Many years have now passed, writes General Chamberlain, of Maine, since
“Fredericksburg.” Of what then was, not much is left but memory. Faces
and forms of men and things that then were have changed--perchance to
dust. New life has covered some; the rest look but lingering farewells.
But, whatever changes may beautify those storm-swept and barren slopes,
there is one character from which they can never pass. Death gardens,
haunted by glorious hosts, they must abide. No bloom can there unfold
which does not wear the rich token of the inheritance of heroic blood;
no breeze be wafted that does not bear the breath of the immortal life
there breathed away.
Of all that splendid but unavailing valor no one has told the story;
nor can I. The pen has no wing to follow where that sacrifice and
devotion sped their flight. But memory may rest down on some night
scenes too quiet and sombre with shadow to be vividly depicted, and
yet which have their interests from very contrast with the tangled and
lurid lights of battle.
The desperate charge was over. We had not reached the enemy’s
fortifications, but only that fatal crest where we had seen five lines
of battle mount but to be cut to earth as by a sword-swoop of fire. We
had that costly honor which sometimes falls to the “reserve”--to go
in when all is havoc and confusion, through storm and slaughter, to
cover the broken and depleted ranks of comrades and take the battle
from their hands. Thus we had replaced the gallant few still lingering
on the crest, and received that withering fire which nothing could
withstand by throwing ourselves flat in a slight hollow of ground
within pistol shot of the enemy’s works, and mingled with the dead and
dying that strewed the field, we returned the fire till it reddened
into night, and at last fell away through darkness and silence.
But out of that silence from the battle’s crash and roar rose new
sounds more appalling still; rose or fell, you knew not which, or
whether from the earth or air; a strange ventriloquism, of which you
could not locate the source, a smothered moan that seemed to come
from distances beyond reach of the natural sense, a wail so far and
deep and wide, as if a thousand discords were flowing together into a
keynote weird, unearthly, terrible to hear and bear, yet startling in
its nearness; the writhing concord broken by cries for help, pierced by
shrieks of paroxysm; some begging for a drop of water, some calling on
God for pity; and some on friendly hands to finish what the enemy had
so horribly begun; some with delirious, dreamy voices murmuring loved
names, as if the dearest were bending over them; some gathering their
last strength to fire a musket to call attention to them where they lay
helpless and deserted; and underneath all the time, the deep bass note
from closed lips too hopeless or too heroic to articulate their agony.
Who could sleep, or who would? Our position was isolated and exposed.
Officers must be on the alert with their command. But the human took
the mastery of the officials; sympathy of soldiership. Command could
be devolved, but pity not. So with a staff officer I sallied forth
to see what we could do where the helpers seemed so few. Taking some
observation in order not to lose the bearing of our own position, we
guided our steps by the most pitious of the cries. Our part was but
little--to relieve a painful posture, to give a cooling draught to
fevered lips, to compress a severed artery, as we had learned to do,
though in bungling fashion; to apply a rude bandage, which might yet
prolong the life to the saving; to take a token or farewell message for
some stricken home--it was but little, yet it was an endless task. We
had moved to the right and rear of our own position--the part of the
field immediately above the city. The farther we went the more need
and the calls multiplied.
Numbers half-awakening from the lethargy of death or of despair by
sounds of succor, begged us to take them quickly to a surgeon, and,
when we could not do that, imploring us to do the next most merciful
service and give them quick dispatch out of their misery. Right glad
were we when, after midnight, the shadowy ambulances came gliding
along and the kindly hospital stewards, with stretchers and soothing
appliances, let us feel that we might return to our proper duty.
The night chill had now woven a misty veil over the field. Fortunately,
a picket fence we had encountered in our charge from the town had
compelled us to abandon our horses, and so had saved our lives on
the crest; but our overcoats had been strapped to the saddles, and
we missed them now. Most of the men, however, had their overcoats or
blankets--we were glad of that. Except the few sentries along the
front, the men had fallen asleep--the living with the dead. At last,
outwearied and depressed with the desolate scene, my own strength sank,
and I moved two dead men a little and lay down between them, making
a pillow of the breast of a third. The skirt of his overcoat drawn
over my face helped also to shield me from the bleak winds. There was
some comfort even in this companionship. But it was broken sleep.
The deepening chill drove many forth to take the garments of those
who could no longer need them, that they might keep themselves alive.
More than once I was startled from my unrest by some one turning back
the coat skirt from my face, peering, half vampire-like, to my fancy,
through the darkness to discover if it, too, were of the silent and
unresisting; turning away more disconcerted at my living word than if a
voice had spoken from the dead.
And now we are aware of other figures wandering, ghost-like, over the
field. Some on errands like our own, drawn by compelling appeals;
some seeking a comrade with uncertain steps amid the unknown, and
ever and anon bending down to scan the pale visage closer, or, it may
be, by the light of a brief match, whose blue, flickering flame could
scarcely give the features a more recognizable or human look; some
man desperately wounded, yet seeking with faltering step, before his
fast ebbing blood shall have left him too weak to move, some quiet or
sheltered spot out of sound of the terrible appeals he could neither
answer nor endure, or out of reach of the raging battle coming with
the morning; one creeping, yet scarcely moving, from one lifeless form
to another, if, perchance, he might find a swallow of water in the
canteen which still swung from the dead soldier’s side; or another, as
with just returning or last remaining consciousness, vainly striving to
raise from a mangled heap, that he may not be buried with them while
yet alive, or some man yet sound of body, but pacing feverishly his
ground because in such a bivouac his spirit could not sleep. And so we
picked our way back amid the stark, upturned faces of our little living
line.
Having held our places all the night, we had to keep to them all the
more closely the next day; for it would be certain death to attempt to
move away. As it was, it was only by making breastworks and barricades
of the dead men that covered the field that we saved any alive. We
did what we could to take a record of these men. A Testament that had
fallen from the breast pocket of the soldier who had been my pillow I
sent soon after to his home--he was not of my command--and it proved to
be the only clew his parents ever had of his fate.
The next midnight, after thirty-six hours of this harrowing work, we
were bidden to withdraw into the town for refreshment and rest. But
neither rest nor motion was to be thought of till we had paid fitting
honor to our dead. We laid them on the spot where they had won, on the
sheltered edge of the crest, and committed their noble forms to the
earth, and their story to their country’s keeping.
“We buried them darkly, at dead of night,
The sod with our bayonets turning.”
Splinters of boards, torn by shot and shell from the fences we had
crossed, served as headstones, each name hurriedly carved under
brief match lights, anxiously hidden from the foe. It was a strange
scene around that silent and shadowy sepulchre. “We will give them a
starlight burial,” it was said; but heaven ordained a more sublime
illumination. As we bore them in dark and sad procession, their own
loved north took up the escort, and lifting all her glorious lights,
led the triumphal march over the bridge that spans the worlds--an
aurora borealis of marvelous majesty! Fiery lances and banners of blood
and flame, columns of pearly light, garlands and wreaths of gold, all
pointing upward and beckoning on. Who would not pass on as they did,
dead for their country’s life, lighted to burial by the meteor splendor
of their native sky?