The Boys of '61 Part 36

An English officer, who saw the battle from the Rebel lines, thus says of the repulse:-

"I soon began to meet many wounded men returning from the front; many of them asked in piteous tones the way to a doctor, or an ambulance. The further I got the greater became the number of the wounded. At last I came to a perfect stream of them flocking through the woods in numbers as great as the crowd in Oxford Street in the middle of the day.... They were still under a heavy fire; the sh.e.l.ls were continually bringing down great limbs of trees, and carrying further destruction amongst their melancholy procession. I saw all this in much less time than it takes to write it, and although astonished to meet such a vast number of wounded, I had not seen enough to give me an idea of the real extent of the mischief.

"When I got close up to General Longstreet, I saw one of his regiments advancing through the woods in good order; so, thinking I was just in time to see the attack, I remarked to the General that 'I wouldn't have missed this for anything.' Longstreet was seated on the top of a snake-fence, in the edge of the wood, and looking perfectly calm and unperturbed. He replied, 'The devil you wouldn't! I would like to have missed it very much; we've attacked and been repulsed. Look there!'

"For the first time I then had a view of the open s.p.a.ce between the two positions, and saw it covered with Confederates slowly and sulkily returning towards us in small broken parties....

"I remember seeing a general (Pettigrew I think it was) come up to him and report that he was unable to bring his men up again. Longstreet turned upon him and replied with some sarcasm: 'Very well,-never mind, then, General; just let them remain where they are. The enemy is going to advance, and will spare you the trouble.' ...

"Soon afterward I joined General Lee, who had in the mean while come to the front, on becoming aware of the disaster. He was engaged in rallying and in encouraging the troops, and was riding about a little in front of the woods quite alone, the whole of his staff being engaged in a similar manner further to the rear. His face, which is always placid and cheerful, did not show signs of the slightest disappointment, care, or annoyance; and he was addressing to every soldier he met a few words of encouragement, such as, 'All this will come right in the end; we will talk it over afterwards,-but in the mean time all good men must rally. We want all good men and true men just now,' &c.... He said to me,'This has been a sad day for us, Colonel,-a sad day; but we can't expect always to gain victories.' ... I saw General Wilc.o.x (an officer who wears a short round jacket and a battered straw hat) come up to him, and explain, almost crying, the state of his brigade. General Lee immediately shook hands with him, and said, cheerfully, 'Never mind, General. All this has been my fault,-it is I that have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you can.'"[52]

It was past eleven o'clock in the evening when I rode up from the gory field, over the ridge, where the Second Corps had stood like a wall of adamant. Meade's head-quarters were in a grove, east of the small house where he established himself at the beginning of the battle. The fire had been too hot at Mrs. Leister's. Meade was sitting on a great flat boulder, listening to the reports of his officers, brought in by couriers. It was a scene which lives in memory: a dark forest,-the evening breeze gently rustling the green leaves over our heads,-the katydids and locusts singing cheerily,-the bivouac fires glimmering on the ground, revealing the surrounding objects,-the gnarled trees, torn by cannon-shot,-the mossy stones,-the group of officers,-Williams, Warren, Howard (his right sleeve wanting an arm), Pleasanton, as trim as in the morning; Meade stooping, weary, his slouched hat laid aside, so that the breeze might fan his brow.

"Bully! bully! bully all round!" said he; and then turning to his chief of staff, Humphrey, said, "Order up rations and ammunition."

To General Hunt, chief of artillery, "Have your limbers filled. Lee may be up to something in the morning, and we must be ready for him."

A band came up and played "Hail to the Chief!" the "Star-spangled Banner," and "Yankee Doodle." Soul-stirring the strains. The soldiers, lying on their arms, where they had fought, heard it, and responded with a cheer. Not all: for thousands were deaf and inanimate evermore.

No accurate statement of the number engaged in this great, decisive battle of the war can ever be given. Meade's march to Gettysburg was made with great rapidity. The Provost Marshal of the army, General Patrick, committed the great error of having no rear guard to bring up the stragglers, which were left behind in thousands, and who found it much more convenient to live on the excellent fare furnished by the farmers than to face the enemy. Meade's entire force on the field numbered probably from sixty to seventy thousand. The Rebel army had made slower marches, and the soldiers could not straggle; they were in an enemy's country. Lee, therefore, had fuller ranks than Meade. His force may be estimated at ninety thousand men.

The people of the North expressed their grat.i.tude to the heroes who had won this battle, by pouring out their contributions for the relief of the wounded. The agents of the Christian and Sanitary Commissions were quickly on the ground, and hundreds of warm-hearted men and women hastened to the spot to render aid. The morning after the battle I saw a stout Pennsylvania farmer driving his two-horse farm wagon up the Baltimore pike, loaded down with loaves of soft bread which his wife and daughters had baked.

Tender and affecting are some of the incidents of the battle-field. A delegate of the Christian Commission pa.s.sing among the wounded, came to an officer from South Carolina.

"Can I do anything for you?" he asked.

"No!" was the surly reply.

He pa.s.sed on, but upon his return repeated the question, and received the same answer. The day was hot, the air offensive, from putrefying wounds, and the delegate was putting cologne on the handkerchiefs of the patients.

"Colonel, let me put some of this on your handkerchief."

The wounded man burst into tears. "I have no handkerchief."

"Well, you shall have one"; and wetting his own gave it to him.

"I can't understand you Yankees," said the Colonel. "You fight us like devils, and then you treat us like angels. I am sorry I entered this war."[53]

Said another Rebel,-an Irishman,-to a chaplain who took care of him, "May every hair of your head be a wax-taper to light you on your way to glory!"[54]

A chaplain pa.s.sing through the hospital, came to a cot where lay a young wounded soldier who had fought for the Union.

"Poor fellow!" said the chaplain.

"Don't call me 'poor fellow!'" was the indignant reply.

"Dear fellow, then. Have you written to your mother since the battle?"

"No, sir!"

"You ought to. Here it is the tenth,-a whole week since the battle. She will be anxious to hear from you."

The lad with his left hand threw aside the sheet which covered him, and the chaplain saw that his right arm was off near the shoulder.

"That is the reason, sir, that I have not written. I have not forgotten her, sir. I have prayed for her, and I thank G.o.d for giving me so dear a mother."

Then turning aside the sheet farther, the chaplain saw that his left leg was gone. Sitting down beside the young hero the chaplain wrote as he dictated.

"Tell mother that I have given my right arm and my left leg to my country, and that I am ready to give both of my other limbs!" said he.[55]

The courage and patriotism of Spartan mothers is immortalized in story and song. "Return with your shield, or upon it," has been held up for admiration through three thousand years. The Greek fire is not extinguished; it burns to-day as bright and pure as ever at Salamis or Marathon.

Riding in the cars through the State of New York after the battle of Gettysburg, I fell in conversation with a middle-aged woman who had two sons in the army.

"Have they been in battle?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; one has been in fifteen battles. He was taken prisoner at Chancellorsville and was wounded at Gettysburg. The other is in the Medical Department."

"The one who was wounded at Gettysburg must have seen some hard fighting."

"Yes, sir; and I hear a good account of him from his captain. He says my son behaves well. I told him, when he went away, that I would rather hear he was dead than that he had disgraced himself."

"His time must be nearly out."

"Yes, sir, it is; but he is going to see it through, and has re-enlisted. I should like to have him at home, but I know he would be uneasy. His comrades have re-enlisted, and he is not the boy to back out. I rather want him to help give the crushing blow."

There were thousands of such mothers in the land.

Lee retreated the morning after the battle. His reasons for a retrograde movement are thus stated by himself:-

"Owing to the strength of the enemy's position and the reduction of our ammunition, a renewal of the engagement could not be hazarded. and the difficulty of procuring supplies rendered it impossible to continue longer where we were. Such of the wounded as were in condition to be removed, and part of the arms collected on the field, were ordered to Williamsport. The army remained at Gettysburg during the 4th, and at night began to retire by the road to Fairfield, carrying with it about four thousand prisoners. Nearly two thousand had previously been paroled, but the enemy's numerous wounded, that had fallen into our hands after the first and second day's engagements, were left behind."[56]

Meade made no attempt to follow him with his main army, but marched directly down the Emmettsburg road, once more to Frederick, then west over South Mountain to intercept him on the Potomac. Meade had the inside of the chess-board. He was a victor. The men who had made a forced march to Gettysburg were awake to the exigency of the hour, and made a quick march back to Frederick, and over the mountains to Boonsboro'. A severe storm set in, and the roads were almost impa.s.sable, but the men toiled on through the mire, lifting the cannon-wheels from the deep ruts, when the horses were unable to drag the ordnance, singing songs as they marched foot-sore and weary, but buoyant over the great victory.

And now, as the intelligence came that Grant had taken Vicksburg, that Banks was in possession of Port Hudson, and that the Mississippi was flowing "unvexed to the sea," they forgot all their toils, hardships, and sufferings, and made the air ring with their l.u.s.ty cheers. They could see the dawn of peace,-peace won by the sword. The women of Maryland hailed them as their deliverers, brought out the best stores from their pantries and gave freely, refusing compensation.

Meade left all his superfluous baggage behind, and moved in light marching order. Lee was enc.u.mbered by his wounded, and by his trains, and when he reached Hagerstown found that Meade was descending the mountain side, and that Gregg was already in Boonsboro'.

Reinforcements were sent to Meade from Washington, with the expectation that by concentration of all available forces, Lee's army might be wholly destroyed. The elements, which had often r.e.t.a.r.ded operations of the Union troops,-which had rendered Burnside's and Hooker's movements abortive in several instances, now were propitious. The Potomac was rising, and the rain was still falling. On the morning of the 13th I rode to General Meade's head-quarters. General Seth Williams, the ever-courteous Adjutant-General of the army, was in General Meade's tent. He said that Meade was taking a look at the Rebels.

"Do you think that Lee can get across the Potomac?" I asked.

"Impossible! The people resident here say that it cannot be forded at this stage of the water. He has no pontoons. We have got him in a tight place. We shall have reinforcements to-morrow, and a great battle will be fought. Lee is enc.u.mbered with his teams, and he is short of ammunition."

General Meade came in dripping with rain, from a reconnoissance. His countenance was unusually animated. He had ever been courteous to me, and while usually very reticent of all his intentions or of what was going on, as an officer should be, yet in this instance he broke over his habitual silence, and said, "We shall have a great battle to-morrow. The reinforcements are coming up, and as soon as they come we shall pitch in."

I rode along the lines with Howard in the afternoon. The Rebels were in sight. The pickets were firing at each other. There was some movement of columns.