The Boys of '61 Part 21

"See!" said Sturgis to an old regiment which quailed before the fire. "See the Eleventh New Hampshire! a new regiment, standing like posts driven into the ground."

Hanc.o.c.k and French, unable to find any shelter, are driven back upon the town. The attack and repulse have not occupied fifteen minutes.

It is a sad sight, that field thickly strewn with dying and dead men. But in battle there is no time for the wringing of hands over disaster. The b.l.o.o.d.y work must go on.

Sturgis is in the hollow, so near the hill that the Rebel batteries on the crest cannot be depressed sufficiently to drive him out. He is within close musket-shot of Cobb's brigade, lying behind the stone-wall at the base of the hill. Sturgis's men lie down, load and fire deliberately, watching their opportunity to pick off the gunners on the hill. In vain are all the efforts of Longstreet to dislodge them. Solid shot, sh.e.l.ls, canister, and shrapnel are thrown towards the hollow, but without avail. A solitary oak-tree near is torn and broken by the artillery fire, and pitted with musket-b.a.l.l.s, and the ground is furrowed with the deadly missiles; but the men keep their position through the weary hours. The division is composed of two brigades,-Nagles's, containing the Sixth and Ninth New Hampshire, Seventh Rhode Island, Forty-Eighth Pennsylvania, and Second Maryland; and Ferrero's, containing the Twenty-First and Thirty-Fifth Ma.s.sachusetts, Eleventh New Hampshire. Fifty-First Pennsylvania, and Fifty-First New York.

A second attempt is made upon the hill. Humphrey's division, composed of Tyler's and Briggs's brigade of Pennsylvanians, nearly all new troops, leads the advance, followed closely by Morrell's division of veterans. The lines move steadily over the field, under cover of the batteries which have been brought up and planted in the streets. Sturgis pours a constant stream of fire upon the sunken road. Thus aided, they reach the base of the hill in front of Maryee's, deliver a few volleys, and then with thinned ranks retire once more to the shelter of the ridge.

The day is waning. Franklin has failed. He telegraphs that it is too late to make another attack on the left. Not so does Sumner think on the right. He is a brave old man, fearless in battle, counting human life of little value if victory can be won by its sacrifice. He walks to and fro by the Lacey House like a chained lion. Burnside will not let him cross the river. Time has ploughed deep furrows on his face. His hair is white as the driven snow. He is grim and gruff; his voice is deep, and he has rough words for those who falter in duty; but he has a tender heart. He dotes upon his son, and calls him "Sammy" familiarly. He cannot bear to have him gone long from his side, but yet is ready to send him into the thickest of the fight. He cannot see the day lost without another struggle, and orders a third attack.

Humphrey, Morrell, Getty, Sykes, and Howard, or portions of their divisions, are brought up. The troops have been under arms from early daylight. They have had no food. All day they have been exposed to the fire of the Rebel batteries, and have lost heavily. Brooks's division of the Sixth Corps moves up Deep Run to engage in the last attack. All the batteries on both sides of the river are once more brought into action. Getty moves up Hazel Run to take the Rebels in flank, who are protected by the sunken road at the base of the hill.

THE LAST ATTACK.

It is sunset. The troops move out once more upon the open plain, and cross the field with a cheer. The ground beneath them is already crimson with the blood of their fallen comrades. They reach the base of the hill. Longstreet brings down all his reserves. The hillside, the plain, the crest of the ridge, the groves and thickets, the second range of hills beyond Maryee's, the hollow, the sunken road, are bright flashes. Two hundred cannon strike out fierce defiance,-forty thousand muskets and rifles flame!

The Rebels are driven from the stone-walls, and the sunken road, and the rifle-pit midway the hill. The blue wave mounts all but to the top of the crest. It threatens to overwhelm the Rebel batteries. But we who watch it behold its power decreasing. Men begin to come down the hill singly and in squads, and at length in ma.s.ses. The third and last attempt has failed. The divisions return, leaving the plain and the hillside strown with thousands of brave men who have fallen in the ineffectual struggle.

There was no fighting on Sunday, the 14th, but General Burnside was preparing to make another attack. He had eighteen of his old regiments in the Ninth Corps, who would go wherever he sent them. He thought that they would carry the heights.

"I hope," said General Sumner, "that you will desist from an attack. I do not know of any general officer who approves it, and I think it will prove disastrous to the army."

The advice was followed, and it was then decided to withdraw the army.

The wind on Tuesday night blew a gale from the southwest. Hay and straw were laid upon the bridges to deaden the sound of the artillery wheels. It began to rain before morning; and the Rebels, little dreaming of what was taking place, remained in their quarters.

Before daylight the whole army had recrossed the river, and the bridges were taken up. Great were their amazement and wonder when the Rebels looked down from the heights and saw the Union army once more on the northern bank, beyond the reach of their guns.

General Burnside lost about ten thousand men, while the loss of the Rebels was about five thousand. The defeat was disheartening to the army. But though repulsed, the soldiers felt that they were not beaten; they had failed because General Burnside's plans had not been heartily entered into by some of the officers. But the patriotic flame burned as brightly as ever, and they had no thought of giving up the contest.

Tattoo.

CHAPTER XII.

THE WINTER AT FALMOUTH.

Dec., 1862.

After the battle of Fredericksburg, both armies prepared for the winter. Two great cities of log-huts sprang up in the dense forests on both sides of the Rappahannock, peopled by more than two hundred thousand men. It was surprising to see how quickly the soldiers made themselves comfortable in huts c.h.i.n.ked with mud and roofed with split shingles. These rude dwellings had a fireplace at one end, doors hung on leathern hinges, and bunks one above another, like berths in a steamboat.

There the men told stories, played checkers and cards, read the newspapers, wrote letters to their friends far away, and kept close watch all the while upon the Rebels.

But there were dark days and dreary nights. It tried their endurance and patriotism to stand all night upon picket, with the north-wind howling around them and the snow whirling into drifts. There were rainy days, and weeks of mud, when there was no drilling, and when there was nothing to do. Then chaplains, with books and papers under their arms, were welcomed everywhere. General Howard thus bore testimony to the labors of one who was not a chaplain, but an agent of the American Tract Society from Boston,-Rev. Mr. Alvord:-

"There is a great and good man,-great because he is good and because he is practical,-who has followed the Army of the Potomac from the beginning. He takes his papers, and goes himself and circulates them as far as he is able, and, by the agency of others, gets them into nearly every regiment in the army. And you should see the soldiers cl.u.s.ter around him! When his wagon drives up in front of a regiment, the soldiers pour out with life, circle round him, and beg for books and tracts,-for anything he has. Some of them want papers to read for themselves, and others to select pieces out of them to send home. I could hardly believe it, that there was such eagerness on the part of soldiers for such reading until I saw it with my own eyes. 'Give me a paper,' 'Give me a paper,' 'Give me a tract,' 'Give me a book,' is the impatient cry. Very frequently ladies have sent tracts and books to my tent, and on the Sabbath-day I have taken them myself to distribute, and I have scarcely ever had to ask a soldier to receive one of them. Indeed, if you give to one or two, the others will feel jealous if neglected."[19]

The magic lantern in the hospital.

Said a chaplain:-

"I am besieged by those who want something good to read. In my rounds I am followed at my elbow. 'Please, sir, can you spare me one?' They hail me from a distance: 'Are you coming down this way, chaplain?' It is a pleasant thing to pause in these travels through the parish and look back upon the white waves that rise in the wake of one's course. Sports are hushed, swearing is charmed away, all are reading,-Sabbath has come."

In some regiments, where the officers co-operated with chaplains to elevate the morals of men, few oaths were heard.

One day General Howard started out with a handful of leaflets on swearing, with the intention of giving one to every man whom he heard using profane language. He went from regiment to regiment and from brigade to brigade of his division, and returned to his tent without hearing an oath.

"I have been all through my division to-day," he said, "visiting the hospitals, and I haven't heard a single man swear. Isn't it strange?"

One of the citizens of Falmouth came to General Howard for a guard.

"You favored secession, I suppose," said the General.

"I stuck for the Union till Virginia went out of the Union. I had to go with her."

"You have a son in the Rebel army."

"Yes, sir; but he enlisted of his own accord."

"The soldiers steal your chickens, you say?"

"Yes, they take everything they can lay their hands upon, and I want a guard to protect my property."

"If you and all your neighbors had voted against secession, you would not need a guard. No, sir, you can't have one. When you have given as much to your country as I have I will give you one, but not till then," said the General, pointing to his empty sleeve. He lost his right arm at Fair Oaks.

It was a gloomy winter, but the Sanitary and Christian Commissions gave their powerful aid towards maintaining the health and morals and spirits of the army. The Christian Commission opened six stations, from which they dispensed supplies of books and papers and food for the sick, not regularly furnished by the medical department. Religious meetings were held nightly, conducted by the soldiers, marked by deep solemnity. Veterans who had pa.s.sed through all the trials and temptations of a soldier's life gave testimony of the peace and joy they had in believing in Jesus. Others asked what they should do to obtain the same comfort. Many who had faced death unflinchingly at Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Malvern, and Antietam, who had been ever indifferent to the claim of religion, became like little children as they listened to their comrades singing,

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee."

It was not sentimentalism. A soldier who has been through a half-dozen battles is the last person in the world to indulge in sentiment. He above all men understands reality. Thus led by the sweet music and the fervent prayers of their comrades, they rejoiced in the hope that they had found forgiveness of sins through the blood of the Son of G.o.d.

At Falmouth, an old tobacco-warehouse on the bank of the river, within hail of the Rebel pickets, was cleared of rubbish, the broken ceiling and windows covered with canvas, a rude pulpit erected, where on Sabbath afternoons and every evening meetings were held, a Sabbath school was organized, also a day school. One of the soldiers established a school for the instruction of the children of the village. Often in the calm twilight of the mild winter days the Rebel picket pacing his beat upon the opposite bank stopped, and leaning upon his gun, listened to the hymns of devotion wafted on the evening air.

The Christian commission in the field.

He could have sent a bullet whistling through the building, but there was a mutual understanding among the pickets not to fire, and so the meetings were undisturbed.

In the Forty-Fourth Now York Regiment, known as the Ellsworth Avengers, were two young soldiers whose hearts were woven together with Christian zeal. They had no chaplain; but they established a prayer-meeting, holding it beside a stump, in a retired place. They obtained permission of the colonel to build a log chapel. They had to draw the logs a mile, but they had faith and energy, and laid out a building sixteen by thirty-two feet square. Rev. Mr. Alvord, the agent of a Tract Society, gives the following account of their labors.

"The first logs were heavy, and hardly any one to help. Their plan at first was not very definite. They would lay down a log and then look and plan by the eye. Another log was wearily drawn and put on. The crowd came round to quiz and joke. 'Are you to have it finished before the world ends?' 'Fixing up to leave?' 'How does your saloon get on?' The more serious, in pity, tried to discourage. There was 'already an order out to move; what's the use?' 'Who wants meetings?' But these two Christian boys (S. and L.) toiled on like Noah, amidst the scoffs of the mult.i.tude. The edifice slowly rose; volunteers lent a hand. The Christian men of the regiment became interested. (There were forty or fifty in all, eighteen or twenty of whom at length aided in the work.) A sufficient height was reached, and first a roof of brush, and afterwards of patched ponchos, was put on, and meetings began,-or rather they began when it was only an open pen. In a few days Burnside's advance came, and the regiment left for the field. In their absence, plunderers stripped the cabin, and carried off a portion of its material; but on the return of our troops the same busy hands and hearts of faith were again at work. A sutler gave them the old canvas cover of his large tent, which he was about to cut up to shelter his horses with, and lo, it precisely filled the roof of the meeting-house,-not an inch to spare!

"Well, there it stands, to his glory and the credit of their perseverance. (It took about one hundred logs to build it.) You should have seen their eyes shine, as, here in my tent for tracts, they were one day giving me its history, and you should have been with us last evening. The little pulpit made of empty box boards, two chandeliers suspended from the ridge-pole of cross-sticks, wreathed with ivy, and in the socketed ends four adamant candles, each burning brilliantly. Festoons of ivy and 'dead men's fingers' (a species of woodbine called by this name), looped gracefully along the sides of the room, and in the centre from chandelier to chandelier,-their deep green, with the fine brown bark of the pine logs, and white canvas above, striped with its rafters, sweetly contrasting. Below, a perfect pack of soldiers, in the 'Avengers" uniform, squatted low upon the pole seats, beneath which was a carpet of evergreen sprays,-all silent, uncovered, respectful; as the service opened, you could have heard a pin fall. There was nothing here to make a noise. Pew-doors, psalm-books, rustling silks, or groined arches reverberating the slightest sound of hand or footfall, there were none. Only the click of that wooden latch, and a gliding figure, like a stealthy vidette, squeezing in among the common ma.s.s, indicated the late comer. The song went up from the deep voices of men,-do you know the effect?-and before our service closed, tears rolled down from the faces of men. To be short, every evening of the week this house is now filled with some service, four of which are religious. When they can have no preaching, these soldiers meet for prayer.

"I stole in one evening, lately, when they were at these devotions; prayer after prayer successively was offered, in earnest, humblest tones, before rising from their knees; the impenitent looking on solemnly. Officers were present and took part, and seldom have I seen such manifest tokens that G.o.d is about to appear in power. Opposition there is none. The whole regiment looks upon the house now as a matter of pride,-encourage all the meetings. It is attractive to visitors, and, when not used for religious purposes, is occupied by lyceum debates, singing clubs, &c., &c. How those two Christian boys do enjoy it! Said one of them to me, 'We have been paid for all our labor a thousand times over.'"

Thus, fighting, marching, singing, praying, teaching the ignorant, trusting in G.o.d, never wavering in their faith of the ultimate triumph of right, they pa.s.sed the weary winter.