A BATTLE SUNDAY.
In the dim of the morning of our Lord's Sabbath, the twenty-ninth of
June, 1862, I sat in my saddle at Savage's. The gloom was very
cheerless. A feeling of hopeless vagabondism oppressed me. I remembered
the Disinherited Knight, the Wandering Jew, Robinson Crusoe, and other
poor errants in the wide world, and wondered if any of them ever looked
so ruefully as I, when the last wagon of the Grand Army disappeared
through the shadow.
The tent had been taken down at midnight. I had been dozing in the
saddle, with parched lips and throbbing temples, waiting for my comrade.
Head-quarters had been intending to move, without doing it, for four
hours, and he informed me that it was well to stay with the Commanding
General, as the Commanding General kept out of danger, and also kept in
provisions. I was sick and petulant, and finally quarrelled with my
friend. He told me, quietly, that I would regret my harshness when I
should be well again. I set off for White Oak, but repented at "Burnt
Chimneys," and turned back. In the misty dawn I saw the maimed still
lying on the ground, wrapped in relics of blankets, and in one of the
outhouses a grim embalmer stood amid a family of nude corpses. He dealt
with the bodies of high officers only; for, said he--
"I used to be glad to prepare private soldiers. They were wuth a five
dollar bill apiece. But, Lord bless you, a Colonel pays a hundred, and
a Brigadier-General two hundred. There's lots of them now, and I have
cut the acquaintance of everything below a Major. I might," he added,
"as a great favor, do a Captain, but he must pay a Major's price. I
insist upon that! Such windfalls don't come every day. There won't be
another such killing for a century."
A few horsemen of the escort loitered around head-quarters. All the
tents but one had been removed, and the staff crouched sleepily upon the
refuse straw. The rain began to drizzle at this time, and I unbuckled a
blanket to wrap about my shoulders. Several people were lying upon dry
places, here and there, and espying some planks a little remote, I tied
my horse to a peach-tree, and stretched myself languidly upon my back.
The bridal couch or the throne were never so soft as those knotty
planks, and the drops that fell upon my forehead seemed to cool my
fever.
I had passed into a sort of cognizant sleep when a harsh, loud, cruel
voice awakened me, and I seemed to see a great Polyphemus, stretching
his hands into the clouds, and gaping like an earthquake.
"Boy," I heard him say, to a slight figure, near at hand, "boy, what are
you standing there for? What in ---- do you want?"
"Nothing!"
"Take it, and go, ---- ---- you! Take it, and go!"
I peeped timorously from my place, and recognized the Provost-General of
the Grand Army. He had been sleeping upon a camp chest, and did not
appear to be refreshed thereby.
"I feel sulky as ----!" he said to an officer adjoining; "I feel ----
bad-humored! Orderly!"
"General!"
"Whose horses are these?"
"I don't know, General!"
"Cut every ---- ---- one of 'em loose. Wake up these ---- ---- loafers
with the point of your sabre! Every ---- ---- one of 'em! That's what I
call ---- ----boldness!"
He strutted off like the great Bomba or the Czar, and I thought I never
beheld a more exceptional person in any high position.
With a last look at Savage's white house, the abandoned wretches in the
lawn, the blood-red hospital flag, the torn track and smouldering cars,
I turned my face southward, crossed some bare plains, that had once been
fields, and at eight o'clock passed down the Williamsburg road, toward
Bottom Bridge. The original roadway was now a bottomless stretch of
sand, full of stranded wheels, dead horses, shreds of blankets,
discarded haversacks, and mounds of spilled crackers. Other routes for
wagons had been opened across fields, over bluffs, around pits and bogs,
and through thickets and woods. The whole country was crossed with
deeply-rutted roads, as if some immense city had been lifted away, and
only its interminably sinuous streets remained. Near Burnt Chimneys, a
creek crossing the road made a ravine, and here I overtook the hindmost
of the wagons. They had been stalled in the gorge, and a provost guard
was hurrying the laggard teamsters. The creek was muddy beyond
comparison, and at the next hill-top I passed "Burnt Chimneys," a few
dumb witnesses that pointed to heaven. A mile or two further, I came to
some of the retreating regiments, and also to five of the siege
thirty-twos with which Richmond was to have been bombarded. The main
army still lay back at their entrenchments to cover the retreat, and at
ten o'clock I heard the roar of field guns; the pursuit had commenced,
and the Confederates were pouring over the ramparts at Fairoaks. I did
not go back; battles were of no consequence to me. I wanted some
breakfast. If I could only obtain a cup of warm coffee and a fragment of
meat, I thought that I might recover strength. But nothing could be
obtained anywhere, for money or charity. The soldiers that I passed
looked worn and hungry, for their predecessors had swept the country
like herds of locusts; but one cheerful fellow, whom I addressed,
produced a lump of fat pork that I tried to eat, but made a signal
failure. All my baggage had been left at Michie's, where it remains to
this moment. None cared to be hospitable to correspondents at this
despondent hour, and a horrible idea of starvation took possession of my
mind. A mile from White Oak Swamp, some distance back of the road, lay
the Engineer Brigade. They were now on the eve of breaking camp, and
when I reached Colonel McCloud Murphy's, his chests were packed, and all
his provisions had gone ahead. He gave me, however, a couple of hard
crackers and a draught of whiskey and quinine, whereby I rallied for a
moment. At General Woodbury's I observed a middle-aged lady, making her
toilet by a looking-glass hung against the tent-pole. She seemed as
careful of her personal appearance, in this trying time, as if she had
been at some luxurious court. There were several women on the retreat,
and though the guns thundered steadily behind, they were never flurried,
but could have received company, or accepted offers of marriage, with
the utmost complacency. If there was any one that rouged, I am sure that
no personal danger would have disturbed her while she heightened her
roses; and she would have tied up her back hair in defiance of shell or
grape.
At Casey's ancient head-quarters, on the bluff facing White Oak Swamp, I
found five correspondents. We fraternized immediately, and they all
pooh-poohed the battle, as such an old story that it would be absurd to
ride back to the field. We knew, however, that it was occurring at Peach
Orchard, on a part of the old ground at Fairoaks. These gentlemen were
in rather despondent moods, and there was one who opined that we were
all to be made prisoners of war. In his own expressive way of putting
it, we were to be "gobbled up." This person was stout and inclined to
panting and perspiration. He wore glasses upon a most pugnacious nose,
and his large, round head was covered with short, bristly, jetty hair.
"I promised my wife," said this person, who may be called Cindrey, "to
stay at home after the Burnside business. The Burnside job was very
nearly enough for me. In fact I should have quite starved on the
Burnside job, if I hadn't took the fever. And the fever kept me so busy
that I forgot how hungry I was. So I lived over that."
At this point he took off his glasses and wiped his face; the water was
running down his cheeks like a miniature cataract, and his great neck
seemed to emit jets of perspiration.
"Well," he continued, "the Burnside job wasn't enough for me; I must
come out again. I must follow the young Napoleon. And the young Napoleon
has made a pretty mess of it. I never expect to get home any more; I
know I shall be gobbled up!"
A youngish, oldish, oddish fellow, whom they called "Pop," here told Mr.
Cindrey to keep his pulse up and take a drink. A tall, large person, in
semi-quaker garb, who did not look unlike George Fox, run to seed, said,
with a flourish, that these battles were nothing to Shiloh. He was
attached to the provincial press, and had been with the army of the West
until recently. Without any exception, he was the "fussiest," most
impertinent, most disagreeable man that I ever knew. He always made a
hero of himself in his reports, and if I remember rightly, their
headings ran after this fashion:--
"_Tremendous Battle at_ ROANOKE! _The Correspondent of_ THE BLUNDERBUSS
_hoists the_ NATIONAL FLAG above the REBEL RAMPARTS!!!" or
again--"_Grand Victory at_ SHILOH! _Mr. Twaddle, our Special
Correspondent_, TAKEN PRISONER!!! _He_ ESCAPES!!! _He is_ FIRED UPON!!!
_He wriggles through_ FOUR SWAMPS and SEVEN HOSTILE CAMPS! _He is_ AGAIN
CAPTURED! _He_ STRANGLES _the sentry_! _He drinks the Rebel Commander,
Philpot_, BLIND! _Philpot gives him_ THE PASSWORD!! --> _Philpot
compliments the Blunderbuss._ <-- OUR _Correspondent gains the
Gunboats_! _He is_ TAKEN ABOARD! _His welcome!_ _Description of_ HIS
BOOTS! _Remarks, etc._, ETC., ETC!!!"
This man was anxious to regulate not only his own newspaper, but he
aspired to control the entire press. And his self adulation was
incessant. He rung all the changes upon Shiloh. Every remark suggested
some incident of Shiloh. He was a thorough Shilohite, and I regretted in
my heart that the "Rebels" had not shut him away at Shiloh, that he
might have enjoyed it to the end of his days.
The man "Pop" produced some apple whiskey, and we repaired to a spring,
at the foot of the hill, where the man "Pop" mixed a cold punch, and we
drank in rotation. I don't think that Cindrey enjoyed his draught, for
it filtered through his neck as if he had sprung a leak there; but the
man Twaddle might have taken a tun, and, as the man "Pop" said, the
effect would have been that of "pouring whiskey through a knot-hole." It
was arranged among our own reporters, that I, being sick, should be the
first of the staff to go to New York. The man "Pop" said jocosely, that
I might be allowed to die in the bosom of my family. The others gave me
their notes and lists, but none could give me what I most needed,--a
morsel of food. At eleven o'clock our little party crossed White Oak
Creek. There was a corduroy bridge upon which the teams travelled, and a
log bridge of perilous unsteadiness for foot passengers. But the
soldiers were fording the stream in great numbers, and I plunged my
horse into the current so that he spattered a group of fellows, and one
of them lunged at me with a bayonet. Beyond the creek and swamp, on the
hillsides, baggage wagons and batteries were parked in immense numbers.
The troops were taking positions along the edge of the bottom, to oppose
incursions of the enemy, when they attempted pursuit, and I was told
that the line extended several miles westward, to New Market Cross
Roads, where, it was thought, the Confederates would march out from
Richmond to offer battle. The roadway, beyond the swamp, was densely
massed with horse, foot, cannon, and teams. The latter still kept toward
the James, but the nags suffered greatly from lack of corn. Only
indispensable material had been hauled from the Chickahominy, and the
soldiers who fought the ensuing protracted battles were exhausted from
hunger. Everything had an uncomfortable, transient, expectant
appearance, and the feeble people that limped toward the _ultima thule_
looked fagged and wretched.
There were some with balls in the groin, thigh, leg, or ankle, that made
the whole journey, dropping blood at every step. They were afraid to lie
down, as the wounded limbs might then grow rigid and stop their
progress. While I pitied these maimed persons, I held the sick in
greater sympathy. The troubles of the one were local; the others were
pained in every bone. Bullets are fearful tenants, but fevers are worse.
And some of the flushed, staggering folk, that reeled along the
roadside, were literally out of their minds. They muttered and talked
incoherently, and shouted ribald songs till my blood curdled to see
them. At the first house on the right of the road, a half-mile past the
Creek, I noticed many idle soldiers climbing the white palings, to watch
something that lay in the yard. A gray-haired man was expiring, under
the coolness of a spreading tree, and he was even now in the closing
pangs. A comrade at his side bathed his brow with cool water, but I saw
that he would shortly be with Lazarus or Dives. His hands were stretched
stiffly by his sides, his feet were rigidly extended, and death was
hardening into his bleached face. The white eyeballs glared sightlessly
upward: he was looking into the other world.
The heat at this time was so intolerable that our party, in _lieu_ of
any other place of resort, resolved to go to the woods. The sun set in
heaven like a fiery furnace, and we sweat at every pore. I was afraid,
momentarily, of sunstroke, and my horse was bathed in foam. Some
companies of cavalry were sheltered in the edges of the woods, and,
having secured our nags, we penetrated the depths, and spread out our
blankets that we might lie down. But no breath of air stirred the
foliage. The "hot and copper sky" found counterpart in the burning
earth, and innumerable flies and insects fastened their fangs in our
flesh. Cindrey was upon the rack, and it seemed to me that he possessed
a sort of capillary perspiration, for the drops stood at tips of each
separate bristle. He appeared to be passing from the solid to the fluid
state, and I said, ungenerously, that the existing temperature was his
liquifying point.
"Then," said the man "Pop," with a youngish, oldish smile, "we may as
well liquor up."
"I don't drink!" said Twaddle, with a flourish. "During all the perilous
hours of Shiloh, I abstained. But I am willing to admit, in respect to
heat, that Shiloh is nowhere at present. And, therefore, I drink with a
protest."
"No man can drink from my bottle, with a protest," said "Pop." "It isn't
regular, and implies coercion. Now I don't coerce anybody, particularly
you."
"Oh!" said Twaddle, drinking like a fish, or, as "Pop" remarked, enough
to float a gunboat; "oh! we often chaffed each other at Shiloh."
"If you persist in reminding me of Shiloh," blurted Cindrey, "you'll be
the ruin of me,--you and the heat and the flies. You'll have me
dissolving into a dew."
Here he wiped his forehead, and killed a large blue fly, that was
probing his ear. We all resolved to go to sleep, and Twaddle said that
_he_ slept like a top, in the heat of action, at Shiloh. "Pop" asked
him, youngishly, to be kind enough to capture no redoubts while we
slumbered, and not to raise the national flag over any ramparts for
fifteen minutes. Then he grinned oldishly, and commenced to snore, with
his flask in his bosom. I am certain that nobody ever felt a tithe of
the pain, hunger, heat, and weariness, which agonized me, when I awoke
from a half-hour's sweltering nap. My clothing was soaking with water; I
was almost blind; somebody seemed to be sawing a section out of my head;
my throat was hot and crackling; my stomach knew all the pangs of
emptiness; I had scarcely strength to motion away the pertinacious
insects. A soldier gave me a trifle of boiling water from his canteen;
but I gasped for air; we were living in a vacuum. Sahara could not have
been so fierce and burning. Two of us started off to find a spring. We
made our way from shade to shade, expiring at every step, and finally,
at the base of the hill, on the brink of the swamp, discovered a rill of
tepid water, that evaporated before it had trickled a hundred yards. If
a sleek and venomous water-snake--for there were thousands of them
hereabout--had coiled in the channel, I would still have sucked the
draught, bending down as I did. Then I bethought me of my pony. He had
neither been fed nor watered for twenty hours, and I hastened to obtain
him from his place along the woodside. To my terror, he was gone.
Forgetful of my weakness, I passed rapidly, hither and thither,
inquiring of cavalry-men, and entertaining suspicions of every person in
the vicinity. Finally, I espied him in charge of a rough, thievish
sabreman, who affected not to see me. I went up to the animal, and
pulled the reins from his shoulder, to discover the brand mark,--"U. S."
As I surmised, he had not been branded, and I turned indignantly upon
the fellow:--
"My friend, how came you by this horse?"
"Quartermaster!" said the man, guiltily.
"No sir! He belongs to me. Take off that cavalry-saddle, and find mine,
immediately."
"Not if the court knows itself," said the man--"and it thinks it do!"
"Then," said I, white with rage, "I shall report you at once, for
theft."
"You may, if you want to," replied the man, carelessly.
I struck off at once for the new Provost Quarters, at a farm-house,
close by. The possible failure to regain my animal, filled me with
rueful thoughts. How was I, so dismounted, to reach the distant river? I
should die, or starve, on the way. I thought I should faint, when I came
to the end of the first field, and leaned, tremblingly, against a tree.
I caught myself sobbing, directly, like a girl, and my mind ran upon the
coolness of my home with my own breezy bedroom, soft paintings, and
pleasant books. These themes tortured me with a consciousness of my
folly. I had forsaken them for the wickednesses of this unhappy
campaign. And my body was to blacken by the road-side,--the sable birds
of prey were to be my mourners.
But, looking through my tears, a moving something passed between me and
the sky. A brownish bay pony, trailing a fence-rail by his halter, and
browsing upon patches of oats. I whistled thrice and the faithful animal
trotted to my feet, and extended his great nose to be rubbed. I believe
that this horse was the only living thing in the army that sympathized
with me. He knew that I was sick, and I thought once, that, like the
great dogs of Saint Bernard, he was about to get upon his knees, that I
might the more readily climb upon his back. He did, however, stand
quietly, while I mounted, and I gave him a drink at the foot of the
hill. Returning, I saw the soldier, wrongfully accused, eyeing me from
his haunt beneath the trees. I at once rode over to him, and apologized
for my mistake.
"Never mind," said the man, complacently. "You was all right. I might a
done the same thing. Fact is," he added, "I did hook this hoss, but I
knew you wan't the party."
During the rest of the day I travelled disconsolately, up and down the
road, winding in and out of the lines of teams.
I was assured that it would be impossible to get to the James till next
day, as no portion of that army had yet advanced so far. The moody
minutes of that afternoon made the longest part of my life, while the
cannon at Peach Orchard and Savage's, roared and growled incessantly.
Toward the close of the day I fell in with Captain Hill, of the New York
Saratoga regiment, who gave me the outline of the fight.
The Confederates had discovered that we were falling back, by means of a
balloon, of home manufacture,--the first they had been able to employ
during the entire war. They appeared at our entrenchments on Sunday
morning, and finding them deserted, commenced an irregular pursuit,
whereby, they received terrible volleys of musketry from ambuscaded
regiments, and retired, in disorder, to the ramparts. This was the
battle of "Peach Orchard," and was disastrous to the Southerners. In the
afternoon, they again essayed to advance, but more cautiously. The
Federals, meantime, lay in order of battle upon Savage's, Dudley's, and
Crouch's farms, their right resting on the Chickahominy, their centre on
the railroad, and their left beyond the Williamsburg turnpike. For a
time, an artillery contest ensued, and the hospitals at Savage's, where
the wounded lay, were thrice fired upon. The Confederates finally
penetrated the dense woods that belted this country, and the battle, at
nightfall, became fervid and sanguinary. The Federals held their ground
obstinately, and fell back, covered by artillery, at midnight. The woods
were set on fire, in the darkness, and conflagration painted fiery
terrors on the sky. The dead, littered all the fields and woods. The
retreating army had marked its route with corpses. This was the battle
of "Savage's," and neither party has called it a victory.
During the rest of the night the weary fugitives were crossing White Oak
Creek and Swamp. Toward daybreak, the last battery had accomplished the
passage; the bridge was destroyed; and preparations were made to
dispute the pursuit in the morning.
I noted these particulars and added to my lists of dead and captured. At
dusk I was about to sleep, supperless, upon the bare ground, when my
patron, Colonel Murphy, again came in sight, and invited me to occupy a
shelter-tent, on the brow of the hill at White Oak. To my great joy, he
was able to offer me some stewed beef, bread and butter, and hot coffee.
I ate voraciously, seizing the food in my naked fingers, and rending it
like a beast.
The regiment of Colonel Murphy was composed of laborers, and artificers
of every possible description. There were blacksmiths, moulders, masons,
carpenters, boat-builders, joiners, miners, machinists, riggers, and
rope-makers. They could have bridged the Mississippi, rebuilt the
Tredegar works, finished the Tower of Babel, drained the Chesapeake,
constructed the Great Eastern, paved Broadway, replaced the Grand Trunk
railroad, or tunnelled the Straits of Dover. I have often thought that
the real greatness of the Northern army lay in its ingenuity and
industry, not in its military qualifications.
Our conversation turned upon these matters, as we sat before the
Colonel's tent in the evening, and a Chaplain represented the feelings
of the North in this manner: "We must whip them. We have got more money,
more men, more ships, more ingenuity. They are bound to knuckle at last.
If we have to lose man for man with them, their host will die out before
ours. And we wont give up the Union,--not a piece of it big enough for a
bird or a bee to cover,--though we reduce these thirty millions one
half, and leave only the women and children to inherit the land." The
heart of the army was now cast down, though a large portion of the
soldiers did not know why we were falling back. I heard moody,
despondent, accusing mutterings, around the camp-fires, and my own mind
was full of grief and bitterness. It seemed that our old flag had
descended to a degenerate people. It was not now, as formerly, a proud
recollection that I was an American. If I survived the retreat, it would
become my mission to herald the evil tidings through the length and
breadth of the land. If I fainted in their pursuit, a loathsome prison,
or a grave in the trenches, were to be my awards. When I lay down in a
shelter-tent, rolling from side to side, I remembered that this was the
Sabbath day. A battle Sabbath! How this din and slaughter contrasted
with my dear old Lord's days in the prayerful parsonage! The chimes in
the white spire, where the pigeons cooed in the hush of the singing,
were changed to cannon peals; and the boys that dozed in the "Amen
corner," were asleep forever in the trampled grain-fields. The good
parson, whose clauses were not less truthful, because spoken through his
nose, now blew the loud trumpet for the babes he had baptized, to join
the Captains of fifties and thousands; and while the feeble old women in
the side pews made tremulous responses to the prayer for "thy soldiers
fighting in thy cause," the banners of the Republic were craped, dusty,
and bloody, and the scattered regiments were resting upon their arms for
the shock of the coming dawn.
Thus I thought, tossing and talking through the long watches, and toward
morning, when sleep brought fever-dreams, a monstrous something leered
at me from the blackness, saying, in a sort of music--
"Gobbled up! Gobbled up!"