Harrison’s Landing, James River, Va.,
Saturday, July 26, 1862.
Dear Brother and Sister:—
General Porter’s corps, which is quite an army of itself, is now encamped on the large wheat field of the Westover estate. The Pennsylvania Reserve of thirteen regiments, three batteries and a regiment of cavalry lies next to us on the north. Morell’s division of fifteen regiments, three batteries and two regiments of cavalry lies next to them, and between us and the river is the camp of the regulars under Sykes. All these troops belong to General Porter’s corps. You may guess that with their tents and all the baggage wagons and horses, cannon and ammunition wagons, this field is pretty well filled up. Through all the camps there is constant activity. The men are cleaning up their arms or cooking round the fire, sitting on the ground eating their hard tack and sipping their black coffee. Little squads are marching about drilling or going through their inspection, which takes place twice a day. Every thing is kept in tip top order, ready for a fight at a moment’s notice. And then, if you could see the road—it looks like the road near a county fair ground, full of teams from morning till night, long trains of wagons that are a curiosity in themselves, great covered wagons as large as two of our lumber wagons, with six mules, and a driver riding the near pole mule and guiding his team with one line. These things would all amuse you, but I have seen so many of them that they have lost their interest.
I suppose this is the height of the haying season at home. Mowing machines are rattling over the meadows, and the barns are filling up, but I see nothing like that here. Grain fields are turned into camping grounds and the cavalry horses harvest the wheat. War makes sad work with the country it passes over.
You ask me how I felt when the battle commenced, if I feared I should fall, etc. That is a very hard question to answer. In the fight at Gaines’ Mill I had lain in the woods almost all day waiting for them before I saw a rebel. They had been shelling us all the time, and occasionally a shell would burst within a few feet of me and startle me a little, but we had so strong a position and felt so certain of driving the rebels off that I was anxious to have them come on. The last words I heard Colonel McLane say were, “You’ll see enough of them before night, boys.” His words proved too true. We had but little to do with repulsing them, for they did not come within range of our guns either time, but we could hear the firing, and, when the cheers of our men announced their victory, a feeling of exultation ran through our minds. “Come on,” we thought, “we’ll show you how freemen fight,” but when they attacked us so unexpectedly in the rear, my feelings changed. Surprise at first and a wonder how they could get there, and then, when the truth flashed through my mind that they had broken through our lines, a feeling of shame and indignation against the men who would retreat before the enemy. Then, when the colonel was killed and Henry and Denny wounded, I felt some excited. I was stronger than I had been before in a month and a kind of desperation seized me. Scenes that would have unnerved me at other times had no effect. I snatched a gun from the hands of a man who was shot through the head, as he staggered and fell. At other times I would have been horror-struck and could not have moved, but then I jumped over dead men with as little feeling as I would over a log. The feeling that was uppermost in my mind was a desire to kill as many rebels as I could. The loss of comrades maddened me, the balls flew past me hissing in the air, they knocked my guns to splinters, but the closer they came they seemed to make me more insensible to fear. I had no time to think of anything but my duty to do all I could to drive back the enemy, and it was not duty that kept me there either, but a feeling that I had a chance then to help put down secession and a determination to do my best. My heart was in the fight, and I couldn’t be anywhere else. I told you it was hard to describe one’s feeling in a battle, and it is. No one can ever know exactly till he has been through it. In the fight at Malvern Hill my feelings were a little different. The memory of the scenes of the past few days was fresh in my mind, and as I marched up the hill that concealed us from the enemy, I must admit I felt a reluctance, rather a fear of going in. We were so worn out by excitement, fatigue, and want of sleep, that there was not the spirit in the movement of the men that usually characterized them, but there was the bitter determination to do or die. We would not falter, let the consequences be what they might. Butterfield and Griffin dashed here and there, cheering on the men—”Go in, my gallant Eighty-third, and give ’em h—l,” yelled Butterfield as he dashed along the line, and his inspiring manner cheered the men up. We rushed over the hill on the double quick and there were the rebels. Column behind column was swarming out of the woods and advancing on us. Ten times our number were opposed to us. There were so many that they had not room to deploy, but came up in close column. Their intention evidently was to send such an overwhelming force against us, that, if we killed twice our number, there would be enough left to drive us from the field and capture our batteries. They were perfectly reckless of life and bent on driving us off, cost what it might. We went part way down the hill to meet them, so that our artillery could fire over us, then we waited for them. The hill behind us was covered with cannon in two rows and as they advanced our artillerists poured in such deadly charges of grape that it was more than any troops could stand. Each discharge would mow a swath through their lines, from five to eight feet wide. Still they closed up their ranks and came on till they met our fire, and then they wavered. We poured it into them as fast as we could load and fire, and I tell you my fear was gone then. I felt exultant. We cheered and cheered and shouted our watchword—”Remember McLane,” and the rebels, disheartened, fell back. Butterfield’s expression of “give ’em hell” was not inapt. It was more like the work of fiends than that of human beings. The roar of the artillery, the rattling of musketry and the unearthly screaming of the great two-foot shells from the gunboats made such music as is only fit for demons, and the appearance of the men was scarcely human. The sweat rolled in streams, for there is nothing like fighting to heat a man’s blood, and as the men wiped their faces with powder-grimed or bloody hands, they left the most horrible looking countenances you ever saw. But no one cared for looks or sound. That roar of artillery was the sweetest music I ever heard, for it carried death and terror to the enemies of our country and our flag. I said the rebels retreated—they fell back out of range of our infantry, formed again and again came up. Fiercer grew the conflict and our excitement rose with it. Our men fell thick and fast, and wounded men were all the time crawling to the rear, but we did not heed them. We sat there and fought till our ammunition was gone and we had to fill up from the boxes of our dead and wounded comrades, and still we had no thought of leaving, but another brigade relieved us and we retired. Then came the reaction. I must say that the time when one feels the horrors of war most keenly is after the battle, not before it or in it.
