Saturday, June 18th
Although originally sent out merely to build the line, about midnight an order was received directing us to hold it when built, and at three o’clock in the morning this order was followed by another assigning us to a position in the front line in a charge to be made from our rifle pit at four o’clock. To men who had marched under a broiling sun all the day before, and had worked all night like beavers, with nothing to eat and little to drink, this last order was not particularly welcome. Nor is this at all surprising when, in addition to their fatigue and hunger, we remember the ever exasperating fact that their contract with the Government exempted them from such service, and entitled them to artillery instead of spades and muskets. Nevertheless, when the order came: “Forward, double quick,” as steady a line went over that earthwork as ever marched across the parade ground at old Fort Ethan Allen. The enemy’s front line at the point we struck it, was just over the crest of a knoll and protected by a dense fringe of abattis, and we all expected at least a respectable salute when our troops came in sight, but it was occupied only by a picket line and but few shots greeted us. And yet this fact did not justify an order which just then came from the left, “by the left flank, march,” which, if executed, would have sent us running along parallel with the abattis ; exposed us to a flank fire and delayed our silencing what little fire there was. I gave my own company, H, which was in the center, the order “left oblique,” and Captain McKeel and the other company commander on my right conformed to my movement, and our three companies crossed the first rebel line at an angle. The movement of the two companies on the left directly to the left caused a break in the battalion, but it was soon closed and facing to the front again we swept down on the second line of rifle pits, which was nothing more nor less than one of those public highways so common in Virginia, excavated from side to side to the depth of three or four feet, and which at that point ran parallel to the line already taken. This line was also feebly defended, and after a brisk but brief fusillade, its occupants took a hasty departure, leaving their corn-bread breakfasts untouched. Crossing this road we were just jumping a fence upon the other side, when, for some inscrutable reason, as it seemed to us, a halt was ordered, and there we lay in that road for several hours while a line of earthworks grew up to completion before us. I do not know what there was behind that line, but I entertain no doubt but that had the charge of the morning been pressed, as it seems to me it should have been, that particular line would have given us no trouble thereafter.
Up to this time, though we had charged nearly half a mile and carried two lines of works, we had met with comparatively few casualties, but among our losses were some of our best men, such as Captain Ed. Knower, of G Company, and First Sergeant Theben, of my own company, both of whom were severely wounded.
The morning was intensely hot, and while some of the officers were taking observations or endeavoring to secure rations for their commands, the men spread their shelter tents upon temporary supports and many of them dropped to sleep from sheer exhaustion, careless of occasional stray missiles which zipped about their ears and cut down their tent poles. One of my men, however, seemed to be particularly depressed, and when I overheard him telling his companions that he had had a presentiment that he was to be shot that day, a topic of conversation not calculated o cheer and encourage men situated as we then were, I walked over to him and endeavored to disabuse his mind of any such sombre impression. Just then the most musical little bird that I ever listened to alighted on a fence-post just over this man’s head, and amid the hissing of bullets and the bursting of shell about us, broke out in the clearest, sweetest and most rapturous little song that I ever heard. I am not particularly superstitious, but somehow I couldn’t but take the incident as a most favorable omen, and I shall never cease to regret that before the day was over I had forgotten who the man was and so shall never know the outcome of his presentiment.
While reclining against the bank of this sunken road, one of Berdan’s sharpshooters, with a telescope rifle, came along and sat down beside me and at my request handed me his gun. After examining it I glanced through the board fence and saw a straw hat bob up and down behind the enemy’s works, as its wearer leaned down and straightened up while shoveling earth to the top of the works. Resting the rifle on the edge of a board I drew a bead on that straw hat as it came up and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck in the dirt about two inches too low, but it attracted no attention and so I tried again and never saw anything more of that hat, but I am glad to feel that I shall never know to a certainty why I did not see it again.
About nine o’clock orders came to continue the charge. From the fence above referred to the ground, covered with some sort of growing grain, sloped gently down for a hundred yards to a narrow belt of trees in which was the dry bed of a little stream, and beyond this belt the grade ascended gradually for some five hundred yards to the rebel works on the brow of the hill, the intervening field being covered with a luxuriant growth of corn about three feet high. Captain Vanderwiel was assigned to command a picket line which was to precede us, and the advance from this point was to be made in two lines of battle, our five companies forming part of the front line. I saw no second line of battle upon our part of the field during the earlier part of the charge, and I certainly was not informed of any in advance. The enemy had posted two pieces of artillery, perhaps more, in what appeared to be angles of its new works, and our battalion very nearly covered the front between these guns. To those of us who had anxiously watched all the morning the preparations for our reception, and had seen some of the guns moved into position and the troops deployed behind the breastworks, it seemed perfectly evident that the charge would now prove a disastrous failure, but when the order was given, though we felt we were going to almost certain death, these five companies of artillerymen, always accustomed to obey orders, scaled the fence with a cheer, the enemy commencing to fire the moment we left the road. Reaching the belt of timber, we found the picket line halted and firing from behind trees, but the main line pushed on and out into the open cornfield. One of my men, a good man, too, but for the moment forgetful that the question was not for him or me to decide, stopped behind a tree, and when ordered forward began to argue that we never could carry that breastwork, a proposition in which I heartily concurred, but it being no time or place for the interchange of our views I leveled my revolver at his head and he broke cover instantly. Another of my men had his musket struck by a ball and bent double like a hairpin, but straightening out his arm, which was nearly paralyzed for an instant, he picked up another musket and went on, keeping his place in the line. Just at that moment Major Williams received a rifle ball in the shoulder, and falling near me, though I was not the ranking Captain on the field, directed me to assume command of the battalion, and I turned my own company over to Lieutenant Edmonston. On assuming command, I noticed that the men in the company on the right of my own, whose Captain had allowed them a ration of whiskey just before we started, were dropping into a little ditch just outside of the line of trees, and that the Captain, who was as brave a man as ever lived, but was rather noted for his varied and vigorous vocabulary, was passing up and down the ditch poking them with his sword and with tears streaming down his face, but without an oath, was begging them to get out and keep in line and not disgrace themselves and him. Thinking to shame his men by letting them know that I, the Captain of a rival company, saw them skulking, I shouted to him to get his men out of the ditch and press forward.
I shall never forget the hurricane of shot and shell which struck us as we emerged from the belt of trees. The sound of the whizzing bullets and exploding shells, blending in awful volume, seemed like the terrific hissing of some gigantic furnace. Men, torn and bleeding, fell headlong from the ranks as the murderous hail swept through the line. A splash of blood from a man hit in the cheek struck me in the face. The shrieks of the wounded mingled with the shouts of defiance which greeted us as we neared the rebel works, and every frightful and sickening incident conspired to paint a scene which no one who survived that day will care again to witness.
This part of the charge was made across a portion of an old race course, and the belt of trees which bordered the track at that point and in which lay the dry bed of the little stream, formed a sort of arc with the ends projected toward the enemy, and as the flanks of the battalion came out in full view, and we were within about one hundred and fifty yards of the rebel line, I was astonished to see that there were no troops on either side of us, and looking back, I discovered that my five companies were the only troops of all the charging lines which were in sight, that had obeyed the order and advanced from the sunken road. Then for the first time I understood the fierceness of the fire to which we were being subjected ; saw that we were receiving not only the fire from the works in our front, to which we were entitled, but a cross fire from troops and artillery on the right and left of our front which would have been directed toward other parts of the charging lines if we had been supported, and realized that with this little handful of men, being then so rapidly decimated, it was worse than useless to continue the attack. Accordingly I halted the line and gave the order to lie down, the corn being high enough to furnish some little concealment. A general break to the rear would have cost as many lives as the double-quick to the front had done, so I instantly followed my first order with another to the effect that each man should get to the rear as best he could.
When we left the sunken road the Colonel of a regiment on our left whose men, like most of our infantry after six weeks of that sort of strategy, tired of charging a breastwork three times and then going around it, had flatly refused to follow him, joined us with his color-guard and gallantly accompanied us as far as we went, and there planted his flags in the soft earth. He must have discovered the futility of a further advance about the time that I did, for just as I ordered the men down he ordered a retreat, though we were not under his command, and under the combined orders the men at once disappeared in the corn. My orders were intended to embrace the officers of the battalion as well as the men but they were not so understood, and after the men were out of sight there stood the line of officers, still targets for the enemy, calmly facing him and awaiting further orders. I shall never forget my thrill of admiration for those brave men as I glanced for an instant up and down the line, but it was no time for a dress parade and I immediately ordered them down and laid down myself.
The sun was blazing straight down upon us and the surface of the ground was very hot, and added to these discomforts, the enemy was firing into the corn in the hope of hitting some of us, which no doubt was done. Although by no means overcharged with physical courage, as I have had occasion more than once to find out, I was not, up to this point, conscious of the slightest apprehension for my own personal safety, my intense anxiety for my men and my fixed determination to go over that breastwork at all hazards having probably banished all other considerations from my mind, but as I lay there broiling in the sun, normal conditions began to return, and it occurred to me that some stray bullet might possibly search me out, and, what seemed even worse,—for there is no measuring the limits and effect of personal vanity,—the reflection forced itself upon me that the rebels, and perhaps some of our own men at the rear, had seen the leader of that charge, an acting Major at least, actually hide in the corn. That last idea settled it, and reflecting that if I should go directly to the rear I would be an easier mark than if I should go across the fire, and that a wound in the back was not considered ornamental for a soldier, I arose and deliberately walked diagonally to the rear until I came to the continuation of the ditch or runway up which, at its distant lower end, we had filed the night before to build a rifle pit, and dropping into that, worked my way down to the piece of race track just outside of the belt of trees, and crossing that reached our works in safety. Why I was not struck while making that trip is more than I can tell, for the rebel riflemen had a much easier shot at me, and at half the distance, than I had in the morning at their man with the straw hat, and, as giving some idea of the severity of the fire we faced that day, I may mention that on returning to our lines I counted twenty-four shot and shell marks on the side towards the enemy of a little pine tree not more than eight inches through at the butt, and that the battalion lost, according to the company reports, one hundred and fifteen men killed and wounded in this charge.
In my own company the loss was nineteen, Privates Elliott and Mead being killed, and First Sergeant Theben, Corporal Martin, Privates Allardice, Butler, Doty, Hicks, Kimber, E. H. Lyke, Markey, Merrill, Perry, Hamilton Rose, Selah P. Rose, Sheldon, Asa Smith, Vischer and Williams being wounded, many of whom will no doubt die in the hospitals to which they were sent.
As evening approached I endeavored to ascertain to what command our battalion belonged, a very important question, since the men had had practically nothing to eat since they left camp the night before and the necessity for rations was imperative. I found that we were on General Birney’s line, then temporarily in command of General Gibbon, but were assigned to no particular Brigade, and every one to whom I appealed for supplies disclaimed any knowledge of us. Having exhausted every effort for practical recognition in some quarter, I notified the officers in immediate command of the troops on each side of the battalion, to close up the gap that would be made by our withdrawal, and, without leave or license from anybody, marched what was left of the five companies back to the camp of the regiment, which was some distance in the rear and behind the second Union line.
