THE GRASP OF DEATH.
When the fierce heat of E Company's second summer in an almost tropical
climate was fast depleting their ranks, Manson wrote to Liddy:
"Disease among us is more dangerous than rebel bullets. When I was a boy
I used to feel that the long, hot hours in hay fields, or the bitter
cold ones in the snow-buried woods, were severe hardships, but now I
thank God for them! If I survive the exposure here it will be because of
the splendid health and strength that came to me from those days on the
farm. Sometimes when the miserable food I have to eat, or the vile water
I must drink, is at its worst, I think of what mother used to cook, and
how sweet the water in dear old Ragged Brook used to taste on a hot
summer day, and you cannot imagine what I would give for a chance to
thrust my face into that cool stream, where it was leaping over a mossy
ledge, and drink my fill.
"I have passed through some ghastly and sickening experiences, too
horrible to relate to you, and at times I am so depressed that I lose
all hope, and then again I feel that I shall pull through all right. One
thing I want you to do, and that is, forget the foolish promise I
exacted from you that day on Blue Hill. Some things have occurred that
have convinced me it was doing you a cruel injustice to ask such a
promise."
It was the last letter Liddy ever received from her soldier boy, and
when she read it it filled her with a new and uncanny dread.
During those first two years of service, E Company made heroic history.
They took part in eleven hard-fought battles, besides many skirmishes,
and not a man flinched or shirked a duty! They were all hardy sons of
old New England, who, like their forefathers of '76, fought for home and
liberty; for freedom and love of country. Such, and such only, are true
heroes!
Of the battles in which they took part, now famous in history,
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Tracy City, Resaca, Peach Creek and
Atlanta were the most severe, though many others were as sanguinary.
Their losses in all these engagements were sixteen officers, killed or
wounded in battle, and twenty-three privates, or total of thirty-nine.
In addition, eight were taken prisoners, most of whom died in rebel
prison pens; and thirty-six others died of disease or were disabled by
it. Out of the one hundred hardy men who left Southton, only nineteen
returned unharmed at the close of the war!--a record for brave service
that was not surpassed, and one that should weave a laurel wreath around
every name!
Manson had passed through eight battles unharmed and dread disease had
failed to touch his splendid strength; but at the battle of Peach Creek,
and under a blazing July sun he fell. His regiment had been ordered to
charge a hill, from the top of which a perfect storm of rebel bullets
were pouring upon them, and with hands gripping his gun and teeth
fiercely set, he with the rest faced the almost certain death as they
charged up the hill! When half way up, and just as he had leaped a low
stone wall, two red-hot irons seemed to pierce him, and with a bullet
through one leg, and a shattered arm he went down, and leaving him
there, the storm of battle swept on!
Conscious still, and believing his end had come, he yet remembered that
wall, and faint and bleeding he crawled back to it. He could hear the
roar of guns, and the groans of dying men about him, and in that awful
moment, with death near, one thought alone came, and that was to
shelter himself between the rocks, so that mad horses and frenzied men
might not trample upon his face. He could see near by a rock close to
the wall, and like some wild animal that had received its death wound,
yet crawls into a thicket to die, so he crept into this shelter and lay
there moaning.
Hour after hour passed in agony, while his life blood ebbed away. He
could not stop it; he did not try. Since death was near and he felt that
it must come, the sooner it was over the better. Men and horses swept by
and heeded him not! The fierce sun beat upon him, but no one came to
succor! His tongue grew parched and a terrible thirst tortured him; but
there was no water. Only the hard stones upon which his head was
pillowed, the dry earth that drank his blood, and the merciless sun
blazing above. He could hear the dying men about him groaning and
cursing God in their agony, and the roar of cannon that made the earth
tremble beneath him.
Then the sounds of conflict and carnage passed away, and left only the
moans of the wounded near him to echo his own. At last night came and
threw her dark mantle over that scene of death and despair, and later
the moon rose and shed her pale light upon it. Those soft beams of
silvery white were angels of mercy, for they carried that dying boy's
heart away to the hills of old New England, and to where a rippling
brook danced like silver coin beneath them, and a fair girl's face and
tender blue eyes smiled upon him. Then the picture faded and he knew no
more.