May 12—This morning at two o’clock the cannon commenced booming in front, which was the ushering in of the preliminary performance and introduction of the bloody battle of Spottsylvania Court House. As the deep foreboding roar of artillery came rolling through the midnight darkness, it bore the thrilling message that another horrible slaughter was tapping at the door of the near future and that its bloody footsteps were already sounding on the threshold of the tragical arena. At daybreak we were ordered to the front to take part in the great death play that was then already fiercely inaugurated and howling with a hideous roar. Before we arrived on the field the battle had commenced in earnest, the musketry raging furiously, while roll after roll and volley after volley surged and raved along the lines with a deafening roar and fearful crash.
The artillery fire was not near so heavy as it was at Gettysburg, yet at some places along the lines the cannons boomed rapidly and fiercely and the screaming shell filled the trembling air with whizzing fragments and pinging slugs. The musketry was undoubtedly the heaviest that I have ever heard on any field, and it is utterly incomprehensible how men can face the storm of lead, and stand under such fire and live, as raged along the lines to-day. When we arrived on the field our battery was ordered to the extreme left of our battle line; we immediately proceeded to our assigned position and put our guns in battery in a good commanding position on a gently sloping hill, which also afforded us a fine view of the enemy’s line on their extreme right and the northwest portion of the battle-field. We were not engaged until this afternoon, when we opened fire on a Yankee battery of eight guns that was in position, in a good field fortification on the right of their battle line, and a little lower in elevation than our position. The Yankee gunners that fired on our battery certainly put in some fine work in the shooting business; nearly every shell they fired at us exploded either just in front of our guns or right over our heads, and sometimes their exploding shrapnel sowed the leaden slugs around us apparently as thick as hail.
After we were firing about an hour a shell from the Yankee battery exploded right in front of my gun, and I saw a good-sized fragment that was whizzing fearfully and searching for something to kill. It came right at me as though I was its sure game, but I quickly jumped across the trail of my gun in order to clear the path for the little whirling death machine that was after me and was ready to call me its own dear Rebel. It passed me with a shrill snappish ping, and with a thud it ripped up the ground just in rear of where I had been standing; if I had not seen it coming and quickly jumped out of its path it would have struck me square in front just below the breast, which would have undoubtedly labeled me for transportation to the silent city. But a miss is as good as a mile, and when the fragment that was courting familiarity had passed over me I jumped back to my place at the gun, and the very next shell I fired struck and exploded a limber chest in the Yankee battery; immediately after I fired I saw a dense telltale column of smoke shoot up in the air from the enemy’s position, and then I knew that my shell had done some ugly work among the ammunition boxes of our brethren in blue.
We had no way of ascertaining the extent of damage that the explosion scattered around, but it must have been considerable, as it silenced the Yankee battery for the remainder of the evening; if they were satisfied to wind up our little act in the great tragedy by ringing down the curtain for a little explosion I am sure that I had enough, and was willing and glad to quit.
After the firing ceased we held our position until nearly dusk, and when we left the field the Yankee battery was still in the breastwork from which it fired at us this afternoon — until we planted a young volcano among their ammunition chests.
During the battle I saw a Yankee shell explode in front of one of our batteries. The butt end of the shell struck one of the drivers in the breast and went through him; when it struck him he jumped up about a foot from the saddle, then fell to the ground stretched out in full length, and never struggled.
The battle-field of Spottsylvania Court House is undulating and diversified by hills and hollows, woods and fields, brushwood and thicket. It rained nearly all day, and sometimes when the rain poured down the hardest and almost in torrents the musketry was heaviest. It looked as if Heaven were trying to wash up the blood as fast as the civilized barbarians were spilling it.
The engagement was general along the whole line and the battle raged furiously all day. I have no idea what General Grant expected to accomplish to-day, but if he thought that he could break through General Lee’s line and slip to the citadel of Dixie by pounding on the front door with a sledge hammer he is a much disappointed and mistaken general this evening, for General Lee’s line is as impregnable this evening as it was this morning, if not more so.
We had but one man wounded in our battery in the fight to-day. This evening at dusk we withdrew from the field and moved to the rear about two miles, and bivouacked by the roadside.
