed of the quality, that the infantry and artillery naturally admired most of all others—obstinacyin fight.
As was natural, and highly desirable, each arm of the service had a very exalted idea of its ownimportance and merit, as compared with the others. In fact the soldier of the “Army of Northern Virginia” filled exactly the Duke of Marlborough’s description of the spirit of a good soldier. “He is a poor soldier,” said the Duke, “who does not think himself as good and better than any other soldierof his own army, andthree times as goodas any man in the armyof the enemy.” That fitted our fellows “to a hair;” each Confederate soldier thought that way.
It was not an unnatural or unreasonable conceit,considering the facts. It must be confessed thatmodestyas to their quality as soldiers was not the distinguishing virtue of the men of the Army of Northern Virginia, but, it must be considered, in extenuation that their experience in war was by no means a good school for humility. An old Scotch woman once prayed, “Lord, gie us a gude conceit o’ ourselves.” There was a certain wisdom in the old woman’s prayer! The Army of Northern Virginia soldiers had this “gude conceit o’ themselves,” without praying for it; certainly, if they did pray for it, their prayer was answered, “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.” They had it abundantly! And it was a tremendous element of power in their “make up” as soldiers. It made them the terrible fighters, that all the world knew they were. It largely explains their recorded deeds, and their matchless achievements.
For instance, here at the Wilderness! What was it that made thirty-five thousand men knowingly and cheerfully march to attack one hundred and fifty thousand men, and stick up to them, and fight them for twenty-four hours, without support or reinforcement? It was their good opinion of themselves; their superb confidence. They feltablewith thirty-five thousand men,and General Lee, to meet one hundred and fifty thousand men, and hold them, till help came;and didn’t they do it?
Well! they didthat kind of thing so oftenthat they couldn’t get humble, andthey never have been able to get humble since. Theytry to—but—they can’t!
But I return from this digression to say, that the different Arms of the service had something of this same feeling, this good opinion of themselves, as compared with one another. Each one had many jokes on the others, and whenever they met, all sorts of “chaffing” went on. In all this, the infantry and artillery felt closer together, and were rather apt, when the occasion offered, to turn their combined guns on the cavalry.
The general point of the jokes and gibes at the cavalry was theirsupposedtendency to be “scarce” whenbig fightingwas going on.
It wasn’t that anybody doubted theusefulnessof cavalry, but their usefulness was imagined to lie in other respects than fighting back the masses of theenemy. And, it wasn’t that anybody supposed that the cavalry did not have plenty of fight in them,if they could get a chance. We knew that when they were at home they were the same stock as we were, and we believed, that if they were along with us, they would do as well; but in the cavalry, well! we didn’t know!
The leaders of the cavalry, Stuart, Hampton, Ashby, Fitz Lee and others, were heroes and household names to the whole army. Their brilliant courage and dare-deviltry, their hairbreadth escapes, and thrilling adventures, their feats of skill, and grace were themes of pride and delight to us all. These cavaliers were the “darlings of the army.”Still, the army would guy the cavalry every chance they got.
It was said that Gen. D. H. Hill proposed to offer a “reward of Five Dollars, to anybody who could find a dead man with spurs on.” And Gen. Jubal Early once, when impatient at the conduct of certain troops in his command threatened “if the cavalry did not do better, he would put themin the army.”
One day, an infantry brigade on the march to Chancellorsville had halted to rest on the pike, near where a narrow road turned off. A cavalryman was seen approaching, in a fast gallop, plainly, in a great hurry. The infantry viewed his approach with great interest, prepared to salute him with neat andappropriate remarks as he passed, by way of making him lively.
Just before he got to the head of the brigade he reached the narrow road and started up it. Instantly a dozen “infants” began to wave their arms excitedly, and shout in loud earnest voices—“Mister, stop there! don’t go a step farther; for heaven’s sakedon’tgo up that road.” The trooper, startled by this appeal, and the warning gestures of the men, approaching him, pulled in his fast-going horse, and stopped, very impatiently. He said in a sharp tone, “What is the matter, why mustn’t I go up this road? Say quick, I’m in a big hurry.” “Don’t go, we beg you; you’ll never come back alive.” “Humph! is that so?” said this trooper (who had been near breaking a blood vessel in his impatience at being stopped, but cooled off a little, at this ominous remark)—“But what’s ahead? what’s the danger? The road seems quiet?” “Well, Sonny,that’sthe danger. Haven’t you heard about it?” “Now, Sonny,” was a term of endearment, which from an “infant” always exasperated the feelings of a cavalryman to the last degree; turned the milk of kindness in a horseman’s breast into the sourest clabber; and it instantly stirred up this trooper. “Look here men, don’t fool with me. Tell me what is the danger up this road,” “Well! we thought we ought to let you know, before you expose yourself. General Hill has offered a reward of Five Dollarsfor a dead man with spurs on, and if you go up that lonesome road some of these heresoldierswill shoot you to get the reward.” “Oh pshaw!” cried the disgusted victim, clapping spurs to his horse, and away he rode, leaving the grinning and delighted “infants” behind, and leaving, too, hisopinionof them, and their joke, in language that needed no interpreter.
This sort of thing was going on, all the time. The infantry and artillerywoulddo it. With many, particularly the artillery, who knew better, it wasonly joking, the soldier-instinct to stir upanypasser-by. But with many, especially the infantry, who were not as much “up to snuff” as the artillery, these gibes at the cavalry expressed a serious, tho’ mistaken idea, they had of them. Upon the advance of the enemy, of course, we were accustomed to see cavalrymen hurrying in from the outposts to the rear, to report. So the thoughtless infantry, not considering that this was “part of the large and general plan,” got fixed in their minds an association between the two things,—the advance of the enemy, and, the rapid hurrying off to the rear of the cavalry, until they came to have the fixed idea, that the sight of the enemyalwaysmade a cavalryman “hungry for solitude.” They reasoned that, as a mounted man was much betterfixedfor running away than a footman, it was, by so much, natural that heshouldrun away, and was, by so much, the more likely to do it.
Also, our orders to move and to go into battle were always brought by horsemen; so the horsemen were thought about ascausing others to fightinstead ofdoing it themselves. So, in short, it came to pass, that this innocent infantry had a dim sort of notion that the chief end of the cavalry was, in battle time, to run away and bring up other people to do the fighting, and in quiet time, to “range” for buttermilk and other delicacies, which the poor footmen never got. Hence the soubriquet of “buttermilk ranger” universally applied to the cavalry by the army.
But, I assure you, that all this was dispelled at once, and for good and all, at Spottsylvania. Here had these gallants gotten down off their horses. They hadn’t runanywhere at all; didn’t want anybody else to come, and fight for them. They had jumped into about five or six times their number of the flower of the Federal infantry. They met them front to front, and muzzle to muzzle. Of course they had to give back; but it was slowly,very slowly, and they made the enemy pay, in blood, for every step they gained. They had worried these Federals into a fever, and kept them fooling away nearly twenty-six hours of priceless time; and made Grant’s planfail, and made General Lee’s plan succeed, and had secured the strong line for our defence.
It was a piece of regular, obstinate, bloody, “bulldog” work. We knew, well as we thought ofourselves, that not the staunchest brigade of our veteran “incomparable” infantry, or battery of our canister-shooting artillery, could havefoughtbetter,stoodbetter, orachieved more, for the success of the campaign. We felt that General Lee,—that the whole army,—“owed the cavalry one,” “several,” in fact. The army, even the infantry, had come to know the cavalry, at last. Obstinacy, toughness, dogged refusal to be driven, was their test of manhood, and this test the cavalry had signally, andbrilliantlymet. Everybody was satisfied, thecavalry would do, theywere “all right.” We couldn’t praise them enough, we were proud of them. The remark was even suffered to pass, as nothing to his discredit particularly, that our “Magnus Apollo,” General Lee, himself, had once been in the cavalry, and no one resented itnow. We knew that it was when he wasyoungerthan now. We, of the “Howitzers,” knew very well what arm of the service, and what corps of that arm, the experienced old General would join, if he was enlisting in the Army of Northern Virginia, now, when he knew more than he did. Still! he had been a cavalryman; admit it!
And we alladmiredthe cavalry;honoredthe cavalry;shoutedfor the cavalry, from that time! Occasionally, from force of habit, the infantry (the artillery never) would fall from grace at sight of a passing cavalry column, and let fall little attentions, that sounded very like the old-time compliments, but theywere notmeant that way. It was the soldier-instinct to salute pilgrims. Just as, on a village street, if a dog, of any degree, starts to run, every other dog in sight, or hearing, tears off after him in pursuit, and if he can catch up, instantly attacks him,—not that he has anything against the fugitive, but, simply, because he is running by. The act of running past makes him the enemy of his kind. So, I think, the Confederate infantry assailed, with jokes and gibes,anybody in motionby their camp, or column. They had nothing against him; they attacked him because he was passing by. “It was their nature to.” Of all living men, General Lee,alone, was sacred to them in this. The cavalryalwayshad their full share, and never suffered for want of notice.
This account of the false idea that prevailed, the fun that came of it, and the way it was dispelled, is part of the history of the time. It went to make up the life in the Army of Northern Virginia; it lives in the recollection of that good old time. No record of that old time would be complete without it. So I make no apology for falling into it, in this informal reminiscence.
At one o’clock on Sunday, the 8th of May, we reached the top of the hill near Spottsylvania Court House and suddenly came upon Stuart’s cavalry massed in the yard and field around a farmhouse. They had finished their splendid fight, the van of the army wason the spot to relieve them. They had been withdrawn from confronting the enemy, and were now drawn up here, preparatory to starting off, to overtake Sheridan’s raid toward Richmond; which they did, and, at “Yellow Tavern,” two days after, many of them, the immortal Stuart at their head, died and saved Richmond.
Greetings on the Field of Battle
I have lingered at that farmhouse gate, at the top of the hill, in this story, very much longer than we did in reality. In fact we didn’t linger there at all. Didn’t have a chance! For, the moment we came in sight, at that gate leading into the farmhouse, an officer came dashing out from amongst the troops of cavalry, and galloped across the field toward us. The instant this horseman got out of the crowd, we recognized him. That long waving feather, the long auburn beard, that easy, graceful seat on the swift horse,—that was “J. E. B.” Stuart, and nobody else! He rode up to the foremost group of us, and pulled up his horse. With bright, pleasant, smiling face, he returned our hearty salute with a touch of his hat, and a cheerful, “Good morning, boys! glad to see you. What troops are these?” “Richmond Howitzers, Longstreet’s Corps.” “Good!anybody else along?” “Infantry close behind.” “Good! Well, boys, I’mveryglad to see you. I’ve got a little job for you, right now, all waiting for you.” Just then the Captain rode up and saluted. “Captain,” said the General, saluting pleasantly, “Draw our guns throughthe gate and stop. I’ll want you in ten minutes.” And, away he galloped, back toward the cavalry. The guns pulled in through the gate and halted as they were, on the road leading to the house, close by the cavalry.
We seized this sudden chance to see our old friends among the troopers. In every direction our fellows might be seen darting in among the horses, in search of our friends. Loud and hearty were the shouts of greeting as we recognized, or were seen by, those we sought or unexpectedly lighted on. Brothers, met and embraced. Friends greeted friends. Old schoolmates, who had, three years ago, parted at the schoolroom, locked eager, and loving hands, and asked after others, and told what they could. It was a delightful and touching scene, that meeting there on the edge of a bloody field! they coming out, we going in. There were jokes, and laughs, and cheerful words, but, the hand-clasps were very tight, the sudden uprising of tender feelings, at the sight of faces, and the sound of voices, we had not seen nor heard for years, and that we might see and hear no more. The memories of home, or school, and boyhood, suddenly brought back, by the faces linked with them, made the tears come, and the words very kind, and the tones very gentle.
I had several pleasant encounters. Among others, this: I heard a familiar voice sing out, “William Dame, my dear boy, what on earth are you doinghere?” I eagerly turned, and in the figure hasting toward me with outstretched hand,—as soon as I could read between the lines of mud on him,—I recognized my dear old teacher, Jesse Jones. I loved him like an older brother, and was delighted to meet him. I had parted from him, that sad day, three years ago, when our school scattered to the war. I had seen him last, the quiet gentleman, the thoughtful teacher, the pale student, the pink of neatness. Here I find him a dashing officer of the Third Virginia Cavalry, girt with saber and pistols, covered with mud from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, and just resting from the bloody work of the last two days.
Just here, I had the great pleasure of falling in with my kinsman, and almost brother, Lieut. Robert Page, of the Third Virginia Cavalry, the older brother of my two comrades, and messmates, Carter and John Page. “Bob” was one of the “true blues” who had followed Stuart’s feather from the start, and was going to follow it to the bitter end. I remember how, at the very first, he rode off to the war, from his home, “Locust Grove,” in Cumberland County, Virginia, on his horse, “Goliath,” with his company, the Cumberland Troop. He had stuck to the front, been always up, and ever at his post, all the way through those three long, terrible years. He had deserved, and won his Lieutenancy, and commanded his regiment the last days of the war. He made an enviable record as a soldier for courage, faithfulness, and honor. Nonebetter! At Appomattox he was surrendered. And having been forced to cease making war on mankind with the saber, he mended his grip, and continued to make war, with a far deadlier weapon of destruction, the spatula.
All this was very pleasant, but it was very short. Time was up; ten minutes were out! We caught sight of General Stuart cantering across the field toward our guns, the bugle rang, and we tumbled out from amidst the cavalry, in short order, and took our posts around our respective guns.
“Jeb” Stuart Assigns “A Little Job”
Stuart was in front of the column of guns talking to Captain McCarthy; next moment we moved. That is, the “Left Section” moved, the two twelve-pounder brass “Napoleons,” the “Right Section” had two ten-pounder “Parrott” guns and stayed still. We did not rejoin them for several days. It was our “Napoleons” that moved off, we took note of that! Also, we took very scant gun detachments,—all our men, but just enough to work the guns, stayed behind,—we took note ofthattoo! These two circumstances meantbusinessto old artillerymen. Weremarkedas much, as we trotted beside the guns. “The little job” that General Stuart had alluded to, with his bland and seductive smile, and the merry twinkle of his eye, was, plainly, a verywarmlittle job; however, away we went, “J. E. B.” Stuart riding in front of the guns, with the Captain,—apparently enjoying himself;wereserved our opinionas to the enjoyableness of the occasion, till we shouldsee moreand be better able to judge. Two guns of “Callaway’s” and two of “Carlton’s” Batteries of our Battalion,—which had come up while we were disporting with our cavalry friends, back there,—had pulled in behind our two.
The six guns followed the road which turned around the farmhouse, and ran on down toward the back of the farm. There were pine woods about, in different directions, the fields lying between. We saw nothing as yet, and wondered where we were going. We soon found out! About half a mile from the house, the farm road, which here ran along with pine woods on the left and a stretch of open field on the right, turned out toward the open ground. As we passed out from behind that point of woods, we saw “the elephant!” There, about six hundred yards from us were the Federals, seeming to cover the fields. There were lines of infantry, batteries, wagons, ambulances, ordnance trains massed all across the open ground. This was part of Warren’s Corps, which had been pushing for the Spottsylvania line. They thought they had left the “Army of Northern Virginia” back yonder at the “Wilderness,” and had nothing before them but cavalry, and they were halted, now, resting or eating, intending afterwards to advance, and occupy the line, which was back up behind us, where we had left the cavalry and our other guns. That line, so coveted, so important to them, that they had beenmarching, and fighting to gain, was not a mile off, in sight, in reach,secure now, as they thought. That thought was not only adelusion, it was asnare. They were never to reach it! and the “snare,” I will explain very soon.
As we thus suddenly came upon that sight, we stopped to look at the spectacle. It looked very blue, and I dare say, we looked a shade “blue” ourselves; for we could not see a Confederate anywhere, and we supposed we had no support whatever, though we were better off in this particular than we knew. And the idea of pitching into that host, with six unsupported guns, was not calming to the mind. Coming out from cover of the pines, back of a slight ridge that ran through the field, with a few sassafras bushes on it, we were not seen, and the Federals were in blissful ignorance of what was about to follow. We pulled diagonally across the field to a point, just back of the low ridge, and quietly went into position and unlimbered the guns. We pushed them, by hand, up so that the muzzles just looked clear over the ridge, which thus acted as a low work in our front, and proved a great protection. The field had been freshly plowed for corn, the wheels sunk into it, and the minute we tried to move the guns, by hand, with our small force, we saw what it was going to be, in action, with the sun blazing down.
When all was ready,—guns pointed, limber, and caisson chests opened,—General Stuart said, waving his hand toward that swarming field of Federals, “Boys, I want you to knock that all to pieces for me. So go to work.” And this was the last time we ever saw the superb hero. He rode, right from our guns, to his death at “Yellow Tavern” a day or two after. We have always remembered with the deepest interest, that the very last thing that glorious soldier, “J. E. B.” Stuart, did in the Army of Northern Virginia was to put our guns into position, and give us orders; whichwe obeyed, to his entire satisfaction, I know, if he had seen it.
The minute General Stuart had given his order, and turned to ride away, Captain McCarthy, sitting on his horse, where he sat during the whole fight, looking as cool as the sun would let him, and far more unconcerned than if he had been going to dinner, sung out, “Section —— commence firing.” It was ours, the Fourth gun’s turn to open the ball. We were all waiting around the guns for the word.
The group, as it stood, is before my mind as vividly as then. Dan McCarthy, Sergt. Ned Stine, acting gunner (vice Tony Dibrell absent, sick, for some time past, who came tearing back,still sick, the moment he heard we were on the warpath) Ben Lambert, No. 1; Joe Bowen, No. 2; Beau Barnes, No. 3; W. M. Dame, No. 4; Bill Hardy, No. 5; CharliePleasants, No. 6; Sam Vaden, No. 7; Watt Dibbrell, No. 8! The three drivers of the limber, six yards back of the gun, dismounted, and holding their horses. Ellis, the lead driver, had scooped out the loose dirt, with his hands, and lay down, on his back, in the shallow hole, holding the reins with his upstretched hands.
The third gun was just to our right, the cannoneers grouped around the guns, each man at his post. Travis Moncure, Sergeant, known and loved and honored among us as “Monkey,” always brave and true and smiling, even under fire, Harry Townsend, gunner; Cary Eggleston, No. 1; Pres Ellyson, No. 2; ———— Denman, No. 3; Charlie Kinsolving, No. 4; Charlie Harrington, No. 5; ————, No. 6; ————, No. 7; ————, No. 8; Captain McCarthy sitting his horse, just behind, and between the two guns. The other guns were a little to our left.
All was ready; guns loaded and pointed, carefully, every man at his post,—feeling right solemn too,—and a dead stillness reigned. The Captain’s steady voice rang out! As an echo to it, Dan McCarthy sung out “Fourth detachment commence firing, fire!” I gave the lanyard a jerk. A lurid spout of flame about ten feet long shot from the mouth of the old “Napoleon,” then, in the dead silence, a ringing, crashing roar, that sounded like the heavens were falling, and rolled a wrathful thunder far over the fields and echoing woods. Then became distinct, a savage, venomousscream, along the track of the shell. This grew fainter,—died on our ear! We eagerly watched! Suddenly, right over the heads of the enemy, a flash of fire, a puff of snow-white smoke, which hung like a little cloud! We gave a yell of delight; our shell had gone right into the midst of the Federals, and burst beautifully. The ball was open!
The instant our gun fired we could hear old Moncure sing out, “Third detachment, commence firing, fire!” and the Third piece rang out. The guns on the left joined in, lustily, and in a moment, those six guns were steadily roaring, and hurling a storm of shell upon the enemy.
And now the fun began, and soon “grew fast and furious.” Over in the Federal lines, taken by surprise, all was confusion, worse confounded. We could see men running wildly about, teamsters, jumping into the saddle, and frantically lashing their horses,—wagons, ambulances, ordnance carts, battery forges, tearing furiously, in every direction. Several vehicles upset, and many teams, maddened by the lash, and the confusion, and bursting shells, dashing away uncontrollable. We sawonewagon, flying like the wind, strike a stump, and thrown, team and all, a perfect wreck, on top of a low rail fence, crushing it down, and rolling over it.
This was the only time I ever saw a big army wagon, and team, thrown over a fence.
All that lively time they were having over among the enemy was very amusing to us; we were highly delighted, and enjoyed it very much. Laughter, and jocular remarks on the scene were heard all about, as we worked the gun, and we did our best to keep up the show.
Meanwhile, we were not deceived for a moment. Wild and furious as was the confusion, and running, over the way, we knew, well, it was the wagoners and “bomb-proof” people, who were doing the running, and stirring up the confusion. We knew they were notallrunning away. We had seen a good deal of artillery in that field, and we knew that we should soon hear from them. And we were not mistaken!
In a few minutes the sound of our guns was suddenly varied by a sharp, venomous screech, clap of thunder, right over our heads, followed by a ripping, tearing, splitting crash, that filled the air; a regular blood freezer. We knewthat sound! It was a bursting Parrott shell from a Federal gun! And they had the range.
The enemy had run out about eighteen, or twenty guns, and they let in, mad as hornets. Another shell, and another, and another, came screaming over us. Then they began toswarm; the air seemed full of them,—bursting shells, jagged fragments, balls out of case-shot,—it sounded like a thousand devils, shrieking in the air all about us. Then, the roaring of our guns, the heavy smoke, the sulphurous smell, the shakingof the ground under the thunder of the guns,—it was a fit place fordevilsto shriek in.
And howhotit was! Twenty guns, in full fire, can make it hot at the foot of the North Pole, and this wasnotthe North Pole! quite the reverse. In addition to the battle heat, the sun was pouring down, hot as blazes; and the labor of working a rapidly firing “Napoleon” gun, with four men, in deeply plowed ground, and the strong excitement of battle—altogether, it was the hottest place I ever saw, or hope I shalleversee, in this world, or in the world to come. It nearly melted the marrow in our bones!
A persimmon sapling stood near our gun. It was trimmed, and chipped down, twig by twig, and limb by limb, by pieces of shell, until it was a lot ofscraps scattered over the ground. Sam Vaden, as he passed me, with a shell, said “Dame, just look back over this field behind us. A mosquito couldn’t fly across that field without getting hit.” It looked so! The dirt was being knocked up, wherever you looked, literally, byshowerof balls, and shell fragments. It had the appearance of hail striking on the surface of water, only it wasn’t cold.
Well! for three mortal hours this battle raged. They hammered us, and we hammered them. Occasionally, we saw a Federal caisson blown up, which refreshed us, and several of their guns ceased firing—disabled or cannoneers cleared out, we thought—andthisrefreshed us. We wished they wouldallblow up, and stop shooting.
After we had been under fire sometime, with nobody hurt as yet, a case-shot burst in front of us, and Hardy, who had just brought up a shell, and was standing right by me, said, in his usual deliberate way, “Dame, I’m hit, and hit very hard, I am afraid.” “Where are you hit?” I asked. He said, “I’m shot through the thigh, and the leg is numbed.” I fired the gun, and jumped down to see what I could do for him. I found the place, and it looked ugly. There was a clean-cut hole right through his pants, to the thickest part of the thigh. I put my finger into the hole, and tore away the cloth to get at the wound, and found to my great, and hisgreaterdelight, that the ball had struck, and glanced. It had made a long black bruise and the pain was much greater than if it had gone through the leg. It had struck the great mass of muscle on the outer thigh, and the leg was, for the time, paralyzed and stiff as a poker. He was completely disabled. I said, “Bill, you must get right away from here.” “But Ican’twalk a step.” “Well crawl off on your hands and your good foot, not a man could leave the gun, to help you, and go out to the side so as to get soonest from under fire.” So the poor fellow hobbled off, as best he could, all alone, amidst the laughter of the fellows at his novel locomotion. We could see the bullets knocking upthe dirt allaroundhim, as he went slowly “hopping the clods” across the plowed fields. But he got off all right. Shortly after Hardy was struck, Charley Pleasants, of Richmond No. ———, at the Third gun, was shot through the thigh. A long and tedious wound which kept him disabled some months. Bill Hardy was back to duty in a day or so. One of the horses, the off horse of the wheel team of our limber, was hit, also. A piece of shell went into his head, between the right eye and ear, cutting the brow band of the bridle. The old horse, a character in the Battery, didn’t seem to mind it; and he wore that piece of shell, in his head, until the end of the war.
And, strange as it seemed, these were all our casualties, under that hot fire; one man, seriously, and one slightly wounded and a horse slightly hurt.