THE BLOODY ANGLE
It takes courage to charge, to rush over a space swept by shot and
shell and attack a body of men grimly waiting to beat back the onset
with murderous volleys and cold steel. Sometimes, though, it takes more
courage to stand than to charge, to endure than to attack. The six
hundred gallant horsemen of that Light Brigade who charged an army at
Balaclava were brave men. The six hundred Knights of St. John who at
the siege of Malta by Solyman the Magnificent defended the tiny
fortress of St. Elmo against thirty thousand Turks until every man lay
dead back of the broken ramparts and the power and might of the Turkish
Empire had been wasted and shattered against their indomitable defense
were braver. The burghers of Leyden who lived through the siege of
their city on shoe-leather, rats and bark, who baked their last loaves
and threw them down to the besiegers in magnificent defiance, who
shouted down to the Spaniards that they would eat their left arms and
fight with their right, and who slept on the ramparts night and day
until they drove back the greatest army in all Europe were braver.
"It's dogged that does it," said the grim Duke of Wellington when his
thin red line of English fighters endured through that long summer day
against attack after attack until at twilight the Old Guard were
repulsed for the last time and the great battle of Waterloo won.
Many men are brave in flashes. They are good for a dash. Few are those
who can go the distance.
This is the story of a Union general who could endure and whose courage
flared highest when defeat and death seemed certain. It is the story of
a little band of men who were brave enough to stand against an army and
whose endurance won a seven-day battle and opened the way for the
capture of the Confederate capital.
It was the fourth year of the War of the Rebellion, and the end was not
yet in sight. The Confederate cause had fewer men, but better officers.
Robert E. Lee was undoubtedly the most able general in the world at
that time. Stonewall Jackson had been his right arm, while Longstreet,
Johnston, Early and a host of other fighting leaders helped him to
defeat one Union army after another. The trouble with the Union leaders
was that they didn't know how to attack. There had been McClellan, a
wonderful organizer, but who preferred to dig entrenchments rather than
fight and who never believed that he had enough men to risk a battle.
Then came Meade who won the great battle of Gettysburg and beat back
the only invasion of the North, but who failed to follow up his
advantage and had settled down to the old policy that the North knew so
well of watchful waiting. At last came the Man. He had been fighting in
the West and he had won,--not important battles, but more important,
the confidence of the people and of Abraham Lincoln, the people's
president. For this new man had a new system of generalship. His
tactics were simple enough. He believed that armies were made to use,
not to save. He believed in finding the enemy and hammering and
hammering and hammering away until something broke--and that something
was usually the enemy. His name was Ulysses S. Grant.
"He fights," was all that President Lincoln said about him when a party
of politicians came to ask that he be removed. That was enough. What
the North wanted was a fighter. Other generals would fight when they
had to and were satisfied to stop if they defeated the enemy or broke
even, but Grant was like old Charles Martel, Charles the Hammerer, who
won his name when he saved all Europe from the Saracens on the plains
of Tours by a seven-day battle. The great host of horsemen which had
swept victorious through Asia, Africa and half the circle of the
Mediterranean whirled down on the solid mass of grim Northmen. For six
long days Charles Martel hammered away at that flashing horde of wild
warriors. On the seventh his hammer strokes shattered the might of the
Moslems and they broke and fled, never to cross the Pyrenees again. Now
like Charles, the Hammerer of the Union Army was facing his great test,
the terrible Seven Days in the Wilderness. Between him and the
Confederate capital lay Lee's veteran army entrenched in that wild
stretch of Virginia territory which was well named the Wilderness.
Every foot of the puzzling woods, ravines, thickets and trails were
known to the Confederates and well they ought to know it since they had
already won a great battle on nearly the same field. In this tangled
waste an army that knew the ground had a tremendous advantage. Lee
chose his battle-field, but did not believe that Grant would join
battle. He was to learn to know his great opponent better. Grant would
always fight.
On May 4, 1864, the head of Grant's army met Lee's forces on one of the
few roads of the Wilderness, known as the Orange Plank Road. The battle
was joined. At first the Union forces drove the Confederates back into
the thick woods. There they were reinforced and the knowledge of the
field began to tell. Everywhere Confederate soldiers were sent by short
cuts to attack the entangled Union forces and before long the Union
line was shattered and driven back only to form again and fight once
more for six long days. And what a battle that was! As in the fierce
forest-fight between David and Absalom the wood devoured more people
that day than the sword devoured. The men fought at close quarters and
in the tangled thickets of stunted Virginia pine and scrub-oak they
could scarcely see ten yards ahead. Every thicket was alive with men
and flashed with musketry while the roar and rattle of guns on all
sides frightened the deer and rabbits and wildcats that before that day
had been the only dwellers in those masses of underbrush. The men
fought blindly and desperately in both armies. Artillery could not be
used to much advantage in the brush. It was largely a battle of musket
and bayonet and wild hand-to-hand fights in the tangle of trees. The
second day the Confederate lines were rolled back to the spot where Lee
himself stood. Just as they were breaking, down the plank road at a
steady trot came a double column of splendid troops paying no attention
to the rabble and rout around them. Straight to the front they moved.
It was the brigade of Longstreet, Lee's great "left hand." At once the
Union advance was stopped and the Confederates began to reform their
lines. At this moment from the pines streamed another Federal brigade
with apparently resistless force down upon the still confused line.
Then it was that a little force of Texans did a brave deed. They saw
that if the Union advance was not checked, their men would not have
time to form. Although only eight hundred strong, they never hesitated,
but with a wild Rebel yell and without any supports or reinforcements,
charged directly into the flank of the marching Union column of many
times their number. There was a crash, and a tumult of shouts and yells
which settled down into a steady roar of musketry. In less than ten
minutes half of the devoted band lay dead or wounded. But they had
broken the force of the Federal advance and had given the Confederate
line time to rally.
Back and forth, day after day the human tide ebbed and flowed until the
lonely Wilderness was crowded with men, echoing with the roar and
rattle of guns and stained red with brave blood. At times in the
confusion scattered troops fired upon their own men, and Longstreet was
wounded by such an accident.
At one place the Federal forces had erected log breastworks. These
caught fire during the battle and both forces fought each other over a
line of fire through which neither could pass. From every thicket
different flags waved. The forces were so mixed that men going back for
water would find themselves in the hands of the enemy. In places the
woods caught fire and men fought through the rolling smoke until driven
back by the flames that spared neither the Blue nor the Gray. Both
sides would then crawl out to rescue the wounded lying in the path of
the fire. In some places where the men had fought through the brush,
bushes, saplings and even large trees were cut off by bullets four or
five feet from the ground as clean and regularly as if by machinery.
For the first few days the Confederates had the advantage. They knew
the paths and the Union men were driven back and forth among the woods
in a way that would have made any ordinary general retreat. But Grant
was not an ordinary general. The more he was beaten the harder he
fought. The more men he lost the more he called into action from the
reserves.
"It's no use fighting that fellow," said one old Confederate veteran;
"the fool never knows when he's beaten. And it's no use shooting at
those Yanks," he went on; "half-a-dozen more come to take the place of
every one we hit."
At last the Union soldiers got the lay of the land. They couldn't be
surprised or ambushed any more. Then they began to throw up breastworks
and to cut down trees to hold every foot that they had taken. The
Confederates did the same and the two long, irregular lines of
earthworks and log fortifications faced each other all the way through
the Wilderness. Yet still the lines of gray lay between Richmond and
the men in blue. For six days the men had fought locked together in
hand-to-hand fights over miles and miles of wilderness, marsh and
thicket. The Union losses had been terrific. All along the line the
Confederates had won and again and again had dashed back the attempts
of the Union forces to pass through or around their lines. The Union
Army had lost eleven officers and twenty thousand men and had fought
for six days without accomplishing anything. Yet on that day Grant sent
to Washington a dispatch in which he wrote: "I propose to fight it out
on this line if it takes all summer."
Through all this tumult of defeats and losses he sat under a tree
whittling and directing every movement as coolly as if safe at home.
Finally the great Hammerer chose a spot at which to batter and smash
with those tremendous strokes of his. The Confederates had built a long
irregular line of earthworks and timber breastworks running for miles
through the tangled woods. At one point near the center of the lines a
half-moon of defenses jutted out high above the rest of the works. At
the chord of this half-circle was an angle of breastworks back of which
the Confederates could retreat if driven out of the semicircle. Grant
saw that this half-moon was the key of the Confederate position. If it
could be captured and held, their whole battle line could be broken and
crumpled back and the Union Army pass on to Richmond. If taken at all,
it must be by some sudden irresistible attack. He chose General
Hancock, a daring, dashing fighter, to make the attempt for the morning
of May 12th. It rained hard on the night of May 11th and came off
bitter cold. The men gathered for the attack about ten o'clock and
huddled together in little groups wet and half-frozen. All that long
night they waited. Just at dawn the word was passed around. Crouching
in the darkness, a division pressed forward and rushed like tigers at
the half-circle and began to climb the breastworks from two sides. The
sleepy sentries saw the rush too late. The first man over was a young
sergeant named Brown. With a tremendous jump he caught a projecting
bough, swung himself over like a cat and landed right in the midst of a
crowd of startled soldiers. Finding himself entirely alone with a score
of guns pointed at him, he lost his nerve for a minute.
"I surrender, don't shoot," he bellowed like a bull. At that moment
from all sides other soldiers dropped over the rampart.
"I take it all back," shouted Brown, now brave again, and to make up
for the break in his courage he rushed into the very midst of the
defenders and, single-handed, captured the colors. The Confederates
were taken entirely by surprise. In the dim light they fought
desperately, but they were attacked from two sides with bullets,
bayonets and smashing blows from the butt-ends of muskets used like
clubs. Almost in a moment the entrenchments were in the hands of the
Union soldiers and over three thousand prisoners, two generals and
twenty cannon were captured. Those who were left took refuge back of
the angle-breastworks which guarded the approach to the half-moon.
There they fought back the charging troops until Lee, who had heard of
the disaster, could pour in reinforcements. He knew full well that this
center must be retaken at any cost. Every man and gun that could be
spared was hurried to the spot. Lee started then to take command in
person. Only when the soldiers refused to fight unless he took a safe
place did he consent to stay back.
With all his available forces Grant lapped the half-circle on every
side and began to hammer away at this break in the Confederate line.
The Confederate reinforcements came up first and Hancock's men were
driven back from the angle until they met the reinforcements pouring in
from the troops outside. For a moment they could not face the
concentrated fire that came from the rear breastworks. Flat on their
faces officers and men lay in a little marsh while the canister swished
against the tall marsh-grass and the minie balls moaned horribly as
they picked out exposed men here and there. Soon another regiment came
up and with a yell the men sprang to their feet and dashed at the
breastworks which loomed up through the little patch of woods through
which they had retreated. In a minute they had rushed through the trees
with men dropping on every side under the murderous fire. Before them
was the grim angle of works to be known forever as the Bloody Angle.
As they came nearer they found themselves in front of a deep ditch.
Scrambling through this they became entangled in an abattis, a kind of
latticework of limbs and branches. As they plunged into this many a man
was caught in the footlocks formed by the interwoven branches and held
until he was shot down by the fire back of the breastworks. These were
made of heavy timber banked with earth to a height of about four feet.
Above this was what was called a "head-log" raised just high enough to
allow a musket to be inserted between it and the lower work. Inside
were shelves covered with piles of buck and ball and minie cartridges.
Through the ditch and the snares, up and over the breastworks charged a
Pennsylvania regiment, losing nearly one hundred men as they went.
Once again there was the same confused hand-to-hand fighting as had
taken place at the outer fortifications. This time the result was
different. The crafty Lee had hurried a dense mass of troops through
the mist. These men crawled forward in the smoke, reserving their fire
until they got to the very inside edge of the Angle. Then with the
terrible long-drawn Rebel yell, they sprang to their feet and dashed
into the breastworks with a volley that killed every Union soldier who
had crossed over. Down too went the men in front, still tangled in the
abattis. Every artillery horse was shot and Colonel Upton of the 95th
Pennsylvania Volunteers was the only mounted officer in sight.
"Stick to it, boys," he shouted, riding back and forth and waving his
hat. "We've got to hold this point!"
In a dense mass the Confederates poured into the breastworks and for a
moment it seemed as if they would sweep the Union forces back and
retake the half-moon salient. At this moment the Pennsylvanians were
reinforced by the 5th Maine and the 121st New York, but the
Confederates had the advantage of the breastworks and the Union men
began to waver. Then a little two-gun battery of the Second Corps did a
very brave thing. They were located at the foot of a hill back of a
pine-grove. As the news came that the Union men were giving way, they
limbered the guns, the drivers and cannoneers mounted the horses and up
the hill at full gallop they charged through the Union infantry and
right up to the breastworks, the only case of a charge by a battery in
history. Then in a second they unlimbered their guns and poured in a
fire of the tin cans filled with bullets called canister which was
deadly on the close-packed ranks of the Confederates hurrying up to the
Angle. The Union gunners were exposed to the full fire of the men back
of the breastworks, but they never flinched. The left gun fired nine
rounds and the right fourteen double charges. These cannonades simply
mowed the men down in groups. Captain Fish of General Upton's staff
left his men and rushed to help this little battery. Back and forth he
rode before the guns and the caissons carrying stands of canister under
his rubber coat.
"Give it to 'em, boys," he shouted. "I'll bring you canister if you'll
only use it."
Again and again he rode until, just as he turned to cheer the gunners
once more, he fell mortally wounded. The guns were fired until all of
the horses were killed, the guns, carriages and buckets cut to pieces
by the bullets and only two of the twenty-three men of the battery were
left on their feet. Leaving their two brass pieces which had done such
terrible execution still on the breastworks cut and hacked by the
bullets from both sides, the lone two marched back through the cheering
infantry.
"That's the way to do it," shouted Colonel Upton. "Hold 'em, men! Hold
'em!" And his men held.
The soft mud came up half-way to their knees. Under the continued
tramping back and forth, the dead and wounded were almost buried at
their feet. The shattered ranks backed off a few yards, then closed up
and started to hold their place out in the open against the constantly
increasing masses of the enemy back of the breastworks of the Angle.
The space was so narrow that only a certain number of men on each side
could get into action at once. A New Jersey and Vermont brigade hurried
in to help while on the other side General Lee sent all the men that
could find a place to fight back of the breastworks. Into the mêlée
came an orderly who shouted in Colonel Upton's ear so as to be heard
over the rattle of musketry and the roar of yells and cheers:
"General Grant says, 'Hold on!'"
"Tell General Grant we are holding on," shouted back Colonel Upton.
The men in the mud now directed all their fire at the top of the
breastworks and picked off every head and hand that showed above. The
Confederates then fired through the loopholes, or placed their rifles
on the top log and holding by the trigger and the small of the stock
lifted the breach high enough to fire at the attacking forces. The
losses on both sides were frightful. A gun and a mortar battery took
position half a mile back of the Union forces and began to gracefully
curve shells and bombs just over the heads of their comrades so as to
drop within the ramparts. Sometimes the enemy's fire would slacken.
Then some reckless Union soldier would seize a fence-rail or a piece of
the abattis and creep close to the breastworks and thrust it over as if
he was stirring up a hornet's nest, dropping on the ground to avoid the
volley that was sure to follow. One daring lieutenant leaped upon the
breastworks and took a rifle that was handed up to him and fired it
into the masses of the Confederate soldiers behind. Another one was
handed up and he fired that and was about aiming with a third when he
was riddled with a volley and pitched headlong among the enemy.
A little later a party of discouraged Confederates raised a piece of a
white shelter tent above the works as a flag of truce and offered to
surrender. The Union soldiers called on them to jump over. They sprang
on the breastworks and hesitated a moment at the sight of so many
leveled guns. That moment was fatal to them for their comrades in the
rear poured a volley into them, killing nearly every one.
All day long the battle raged. Different breastworks in the same
fortifications flaunted different flags. Gradually, however, all along
the line the firing and the fighting concentrated at the Angle. The
head logs there were so cut and torn that they looked like brooms. So
heavy was the fire that several large oak trees twenty-two inches in
diameter back of the works were gnawed down by the bullets and fell,
injuring some of the South Carolina troops. Toward dusk the Union
troops were nearly exhausted. Each man had fired between three and four
hundred rounds. Their lips were black and bleeding from biting
cartridge. Their shoulders and hands were coated and black with grime
and powder-dust. As soon as it became dark they dropped in the
knee-deep mud from utter exhaustion. But they held. Grimly, sternly
they held. All the long night through they fired away at the
breastworks. The trenches on the right of the Angle ran red with Union
blood and had to be cleared many a time of the piles of dead bodies
which choked them. At last, a little after midnight, sullenly and
slowly the Confederate forces drew back and the half-moon and the
Bloody Angle were left in possession of the Union forces. The seven
days' hammering and the twenty hours of holding had won the fierce and
bloody Battle of the Wilderness.