NIGHT

"From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,

The hum of either army stilly sounds,

That the fixed sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other's watch."

--SHAKESPEARE.

As the sun was setting on that doleful day, Company A was ordered

forward to the skirmish-line. We deployed and marched down the hill in

front of the Seminary. Cemetery Height was crowned with cannon and

intrenched infantry. The wheat field on its slope was alive with

skirmishers whose shots dropped amongst us as we advanced. Down our hill

and into the hollow; there the fire increased and we lay flat on the

ground. Our skirmish-line was some two or three hundred yards in front

of us, in the wheat on the slope of the ascent. Twilight had come.

Just on my left a brigade advanced up the hill through the wheat; what

for, nobody knew and nobody will ever know[9]. It was Ramseur's brigade

of Rodes's division.

[9] Ramseur's was the extreme right brigade of Ewell's corps, which at

the moment was making an attack upon Culp's Hill. [ED.]

Company A advanced and united to Company C's left. I was now the left

guide of the battalion. I saw no pickets at my left. I thought it likely

that the brigade advancing had taken the skirmishers into its ranks.

Ramseur's men continued to go forward up the hill through the wheat. We

could yet see them, but indistinctly. They began firing and shouting;

they charged the Federal army. What was expected of them? It seemed

absurd; perhaps it was a feint. The flashes of many rifles could be

seen. Suddenly the brigade came running back down the hill,

helter-skelter, every man for himself. They passed us, and went back

toward the main lines on Seminary Ridge.

It was my duty to connect our left with the right of the pickets of the

next brigade. But I saw nobody. Ramseur had left no picket in these

parts. His men had gone, all of them, except those who had remained and

must remain in the wheat farther up the hill.

Where was the picket-line to which ours must connect? I made a circuit

to my left, a hundred yards or more; no pickets. I returned and passed

word down the line to the lieutenant in command of Company A that I

wanted to see him on the left. He came, and I explained the trouble. The

lieutenant did not know what to do. This gentleman was a valuable

officer in the line, but was out of place in the battalion. He asked me

what ought to be done. I replied that we must not fail to connect, else

there would be a gap in the line, and how wide a gap nobody could tell.

If I had known then what I know now, I should have told him to report

the condition to Colonel Perrin, who was in command of the brigade, but

I did otherwise; I told him that if he would remain on the left, I would

hunt for the picket-line. He consented.

I first went to the left very far, and then to the rear and searched a

long time, but found nobody. I returned to the left of Company A and

proposed to go forward through the wheat and hunt for our pickets. The

lieutenant approved.

The word was passed down the line that I was going to the front. I moved

slowly up the hill through the wheat. There was a moon, over which

bunches of cloud passed rapidly. While the moon would be hidden I went

forward. When the cloud had passed, I stooped and looked. Here and there

in the wheat lay dead skirmishers, and guns, and many signs of battle.

The wheat had been trodden down.

Cautiously I moved on until I was a hundred yards in advance of the

battalion. I saw no picket. Here the wheat was standing, in most places

untrodden. I looked back down the hill; I could not see our own men. I

went forward again for forty yards. Now at my right I saw a fence, or

rather a line of bushes and briers which had grown up where a fence had

been in years past. This fence-row stretched straight up the hill toward

the cemetery. I went to it. It would serve my purpose thoroughly. In the

shelter of this friendly row of bushes I crept slowly up the hill. I was

now in front of Company A's right.

The moon shone out and then was hidden. I was two hundred yards in

advance of the battalion. I laid my gun on the ground and crawled along

the fence-row for fifty yards, at every instant pausing and looking. I

reached a denser and taller clump of bushes, and raised myself to my

full height. In front were black spots in the wheat--five paces apart---

a picket-line--whose?

The spots looked very black. Gray would look black in this wheat with

the moonlight on it. I turned my belt-buckle behind my back, lest the

metal should shine. The line of spots was directly in front of me, and

on both sides of the fence-row. The line seemed to stretch across the

front of the whole battalion. If that was our picket, why should there

be another in rear of it? They must be Yankees.

I looked at them for two minutes. They were still as death. The line was

perfect. If it was a Confederate line, there might be men nearer to

me,--officers, or men going and returning in its rear,--but the line

seemed straight and perfect. The spots did not seem tall enough for

standing men. No doubt they were sitting in the wheat with their guns in

their laps. I heard no word--not a sound except the noises coming from

the crest of the hill beyond them, where was the Federal line of battle.

I looked back. Seminary Ridge seemed very far. I crawled back to my gun,

picked it up, rose, and looked again toward the cemetery. I could no

longer see the spots. I walked back down the hill, moving off to my

right in order to strike the left of Company A. The battalion had

not budged.

I reported. The lieutenant was chagrined. I told him that I felt almost

sure that the men I had seen were Yankees. What to do? We ought to have

sent a man back to the brigade, but we did not. Why we did not, I do not

know, unless it was that we felt it our duty to solve the difficulty

ourselves. The left of the battalion was unprotected; this would not do.

Something must be done.

I suggested that the left platoon of Company A extend intervals to ten

paces and cover more ground. The lieutenant approved. The left platoon

extended intervals to ten paces, moving silently from centre to left.

This filled perhaps sixty yards of the unknown gap. Still no pickets

could be seen. I made a semicircle far to my left and returned.

Captain Haskell was not there. He would have sent ten men to the left

until something was found. He would have filled the interval, even had

it required the whole battalion to stretch to twenty steps apart, at

least until he could report to Colonel Perrin, or General Pender.

Lieutenant Sharpe, in command of the battalion, was far to the

right--perhaps four hundred yards from us. We should have sent word to

him down the line, but we did not do it. The night was growing. How wide

was the gap? Why did not the pickets on the other side of this gap

search for us? If the enemy knew our condition, a brigade or more might

creep through the gap; still the lieutenant did not propose anything.

At last I said that although the picket-line in front looked like a

Yankee line, it was yet possible that it was ours, and that I thought I

could get nearer to it than I had been before, and speak to the men

without great danger. Truth is, that I had begun to fear sarcasm. What

if, to-morrow morning, we should see a line of gray pickets in our

front? Should I ever hear the last of it?

Again the lieutenant approved. He would have approved of anything. He

was a brave officer. I verily believe that if I had proposed an advance

of Company A up the hill, he would have approved, and would have led

the advance.

The company stood still, and I started again. I reached the place where

I had been before, and crawled on a few yards farther. Again the thought

came that there would have been some communicating between that line and

ours if that were Confederate. If they were our men, we had been in

their rear for three hours. Impossible to suppose that nobody in that

time should have come back to the rear. Clearly it was a Federal line,

and I was in its front. Then it occurred to me that it was possible they

had a man or two in the fence-row between me and their line. There could

be no need for that, yet the idea made me shiver. At every yard of my

progress I raised my head, and the black spots were larger--and not less

black. They were very silent and very motionless--the sombre

night-picture of skirmishers on extreme duty; whoever they were, they

felt strongly the presence of the enemy.

Ten yards in front, and ten feet to the right, I saw a post--a

gate-post, I supposed. There was no gate. This fence-row, along which I

was crawling, indicated a fence rotted down or removed. There had once

been a gate hanging to that post and closing against another post now

concealed by the bushes of the fence-row. I would crawl to that post out

there, and speak to the men in front. They would suppose that I was in

the fence-row, and, if they fired, would shoot into the bushes, while I

should be safe behind the post--such was my thought.

I reached the post. It was a hewn post of large size--post-oak, I

thought. I lay down behind it; I raised my head and looked. The black

spots were very near--perhaps thirty or forty yards in front. The line

stretched on to my right. I could not now see toward the left--through

the fence-row.

It was not necessary to speak very loud.