"If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,
Thou'lt not believe thy deeds; but I'll report it."
--SHAKESPEARE.
It is said that a word may change a life. Actually? No, not of itself;
the life which is changed must be ready for the word, else we were
creatures dominated by our surroundings.
I had been a fragment,--a sort of moral flotsam cast up by an unknown
sea,--and I had found a rude harbour in Company H. If I touched a larger
world, it was only through the medium of the company in its relations to
that world. I had formed some attachments,--ties which have lasted
through life thus far, and will always last,--but these attachments were
immediate only, and, so far as I felt, were almost baseless; for not
directly could I see and feel what was felt by the men I loved. Outside
the narrow bounds of the company my world was all abstract. I fought for
that world, for it appealed to my reason; but it was with effort that I
called before my mind that world, which was a very present help to every
other man. The one great fact was war; the world was an ideal world
rather than a reality. And I frequently felt that, although the ideal
after all is the only reality, yet that reality to me must be lacking in
the varying quality of light, and the delicate degrees of sweetness and
truth which home and friends and all the material good of earth were
said to assume for charming their possessors. The day brought me into
contact with men; the night left me alone with myself. In my presence
men spoke of homes far away, of mothers, of sisters, of wives and
children. I could see how deep was the interest which moved them to
speak, and, in a measure, they had my sympathy; yet such interest was
mystery rather than fact, theoretical rather than practical. I could
fill these pages with pathetic and humorous sayings heard in the camps,
for my memory peculiarly exerted itself to retain--or rather, I should
say, spontaneously retained--what I saw and heard; saw and heard with
the least emotion, perhaps, ever experienced by a soldier. Absorbed in
reflections on what I heard, and in fancies of a world of which I knew
so little, it is not to be doubted that I constructed ideals far beyond
the humdrum reality of home life, impracticable ideals that tended only
to separate me more from other men. Their world was not my world; this I
knew full well, and I sometimes thought they knew it; for while no rude
treatment marked their intercourse with me, yet few sought me as a
friend. My weak attempts to become companionable had failed and had left
me more morose. But for the Captain and for Joe Bellot, I should have
been hopeless.
Such had been my feelings before I had willed; now, in a degree,
everything was changed; indifference, at least, was gone, and although I
was yet subject to the strange experience which ruled my mind and
hindered it, yet I knew that I had large power over myself, and I hoped
that I should always determine to live the life of a healthy human
being, that I should be able to accept the relationships which, through
Company H, bound me to all men and all things, and that my interest
henceforth would be diversified--touching the world and what is in it
rather than myself alone. But this was mere hope; the only certain
change was in the banishment of my former indifference.
* * * * *
The morning of Thursday, the 26th of June, passed away, and we yet held
our place in the line. At two o'clock the long roll was heard in every
regiment. Our knapsacks had been piled, to be stored in Richmond.
"_Fall in, Company H! Fall in, men! Fall in promptly!"_ shouted
Orderly-sergeant Mackay.
By fours we went to rear and left, then northward at a rapid stride.
Some of the men tried to jest, and failed.
At three o'clock we were crossing Meadow Bridge; we could see before us
and behind us long lines of infantry--Lee's left wing in motion.
Beyond the bridge the column filed right; A.P. Hill came riding back
along the line of the Light Division.
Suddenly, from over the hills a mile and more away, comes the roar of
cannon. We leave the road and march through fields and meadows; the
passing of the troops ahead has cleared the way; we go through gaps in
rail fences.
And now we hear the crash of small arms, and smoke is rising from our
left oblique. We are yet under the hill. We halt and wait. The noise of
battle grows. Sunset comes--we move. The next company on our right is
passing through a gap in a fence. A shell strikes the topmost rail at
the left and hurls it clear over their heads. Then I see men pale, and I
know that my own face is white.
Shells fly over us. We lie down on the slope of a hill which rises to
our left, and darkness grows, and the noises cease. No breaking of ranks
for rest or for water; the long night through we lie on our arms.
Morning comes; we have no water; the men eat their rations dry. At
sunrise the march is again begun, through fields and woods and down
country roads; we go southeast.
The Yankees have gone. At nine o'clock we halt; a field. Company C, the
right of the regiment; is thrown forward as skirmishers.
Again we march; again we halt, the brigade in line of battle. An orderly
comes to Captain Haskell.
"_Company H!_ ATTENTION!"
Every man is in his place--alert.
"_Forward_--MARCH!"
"_By the right flank_--MARCH!"
"HALT!--FRONT!"
"_Company--as skirmishers--on the right file--take
intervals--double-quick_--MARCH!"
I did not have very far to go. The company was deployed on the left of
Company C. Then we went forward in line for half a mile or more, through
woods and fields, the brigade following in line of battle.
About eleven o'clock we had before us an extensive piece of open
land--uncultivated, level, and dry. In the edge of the woods we had
halted, so that we might not get too far ahead of the brigade. From this
position we saw--some six hundred yards at our left oblique--a group of
horsemen ride out into the field, seemingly upon a road, or line, that
would intersect our line of advance. Our men were at once in place. The
distance was too great to tell the uniforms of the party of horsemen;
but, of course, they could be only Yankees.
Captain Haskell ordered Dave Bellot to step out of the line. The
horsemen had halted; they were a small party, not more than fifteen or
twenty. Captain Haskell ordered Bellot to take good aim at the most
eligible one of the group, and fire.
Bellot knelt on one knee, raised his sight, put his rifle to his
shoulder, and lowered it again. "Captain," said he, "I am afraid to
fire; they may be our men."
The Captain made no reply; he seemed to hesitate; then he put his
handkerchief on the point of his sword and walked forward. A horseman
advanced to meet him. Captain Haskell returned to Company H, and said,
"They are General Jackson and his staff."
Again we went forward. Prom the brow of a hill we could see tents--a
camp, a Yankee camp--on the next hill, and we could see a few men
running away from it. We reached the camp. It had been abandoned
hurriedly. Our men did not keep their lines perfectly; they were curious
to see what was in the tents. Suddenly the cracking of rifles was heard,
and the singing of bullets, and the voice of Captain Haskell commanding,
"_Lie down!_"
Each man found what shelter was nearest. I was behind a tent. The Yankee
skirmishers were just beyond a little valley, behind trees on the
opposite hill, about two hundred yards from us. I could see them looking
out from behind the trees and firing. I took good aim at one and pulled
the trigger; his bullet came back at me; I loaded and fired; I saw him
no more, but I could see the smoke shoot out from the side of the tree
and hear his bullet sing. I thought that I ought to have hit him; I saw
him again, and fired, and missed. Then I carefully considered the
distance, and concluded that it was greater than I had first thought. I
raised the sliding sight to three hundred yards, and fired again at the
man, whom I could now see distinctly. A man dropped or leaped from the
tree, and I saw him no more; neither did I see again the man behind
the tree.
We had had losses. Veitch and Crawford had been shot fatally; other men
slightly. The sun was shining hot upon us. The brigade was behind us,
waiting for us to dislodge the skirmishers. Suddenly I heard Captain
Haskell's voice ordering us forward at double-quick. We ran down the
hill into the valley below; there we found a shallow creek with steep
banks covered with briers. We beat down the briers with our guns, and
scrambled through to the other side of the creek in time to see the
Yankees run scattering through the woods and away. We reached their
position and rested while the brigade found a crossing and formed again
in our rear. I searched for a wounded man at the foot of a tree, but
found none; yet I felt sure that I had fired over my man and had knocked
another out from the tree above him.
We advanced again, and had a running fight for an hour or more. At
length no Yankees were to be seen; doubtless they had completed the
withdrawing of their outposts, and we were not to find them again until
we should strike their main lines.
Now we advanced for a long distance; troops--no doubt Jackson's--could
be seen at intervals marching rapidly on our left, marching forward and
yet at a distance from our own line. We reached an elevated clearing,
and halted. The brigade came up, and we returned to our position in the
line of battle--on the left of the First. It was about three o'clock; to
the right, far away, we could hear the pounding of artillery, while to
the southeast, somewhere near the centre of Lee's lines, on the other
side of the Chickahominy perhaps, the noise of battle rose and fell.
Shells from our front came among us. A battery--Crenshaw's--galloped
headlong into position on the right of the brigade, and began firing.
The line of infantry hugged the ground.
Three hundred yards in front the surface sloped downward to a hollow;
the slope and the hollow were covered with forest; what was on the hill
beyond we could not see, but the Yankee batteries were there and at
work. A caisson of Crenshaw's exploded. Troops were coming into line far
to our right.
General Gregg ordered his brigade forward. We marched down the wooded
slope, Crenshaw firing over our heads. We marched across the wooded
hollow and began to ascend the slope of the opposite hill, still in
the woods.
The advance through the trees had scattered the line; we halted and
re-formed. The pattering of bullets amongst the leaves was distinct;
shells shrieked over us; we lay down in line. Between the trunks of the
trees we could see open ground in front; it was thick with men firing
into us in the woods. Those in our front were Zouaves, with big, baggy,
red breeches. We began to fire kneeling. Leaves fell from branches above
us, and branches fell, cut down by artillery. Butler, of our company,
lying at my right hand, gave a howl of pain; his head was bathed in
blood. Lieutenant Rhett was dead. Rice, at my left, had found whiskey in
the Yankee camp. He had drunk the whiskey. He raised himself, took long
aim, and fired; lowered his gun, but not his body, gazing to see the
effect, and yelled, "By God, I missed him!" McKenzie was shot.
Lieutenant Barnwell was shot. The red-legged men were there and thicker.
Our colour went down, and rose. We had gone into battle with two
colours,--the blue regimental State flag, and the battle-flag of the
Confederate infantry. Lieutenant-colonel Smith had fallen.