The Boys of '61 Part 44

This was an advantage not expected by Grant, who at once ordered two divisions of the Sixth Corps, under Wright, to report to Butler at Bermuda Hundred; but that officer, instead of moving rapidly, advanced leisurely, and even halted awhile.

Terry was attacked by A. P. Hill and obliged to fall back. Grant had the mortification of learning in the evening that, through the dilatory movements of the troops under Smith and Wright, his plans had failed.

In the counsels of the Almighty the time for final victory had not come. G.o.d reigns, but men act freely nevertheless. There have been numerous instances during the war where great events hung on little things. An interesting chapter might be written of the occasions where the scales were seemingly evenly balanced, and where, to the eye of faith, the breath of the Almighty turned them for the time.

At Bull Run the victory was lost to the Union arms through the mistake of Captain Barry.[67] At Pittsburg Landing, if Johnston had attacked from the northwest instead of the southwest,-if he had deflected his army a mile,-far different, in all human probability, would have been the result of that battle.

Was the arrival of the Monitor in Hampton Roads on that morning, after the havoc made by the Merrimac, accidental? How providential rather! How singular, if not a providence, that the wind should blow so wildly from the southwest on that night of the withdrawal of the army from Fredericksburg, wafting the rumbling of Burnside's artillery and the tramp of a hundred thousand men away from the listening ears of the enemy within close musket-shot! Events which turn the scales according to our desires we are inclined to count as special providences: but the disaster at Bull Run, the sitting down of McClellan in the mud at Yorktown; the lost opportunities for moving upon Richmond after Williamsburg and Fair Oaks; also, while the battle was raging at Gaines's Mills and at Glendale; the pusillanimous retreat from Malvern; the inaction at Antietam; Hooker's retreat from Chancellorsville,-from Lee, who also was in retreat,-are inexplicable events. Meade's waiting at Boonsboro, Lee's escape, Gillmore's unexplained turning back from Petersburg, Wright's halting when everything depended on haste, Smith's delay,-all of these are mysterious providences to us, though to the Rebels they were at the time plain interpositions of G.o.d. G.o.d's system is reciprocal; everything has its use, everything is for a purpose. We read blindly, but to reason and faith there can be but one result,-the establishment of justice and righteousness between man and man and his Maker. There must be a righting of every wrong, an atonement for every crime.

"The laws of changeless justice bind Oppressor with oppressed; And, close as sin and suffering joined, We march to fate abreast."

It must have been evident to most observers, that as the war progressed men were brought to a recognition of G.o.d, as an overruling power in the mighty conflict. In the first uprising of the people there was pure, intense patriotism. The battle of Bull Run stung the loyal ma.s.ses of the North, and filled them with a determination to redeem their tarnished honor. The failure of the Peninsular campaigns, the terrible disasters in 1862, crushed and bruised men's spirits. They began to talk of giving freedom to the slave as well as of the restoration of the Union.

"My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery," wrote President Lincoln to Horace Greeley, August 22d, 1862, reflecting doubtless the feelings of nearly a majority of the people. Whittier had already expressed, in the lines quoted on pages 41, 42, the feelings of those who saw that slavery or the nation must die.

Two years pa.s.sed, and Abraham Lincoln gave utterance to other sentiments in his second inaugural address to the people. Disaster, suffering, a view of Gettysburg battle-field, the consecration of that cemetery as the hallowed resting-place of the patriotic dead, had given him a clear insight of G.o.d's truth. Thus spoke he from the steps of the Capitol:-

"The Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offences, which in the providence of G.o.d must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those Divine attributes which the believers in a living G.o.d always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that the mighty scourge of war may speedily pa.s.s away. Yet if G.o.d wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

It was the recognition of these principles that made the people patient under the severe afflictions, the disasters, the failures. Fathers and mothers, weeping for their sons slain in battle, said to their hearts, "Be still!" for they saw that G.o.d was leading the people, through suffering, to recognize justice and righteousness as the Republic,-that thus he was saving the nation from perdition.

The heroism of the colored soldiers, and their splendid achievements, won the respect of the army. Their patriotism was as sublime, their courage as n.o.ble, as that of their whiter-hued comrades boasting Anglo-Saxon blood, nurtured and refined by centuries of civilization.

On the morning after the battle, an officer, pa.s.sing through the hospital, came upon a colored soldier who had lost his left leg.

"Well, my boy, I see that you have lost a leg for glory," said the officer.

One day's labor, one day's income.

"No, sir; I have not lost it for glory, but for the elevation of my race!"

It was a reply worthy of historic record, to be read, through the coming centuries, by every sable son of Africa, and by every man, of whatever lineage or clime, struggling to better his condition.

The negroes manifested their humanity as well as their patriotism.

"While the battle was raging," said General Hinks, "I saw two wounded negroes helping a Rebel prisoner, who was more severely wounded, to the rear."

"Give the water to my suffering soldiers," said the wounded Philip Sidney. The incident stands upon the historic page, and has been rehea.r.s.ed in story and song, as worthy of admiration. Shall not this act of two unknown colored soldiers also have a place in history?

The time, we trust, will come when men will be rated for what they are worth,-when superiority will consist, not in brute force, but in moral qualities. The slaveholders of the South, at the beginning of the war, esteemed themselves superior to the men of the North, and immeasurably above their slaves; but in contrast,-to the shame of the slaveholders,-stands the ma.s.sacre at Fort Pillow and the humanity of the colored soldiers in front of Petersburg.

On the night of the 16th, Burnside arrived with the Ninth Corps. Neill's division of the Sixth also arrived. Burnside attacked the Rebels, but was repulsed. The lines were reconnoitred, and it was determined to make a second a.s.sault.

About half a mile south of the house of Mr. Dunn was the residence of Mr. Shand, held by the Rebels. During the cannonade which preceded the a.s.sault, a Rebel officer entered the house and sat down to play a piano. Suddenly he found himself sitting on the floor, the stool having been knocked away by a solid shot, without injury to himself.

The house was a large two-story structure, fronting east, painted white, with great chimneys at either end, shaded by b.u.t.tonwoods and gum-trees, with a peach-orchard in rear. Fifty paces from the front-door was a narrow ravine, fifteen or twenty feet deep, with a brook, fed by springs, trickling northward. West of the house, about the same distance, was another brook, the two joining about twenty rods north of the house. A Rebel brigade held this tongue of land, with four guns beneath the peach-trees. Their main line of breastworks was along the edge of the ravine east of the house. South, and on higher ground, was a redan,-a strong work with two guns, which enfiladed the ravine. Yet General Burnside thought that if he could get his troops into position, unperceived, he could take the tongue of land, which would break the Rebel line and compel them to evacuate the redan. Several attempts had been made by the Second Corps to break the line farther north, but without avail. This movement, if not successful, would be attended with great loss; nevertheless, it was determined to make the a.s.sault.

It was past midnight when General Potter led his division of the Ninth down into the ravine. The soldiers threw aside their knapsacks, haversacks, tin plates and cups, and moved stealthily. Not a word was spoken. The watches of the officers in command had been set to a second. They reached the ravine where the pickets were stationed, and moved south, keeping close under the bank. Above them, not fifteen paces distant, were the Rebel pickets, lying behind a bank of sand.

If their listening ears caught the sound of a movement in the ravine, they gave no alarm, and the troops took their positions undisturbed. The moon was full. Light clouds floated in the sky. Not a sound, save the distant rumble of wagons, or an occasional shot from the pickets, broke the silence of the night. The attacking column was composed of Griffin's and Curtin's brigades,-Griffin on the right. He had the Seventeenth Vermont and Eleventh New Hampshire in his front line, and the Ninth New Hampshire and Thirty-Second Maine in the second. Curtin had six regiments,-the Thirty-Sixth Ma.s.sachusetts, and the Forty-Fifth and Forty-Eighth Pennsylvania, in his front line; the Seventh Rhode Island, Twelfth New York, and Fifty-Eighth Ma.s.sachusetts in his second line.

Petersburg July 17th 1864.

The soldiers were worn with hard marching and constant fighting, and had but just arrived from City Point, yet they took their positions without flinching. The officers gazed at the hands of their watches in the moonlight, and saw them move on to the appointed time,-fifteen minutes past three. Twenty paces,-a spring up the steep bank would carry the men to the Rebel pickets; fifty paces to the muzzles of the enemy's guns.

"All ready!" was whispered from man to man. They rose from the ground erect. Not a gun-lock clicked. The bayonet was to do the work.

"Hurrah!" The lines rise like waves of the sea. There are straggling shots from the Rebel pickets, four flashes of light from the Rebel cannon by the house, two more from the redan, one volley from the infantry, wildly aimed, doing little damage. On,-up to the breastworks! Over them, seizing the guns! A minute has pa.s.sed. Four guns, six hundred and fifty prisoners, fifteen hundred muskets, and four stands of colors are the trophies. The Rebel line is broken. The great point is gained, compelling Lee to abandon the ground which he has held so tenaciously.

In the Fifty-Seventh Ma.s.sachusetts was a soldier named Edward M. Schneider. When the regiment was formed he was a student in Phillips Academy, Andover. From motives of patriotism, against the wishes of friends, he left the literature of the ancients and the history of the past, to become an actor in the present and to do what he could for future good. His father is the well-known missionary of the American Board at Aintab, Turkey.

On the march from Annapolis, though but seventeen years old, and unaccustomed to hardship, he kept his place in the ranks, from the encampment by the waters of the Chesapeake to the North Anna, where he was slightly wounded. The surgeons sent him to Port Royal for transportation to Washington, but of his own accord he returned to his regiment, joining it at Cold Harbor. While preparing for the charge upon the enemy's works, on the 17th instant, he said to the chaplain,-

"I intend to be the first one to enter their breastworks."

The brave young soldier tried to make good his words, leading the charge.

He was almost there,-not quite: almost near enough to feel the hot flash of the Rebel musketry in his face; near enough to be covered with sulphurous clouds from the cannon, when he fell, shot through the body.

He was carried to the hospital, with six hundred and fifty of his division comrades; but lay all night with his wound undressed, waiting his turn without a murmur. The chaplain looked at his wound.

"What do you think of it?"

Seeing that it was mortal, the chaplain was overcome with emotion. He remembered the last injunction of the young soldier's sister: "I commit him to your care."

The young hero interpreted the meaning of the tears,-that there was no hope.

"Do not weep," said he; "it is G.o.d's will. I wish you to write to my father, and tell him that I have tried to do my duty to my country and to G.o.d."

He disposed of his few effects, giving ten dollars to the Christian Commission, twenty dollars to the American Board, and trifles to his friends. Then, in the simplicity of his heart, said,-

"I have a good many friends, schoolmates, and companions. They will want to know where I am,-how I am getting on. You can let them know that I am gone, and that I die content. And, chaplain, the boys in the regiment,-I want you to tell them to stand by the dear old flag! And there is my brother in the navy,-write to him and tell him to stand by the flag and cling to the cross of Christ!"

The surgeon examined the wound.

"It is my duty to tell you that you will soon go home," said he.

"Yes, doctor, I am going home. I am not afraid to die. I don't know how the valley will be when I get to it, but it is all bright now."

Then, gathering up his waning strength, he repeated the verse often sung by the soldiers, who, amid all the whirl and excitement of the camp and battle-field, never forget those whom they have left behind them,-mother, sister, father, brother. Calmly, clearly, distinctly he repeated the lines,-the chorus of the song:

"Soon with angels I'll be marching, With bright laurels on my brow; I have for my country fallen,- Who will care for sister now?"

The night wore away. Death stole on. He suffered intense pain, but not a murmur escaped his lips. Sabbath morning dawned, and with the coming of the light he pa.s.sed away.

"I die content," said Wolfe, at Quebec, when told that the French were fleeing.