_Wilderness,
May 7, 1864._
On the 5th we marched all day on the plank road from Orange Court House
to this place. We got into a hard fight on the left of the road rather
late in the afternoon. The fighting was desperate for two or three
hours, with the least cannonading I have ever heard in a battle. I
suppose this was due to the level country and the thick undergrowth. It
is low, flat and entirely unfit for cultivation.
After night Major Hammond rode up to where we doctors were and told us
that about two miles to the rear there was a poor Yankee who was badly
wounded. He insisted that someone of us go back to help him. I went,
and found him paralyzed from a shot in the back. I gave him water and
morphine, and made him comfortable as best I could. The poor fellow
seemed very grateful.
After I returned to our lines the order came to move back with our
medical stores to Orange Court House. We marched nearly all night,
but just before day we were ordered back to the Wilderness again, and
we reached there soon after sunrise. Longstreet came up about this
time, having made a forced march all night. Then the fighting began
in earnest--continuing fearful and desperate all day. The tremendous
roar of the artillery and the rattle of the musketry seemed to make the
woods tremble.
Late in the afternoon of this day I went among the wounded of the Third
Regiment South Carolina Volunteers and of the Yankees who had fallen
into our hands. As usual on such occasions groans and cries met me
from every side. I found Colonel James Nance, my old schoolmate, and
Colonel Gaillard of Fairfield lying side by side in death. Near them
lay Warren Peterson, with a shattered thigh-bone, and still others who
were my friends. Many of the enemy were there. Not far from these was
an old man, a Yankee officer, mortally wounded. I learned that he was
Brigadier-General Wadsworth, once Governor of New York.
I picked up an excellent Yankee overcoat on the battlefield, but the
cape is off. I will have a sack coat made of it. I also found an
India rubber cloth that is big enough for four men to lie on or to
make a tent of. I have never before seen a battlefield so strewn with
overcoats, knapsacks, India rubber cloths and everything else soldiers
carry, except at Chancellorsville. The dead Yankees are everywhere. I
have never before seen woods so completely riddled with bullets. At
one place the battle raged among chinquapin bushes. All the bark was
knocked off and the bushes are literally torn to pieces.
Tell Bob that as soon as I draw some of the new issue I will send him
the pay for your cat-skin shoes.
[NOTE.--After two days of hard fighting at the Wilderness and the
same at Spottsylvania, and failing to break through the Confederate
lines, General Grant decided to make one more determined effort by
concentrating in front of the angle in the Confederate breastworks.
About daylight on May 12 a desperate charge was made upon this angle,
which was occupied by General Bradley T. Johnson of Maryland. This
overwhelming charge by the enemy was too much, and the Confederates
were borne down, and General Johnson and his command of four thousand
men and twenty pieces of artillery were captured. General Lee was in
the rear with a reserve force, consisting of McGowan’s South Carolina
Brigade and some Mississippians, whom he rushed forward, and they
reoccupied the angle. The Federals jumped back over the works, but
did not retreat, and, after fighting all day and a greater part of
the night, both sides were utterly exhausted, and ceased. A large oak
standing on the works was cut down by bullets alone.]