A few days afterwards the regiment marched through Culpeper and reached
the battlefield of Cedar Mountain late on the day on which that
engagement was fought. We approached the battlefield through what would
be called the rear, where we first saw the horrible sights accompanying
a battle, which are always dead horses, broken caissons, bodies lying on
the ground, and the wounded. On the front line these sights are not so
prominent.
The regiment was pushed to the front and placed on picket duty, I being
posted on the edge of a piece of woods overlooking a valley, on the
opposite side of which was Slaughter Mountain, where Stonewall Jackson's
army was supposed to be.
While at my post on picket that night, an incident occurred which made a
deep impression upon me, doubtless due to the time and place and the
incidents of the preceding two weeks. Before leaving home, I had
promised my mother that I would read at least one verse in my Testament
each day. Not having done so that day was due to the fact that we had
been marching and to the excitement attending the reaching of the
battlefield and being put in position. I then took out my pocket
Testament and went to a picket fire near where I was, leaning over to
read a verse or two by its light, when I heard a rustle in the bushes.
Immediately I grasped my weapons and was on the alert, when a colored
man crawled through the bushes and said to me, "What's that you got
there, a Testament?" On admitting it, he said, "Do you know the chapter
General Washington always used to read before he went into a fight?" I
told him I did not, whereupon he said, "You turn to the Ninety-first
Psalm." "Now," he said, "you read it." I then read aloud:
"Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from
the noisome pestilence.
"He shall cover thee with His feathers and under His wings shalt
thou trust; His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
"Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night nor for the arrow
that flieth by day.
"Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the
destruction that wasteth at noon day.
"A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right
hand; but it shall not come nigh thee."
At the reading of each of these verses he exclaimed, "You see, he didn't
get hit." The contraband evidently was perfectly sincere in the belief
that if I read this verse before a battle I would never get hurt. He
then went away. This incident, coupled with the facts that I had only
been about ten days away from home, that I had seen the horrible sights
of the battlefield the previous afternoon, that I could see the enemy's
camp-fires across the valley, and that I was wondering what fate was in
store for me the following day,--all tended to impress this incident
upon my mind.
The next morning the regiment advanced to the Rapidan River, presumably
with the object of searching for the flank of Jackson's army. Just above
the ford, which I think was Robertson's, was the residence of the
Confederate General Taliaferro. Our picket line was between the house
and the river. Captain Walters of my regiment had arranged with Mrs.
Taliaferro to have breakfast at her house. She and her niece were
engaged in a good-natured altercation with some of the men of my
company, she repeatedly remarking, "I want you men to understand that I
am the granddaughter of Chief-Justice Marshall of the United States."
When she had said this several times an Irishman of my company remarked,
"And who the divil is he anyhow?" The disgust on her face may well be
imagined. I had been polite in my remarks to her when she turned upon me
and asked, "Aren't you from New Orleans?" I told her, "No," that I was
from New York, when she shook her head sadly and said, "Well, I'm
surprised that apparently such a nice young man as you should be
engaged in such a wicked cause as this." The laughter of my comrades
which greeted this remark was followed by their teasing me the rest of
the campaign, calling me, "The nice young man and the wicked cause."
About this time the pickets began firing, when Captain Walters remarked,
"I will go down and see what the matter is." He mounted his horse,
started down the hill toward the ford, and in a moment or two was
brought back dead, their sharpshooters having shot him through the heart
immediately after he left the house. This was the first time I had heard
bullets whistle.
That night Stonewall Jackson's movement to the flank and rear of Pope's
army resulted in the recall of the cavalry and a night march through
Culpeper to Brandy Station. We bivouacked for the night, but did not
unsaddle. About daybreak we were attacked. Although I heard bullets
whistle at the Rapidan River, where Captain Walters was killed, this was
the first real engagement I was in. In the early part of it we were
supporting the skirmish line. Later in the day the battalion in which my
company was made a charge, led by Major Henry E. Davies, in which a
number were killed and wounded, and some confusion ensued by reason of a
railroad cut, into which the command rode, its existence not being known
when the charge was ordered. Prior to this, in the retreating movements
of that morning, my horse, which had become blind from the hard marching
of the night before, fell in a ditch with me. He struggled out, and I
was able to remount him, though we were quite hard pressed by the
advancing enemy.
The Harris Light Cavalry was one of the regiments of General George D.
Bayard's brigade, which for sixteen successive days was under fire and
engaged in most arduous service in covering the retreat of Pope's army
and watching the fords on the Rappahannock River to detect the crossing
of General Lee's troops. This continuous service terminated with the
second battle of Bull Run, where Lieutenant Compton, the only remaining
officer with my company, was killed. This occurred the evening before
the last day of the battle.