From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign Part 4

Now, this leaven of truer thought about religion was leading society all through the South; the Southern men and boys everywhere were feeling its influence, and it was having most remarkable effects. The increase in the number of men, who after the war were brought into the church by the direct influence of the returned soldiers, "who had found their souls"

through the experiences of their army life, was tremendous. Those soldiers did a bigger service to the men of their race by bringing back religion to them than they did in fighting for them during the war.

Just after the war, in the far harder trials and soul agony of the Reconstruction days, I think that the wonderful patience, and courage which resisted humiliation, and won back the control of their States, and rebuilt their shattered fortunes and pulled their country triumphantly up out of indescribable disaster, can only be thus really explained--that those men were "strong and of a good courage" because "their minds were staked on G.o.d."

The history of the Southern people during that epoch is unmatched by the history of any people in all time. The result they achieved, this was the reason--beneath the superb "grit" of the Southern people lay deep the conviction "G.o.d is our refuge and strength" and "The G.o.d whom we serve. He will deliver us." It was the spiritual vision of the men of the South that saved it when it was ready to perish--and let the men of the South never forget it! Let them give unceasing recognition and thanks to G.o.d, for that great deliverance.

If I have made clear my thought--the connection of the religious revival in the army with the fortunes of our people at home after the war--I am glad! If I haven't, I am sorry! I can't say any fairer than that, and I can only make the plea that was stuck up in a church in the West, in the old rough days, when a dissatisfied auditor of the sermon, or the organist, was likely to express his disapproval with a gun. The notice up in front of the choir read like this: "Please don't shoot the musician, he's doing his level best"--I make the same request.

But, to return to our muttons! Let us get back to the winter camp at Morton's Ford.

=Spring Sprouts and a "Tar Heel" Story=

The winter had now worn away and the spring had come. Vegetation began to show signs of life. Its coming bore us one comfort in one way--among others. It was not so cold, and we did not have to tote so many logs of wood to keep up our fires. Down on the river flats, where vegetation showed sooner than it did on the hills, green things began to shoot up.

Dandelions, sheep sorrel, poke leaves and such, though not used in civil life, were welcome to us, for they were much better than no salad at all. The men craved something green. The unbroken diet of just bread and meat--generally salt meat at that--gave some of the men scurvy. The only remedy for that was something acid, or vegetable food. The men needed this and craved it--so when the green shoots of any kind appeared we would go down on the flats, and gather up all the green stuff we could find, and boil it with the little piece of bacon we might have. It improved the health of the men very much.

At this time, there was a North Carolina Brigade of Infantry at the front furnishing pickets for the river bank. They were camped just back of our winter quarters. Those fellows seemed to be very specially strong in their yearning for vegetable diet, so much so that they attracted our attention. Every day we would see long lines of those men pa.s.sing through our camp. They would walk along, one behind another, in almost unending procession, silent and lonesome, never saying a word and never two walking together--and all of them meandered along intent on one thing--getting down to the flats below "to get some sprouts" as they would say when asked where they were going.

Later on, we would see them in the same solemn procession coming back to camp--every man with a bunch of something green in his fist.

This daily spectacle of Tar Heels swarming through our camp interested us; we watched them mooning along. We tried to talk with them, but all we got from them was, "We'uns is going to git some sprouts. Don't you'uns love sprouts?"

We did, but we didn't go after them in such a solemn manner. Our "sprout" hunts were not so funereal a function; rather more jovial, and much more sociable. Also this devotion to the search for the herb of the field excited our curiosity. They were all the time craving green stuff, and going after it so constantly. We had a story going around which was supposed to explain the craving of a Tar Heel's insides for greens.

This was the story:

One of these men got into the hospital. He had something the matter with his liver. The doctor tried his best to find out what was the matter, and tried all sorts of remedies--no results. At last, in desperation, the doctor decided to try heroic treatment. He cut the fellow open, took out his liver, fixed it up all right (whatever that consisted in), washed it off and hung it on a bush to dry, preparatory to putting it back in place. A dog stole the liver, and carried it off. Here was a bad state of things--the soldier's liver gone, the doctor was responsible.

The doctor was up against it. He thought much, and anxiously. At last a bright idea struck him. He sent off, got a sheep, killed it, took out its liver, got it ready, and sewed it up in that soldier in place of his own. The man got well, and about his duties again. One day, soon after, the doctor met him and said with much friendly interest, "Well, Jim, how are you?"

"Oh, doctor," he replied in a very cheerful tone, "I'm well and strong again."

The doctor looked at him, and asked him significantly, "Jim, do you feel _all right_?"

Falling into that characteristic whine, Jim said, "Yes, sir, I am well and strong, but, Doctor, all the time, now, I feel the strangest hankering after gra.s.s."

That was the sheep's liver telling. Our theory was that all of those fellows had sheep's livers, and that accounted for the insatiable "hankering after gra.s.s."

I told this story in an after-dinner speech at a banquet some time ago to a company of twenty-nine female doctors of medicine--trained, and practicing physicians. They made no protest; listened with unbroken gravity; accepted it as a narrative of actual occurrence, and looked at me with wide-eyed interest. When I finished I thought it best to tell them that it was all a joke. Then they laughed themselves into a fit.

Well, this little account of our doings, and our life in the winter camp at Morton's Ford--1863-1864--is done. Out of its duties, and companionships; its pleasures, and its deeper experiences, we Howitzers were laying up pleasant memories of the camp for the years to come. And often in after years, when some of us comrades got together we would speak of the old camp at Morton's Ford.

The spring was now coming on. We knew that our stay here could not last much longer. How, and when, and where we should go from here, we did not know. We knew we would go somewhere--that was all. "We would know when the time came, and 'Ma.r.s.e Robert' wanted us" he would tell us.

That is the soldier's life--"Go, and he goeth; come, and he cometh; do this, and he doeth it." No choice. Wait for orders--then, quick! Go to it!

Well we were perfectly willing to trust "Ma.r.s.e Robert" and perfectly ready to do just what he said. Meantime we take no anxious thought for the morrow; we go on with our work, and our play--we are "prepared to move at a moment's warning."

CHAPTER II

BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS

Nineteen miles from Orange Court House, Virginia, the road running northeast into Culpeper crosses "Morton's Ford" of the Rapidan River, which, just now, lay between the Federal "Army of the Potomac" and the Confederate "Army of Northern Virginia."

As this road approaches within three-fourths of a mile of the river it rises over a sharp hill, and, thence, winds its way down the hill to the Ford. On the ridge, just where the road crosses it, the guns of the "First Richmond Howitzers" were in position, commanding the Ford; and the Howitzer Camp was to the right of the road, in the pine wood just back of the ridge. Here, we had been on picket all the winter, helping the infantry pickets to watch the enemy and guard the Ford.

One bright sunny morning, the 2d of May, 1864, a courier rode into the Howitzer Camp. We had been expecting him, and knew at once that "something was up." The soldier instinct and long experience told us that it was about time for something to turn up. The long winter had worn away; the sun and winds, of March and April, had made the roads firm again. Just across the river lay the great army, which was only waiting for this, to make another desperate push for Richmond, and we were there for the particular purpose of making that push vain.

For some days we had seen great volumes of smoke rising, in various directions, across the river, and heard bands playing, and frequent volleys of firearms, over in the Federal Camp. Everybody knew what all this meant, so we had been looking for that courier.

Soon after we reached the Captain's tent, orders were given to pack up whatever we could not carry on the campaign, and in two hours, a wagon would leave, to take all this stuff to Orange Court House; thence it would be taken to Richmond and kept for us, until next winter.

This was quickly done! The packing was not done in "Saratoga trunks,"

nor were the things piles of furs and winter luxuries. The "things"

consisted of whatever, above absolute necessaries, had been acc.u.mulated in winter quarters; a fiddle, a chessboard, a set of quoits, an extra blanket, or shirt, or pair of shoes, that any favored child of Fortune had been able to get hold of during the winter. Everything like this must go. It did not take long to roll all the "extras" into bundles, strap them up and pitch them into the wagon. And in less than two hours after the order was given the wagon was gone, and the men left in campaign "trim."

This meant that each man had, left, one blanket, one small haversack, one change of underclothes, a canteen, cup and plate, of tin, a knife and fork, and the clothes in which he stood. When ready to march, the blanket, rolled lengthwise, the ends brought together and strapped, hung from left shoulder across under right arm, the haversack,--furnished with towel, soap, comb, knife and fork in various pockets, a change of underclothes in one main division, and whatever rations we happened to have, in the other,--hung on the left hip; the canteen, cup and plate, tied together, hung on the right; toothbrush, "at will," stuck in two b.u.t.ton holes of jacket, or in haversack; tobacco bag hung to a breast b.u.t.ton, pipe in pocket. In this rig,--into which a fellow could get in just two minutes from a state of rest,--the Confederate Soldier considered himself all right, and ready for anything; in this he marched, and in this he fought. Like the terrapin--"all he had he carried on his back"--this _all_ weighed about seven or eight pounds.

The extra baggage gone, all of us knew that the end of our stay here was very near, and we were all ready to pick up and go; we were on the eve of battle and everybody was on the "qui vive" for decisive orders. They quickly came!

="Ma.r.s.e Robert" Calls to Arms=

On the next day but one, the 4th, about 10 o'clock, another courier galloped into camp, and, in a few moments, everybody having seen him, all the men had swarmed up to the Captain's tent to hear the first news.

Captain McCarthy came toward us and said, very quietly, "Boys, get ready! we leave here in two hours." Then the courier told us that "Grant was crossing below us in the wilderness. That everything we had was pushing down to meet him; and that Longstreet, lately back from Tennessee, was at Gordonsville." The news telling was here interrupted by Crouch sounding the familiar bugle call--"Boots and saddles," which, to artillery ears, said, "Harness up, hitch up and prepare to move at a moment's warning."

The fellows instantly scattered, every man to his quarters, and for a few minutes nothing could be seen but the getting down and rolling up of "flys" from over the log pens they had covered, rolling up blankets, getting together of each man's traps where he could put his hands on them. The drivers took their teams up on the hill to bring down the guns from their positions. All was quickly ready, and then we waited for orders to move.

It was with a feeling of sadness we thought of leaving this spot! It had been our home for several months; it was painful to see it dismantled, and to think that the place, every part of which had some pleasant a.s.sociation with it, would be left silent and lonely, and that we should see it no more.

While we waited, after each had bidden a sad "good-bye" to his house, and its endeared surroundings, it was suggested that we gather once more, for a last meeting in our log church. All felt that this was a fitting farewell to the place. To many of us this little log church was a sacred place, many a hearty prayer meeting had been held there; many a rousing hymn, that almost raised the roof, many a good sermon and many a stirring talk had we heard; many a manly confession had been declared, many a hearty, impressive service in the solemn Litany of the Church, read by us, young Churchmen, in turn. To all the Christians of the Battery (they now numbered a large majority) this church was sacred. To some, it was very, very sacred, for in it they had been born again unto G.o.d. Here they had been led to find Christ, and in the a.s.semblies of their comrades gathered here, they had, one after another, stood up and, simply, bravely, and clearly, witnessed a "good confession" of their Lord, and of their faith.

So, we all instantly seized on the motion, to gather in the church. A hymn was sung, a prayer offered for G.o.d's protection in the perils we well knew, we were about to meet. That He would help us to be brave men, and faithful unto death, as Southern soldiers; that He would give victory to our arms, and peace to our Country. A Scripture pa.s.sage, the 91st Psalm, declaring G.o.d's defense of those who trust Him, was read.

And then, our "talk meeting." It was resolved that "during the coming campaign, every evening, about sunset, whenever it was at all possible, we would keep up our custom, and such of us as could get together, _wherever we might be_, should gather for prayer."

And, in pa.s.sing, I may remark, as a notable fact, that this resolution was carried out _almost literally_. Sometimes, a few of the fellows would gather in prayer, while the rest of us fought the guns. Several times, to my _very lively_ recollection we met _under fire_. Once, I remember, a sh.e.l.l burst right by us, and covered us with dust; and, once, I recall with _very particular_ distinctness, a Minie bullet slapped into a hickory sapling, against which I was sitting, not an inch above my head. Scripture was being read at the time, and the fellows were sitting around with their eyes open. I had to _look_ as if I had as lieve be there, as anywhere else; but I _hadn't_, by a large majority. I _could_ not dodge, as I was sitting down, but felt like drawing in my back-bone until it telescoped.

But, however circ.u.mstanced, in battle, on the battle line, in interims of quiet, or otherwise, we held that prayer hour nearly every day, at sunset, during the entire campaign. And some of us thought, and _think_ that the strange exemption our Battery experienced, our little loss, in the midst of unnumbered perils, and incessant service, during that awful campaign, was, that, in answer to our prayers, "the G.o.d of battles covered our heads in the day of battle" and was merciful to us, because we "called upon Him." If any think this a "fond fancy" _we don't_.

Well! to get back! After another hymn, and a closing prayer, we all shook hands, and then, we took a regretful leave of our dear little Church, and wended our way, quiet and thoughtful, to the road where we found the guns standing, all ready to go. Pretty soon the command--"Forward!" rang from the head of the line. We fell in alongside our respective guns, and with a ringing cheer of hearty farewell to the old Camp, we briskly took the road,--to meet, and to do, what was before us.

We tramped along cheerily until about dark, when we bivouacked on the side of the road, with orders to start at daylight next morning. As we pushed along the road,--what road! gracious only knows, but a country road bearing south toward Verdiersville,--brigades, and batteries joined our march, from other country roads, by which we found that all our people were rapidly pushing in from the camps and positions they had occupied during the winter, and the army was swiftly concentrating.

It was very pleasant to us to get into the stir of the moving army again, as we had been off, quite by ourselves, during the winter, and the greetings and recognitions that flew back and forth as we pa.s.sed, or were pa.s.sed by, well known brigades or batteries, were hearty and vociferous. Such jokes and "chaffing" as went on! As usual, every fellow had his remark upon everything and everybody he pa.s.sed. Any peculiarity of dress or appearance marked out a certain victim to the witty gibes of the men, which had to be escaped from, or the victim had to "grin and bear it." If "Puck" or "Punch" could have marched with a Confederate column once, they might have laid in a stock of jokes and witticisms,--and first-cla.s.s ones, too,--for use the rest of their lives.

Next morning, at daylight,--the 5th of May,--we promptly pulled out, and soon struck the highway, leading from Orange Court House to Fredericksburg, turned to the left and went sweeping on toward "The Wilderness."