PRISONER.
|WHEN I had delivered my orders, and just as I was returning to General
Vandever,” continues Harry, “the rebels made a charge upon our battery
and the infantry that supported it. This was about noon, or perhaps a
little later; I can't say exactly, as I was too much excited to make a
note of the time.
“It was n't a bayonet charge that they made, because they had no
bayonets to charge with. They charged with double-barreled shotguns,
loaded with ball and buckshot, and to judge by the result, the shotgun
in this way is a formidable weapon. They reserved their fire until they
were pretty close to our lines; then they delivered it at short range
and without taking any particular aim, relying on the scattering of the
balls and buckshot to give a deadly effect to the assault. They were met
with well-delivered volleys from our rifles and driven back, and they
left the ground strewed with their dead and wounded.
“Again they charged, after resting a little while, and again they met
with the same reception; but they managed to force us back a little.
Then there was another lull, but only a short one, and suddenly the shot
and shell rained along the whole length of our line. General Dodge was
forced back, and so was General Vandever. Many of our officers fell
and were carried to the hospitals in the rear, and many of our
brave soldiers were stretched on the ground. There was a melancholy
satisfaction in knowing that the enemy was losing heavily, but with his
advantage in numbers he could keep up the fight, if only his ammunition
held out, long after our whole force would be used up. General Carr sent
several times for reinforcements, but there were none to be sent to him.
General Curtis told him to 'persevere,' and so he did, and, fighting
whenever the enemy advanced, he continued all through the afternoon.
[Illustration: 219]
“'I must have three regiments and two batteries, before sunset and
darkness,' said the general, 'or I cannot hold on.'”
Just before one of the charges which the rebels made near Elkhorn
Tavern, General Vandever sent Jack with an order to Colonel Herron. On
came the rebels, and down went Jack's horse with a bullet through his
neck; another bullet grazed Jack's side, but only scratched the skin,
after tearing a great hole in his coat. At the same time Colonel
Herron's horse fell dead, a cannon-shot having gone clear through him,
and in the fall the colonel was severely hurt; a musket-ball struck his
leg, and between the fall and the wound he was unable to stand. Jack
rushed to his side to raise him, and as he did so the rebels closed
around them.
“Surrender!” said a tall fellow in a butternut coat and trousers, as he
flourished a shotgun and pointed it at Colonel Herron.
“There's nothing else to be done,” replied the colonel. “But you'll have
to help me to go along with you; I don't believe I can walk.”
“I 'll show you how to walk,” exclaimed the fellow. What he proposed to
do will be forever unknown, as just then an officer came up and received
the colonel's surrender. He ordered two men to assist him to the rear,
and then went on to look after the fighting that was raging in front.
Jack's presence had not been specially observed, as both soldier and
officer had been attracted to the advantage of securing the captured
colonel. Jack was meditating on the possibility of slipping through the
lines somehow and getting to his friends, when he thought of the wounded
colonel and the possibility of assisting him.
“It 'll be a hard time for Colonel Herron, wounded and a prisoner,” said
Jack to himself, “and it 'll be mighty risky for me to try to run back
through the lines. I might be shot by my own friends, and that I should
n't like.”
Whether he meant by this that he had no objections to being shot by the
enemy we will not undertake to say, but certain it is that he was not
unlike others in being specially averse to being shot by mistake. One of
the bitterest reflections that has ever been made by the southern people
on the death of Stonewall Jackson is, that he was killed by his own men,
who mistook him and his escort for a scouting party of the enemy.
Jack had hastily made up his mind to stay by the colonel, when he was
rudely taken in charge by one of the rebel soldiers and ordered to march
along with him. He asked to be allowed to remain with Colonel Herron. At
first the request was refused, but on the latter giving his parole not
to attempt to escape, and vouching that Jack would do the same, he was
permitted to accompany the officer to whom he was so much attached.
They were sent to the rear, but for some minutes were not out of danger,
as the cannon-shot from their own lines were crashing through the trees
or plowing up the ground in their vicinity. A limb cut from a tree by
one of these shots fell close to Jack, and some of the twigs brushed
him in their descent; had the limb fallen upon him the result might
have been serious. Not six feet from where he was standing at one time a
falling branch killed a Confederate soldier and severely wounded two
or three others. A company of cavalry was completely broken up by
an exploding shell, the horses taking alarm and becoming utterly
uncontrollable. In spite of the efforts of their riders to restrain
them they ran away, and the men were violently thrown to the ground or
brushed off among the trees.
We may remark here that owing to the wooded nature of the ground where
the battle of Pea Ridge was fought, the cavalry on both sides were of
comparatively little use. Among the brushwood and trees that spread over
that region it was impossible to preserve the formation of the lines
sufficiently to make a charge with any effect, except in a very few
instances. Then, too, where the artillery was firing, the crashing
of the shot and shell among the trees and the falling of the limbs
frightened the horses, as we have just seen, and rendered them
worse than useless. The cavalry was unable to accomplish anything of
consequence, through no fault of the men, but owing to the nature of
the country, and in several instances the runaway horses demoralized the
infantry by dashing through the lines at inopportune moments.
The history of warfare in all ages abounds in accounts of panic created
by runaway animals on the battlefield. Frightened elephants and horses
caused the loss of battles by the Greeks, Romans and other warriors of
antiquity, long before the invention of gunpowder. Since its discovery
and use the instances of its panic-producing qualities are numerous. So
much is this the case that the elephant among the Eastern nations has
been almost entirely discarded on the battlefield, and is now only used
in war for the more prosaic purposes of a beast of burden. With the
increased range of artillery and small-arms in the past forty years the
horse is gradually diminishing in importance as a fighting animal,
and cavalry is chiefly useful nowadays for scouting purposes and for
pursuing a demoralized enemy in retreat.
We will leave the two captives in the hands of their captors and return
to Harry, whom we left with General Vandever.
The Ninth Iowa was getting out of ammunition, and the general sent
Harry to order up a fresh supply. Away he rode to the rear, where the
ammunition-wagons were stationed, and very quickly hunted up the one
that he wanted and sent it forward. He not only sent but accompanied it,
partly in order to show the road and partly to make sure that the driver
did not turn aside on the way and seek a place of greater safety than
where the shot and shell were falling. The driver was a brave fellow,
however, and energetically lashed his team to keep up with the galloping
youth in front of him.
By the time they reached the fighting line the regiment had again fallen
back, leaving Elkhorn Tavern in the hands of the enemy. Not only did
Harry bring the ammunition, which was speedily distributed, but he
brought a message from General Curtis to General Carr that he was about
to be reinforced.
“General Asboth has just returned from pursuing the rebels on the left,”
said Harry, “and is coming with two regiments and a battery to support
you.”
The word ran along the line like wildfire, and the men cheered heartily.
Again the rebels came on in great force, and again they were met by a
withering fire, and also by a bayonet charge by the infantry of both
brigades of Carr's division.
But the rebels were as brave as the men they were facing, and before the
reinforcements could reach the sorely-pressed division there was another
charge, which forced the union line back across a series of open fields
to the edge of a wood, which gave it the same sort of shelter the rebels
had enjoyed during the greater part of the day. The union forces had the
advantage now, as the enemy was obliged to make its charges across the
fields, which could be raked with the artillery and small-arms with
destructive effect.
“We've got'em now,” said General Vandever, turning to one of his
officers; “and here we'll stick till night comes to stop the fighting.
Sunset will come in an hour, and we can easily hold the position till
then.”
His prediction was verified. The only attack made by the rebels on the
last position was easily repulsed, and then the sun dipped below the
horizon and the battle was over for the day.
The hostile forces lay within a thousand feet or so of each other all
through the night, neither party daring to light a fire anywhere along
its front, for fear of revealing its whereabouts. The air was still,
and conversation was carried on in whispers, for fear of scouts creeping
close up to the lines and overhearing what was said. The weary men lay
down where they were, and sought the sleep they so much needed after the
long day's fighting. As for the generals and other officers few of them
closed an eye during the long night, as they were occupied with plans
and preparations for the morrow.
In all the camp there was no one more active than our young friend
Harry. He sadly missed the companionship of Jack, but having learned
from a prisoner taken in the last charge and repulse of the rebels that
his friend was uninjured and with Colonel Herron, he rejoiced, on the
whole, at the situation. “He 'll be useful to the colonel, and perhaps
it's all for the best that he's a prisoner just now,” was his soliloquy
as he turned to General Vandever and asked if he had any orders.
“Yes,” answered the general. “Go to camp and order up some coffee, bread
and meat for the men, and send along their blankets and overcoats. We'll
stay right here through the night, and be ready for what comes in the
morning.”
Away went Harry with the order. When he reached the camp he found the
order had been anticipated, as the camp-guard and wagon-drivers had a
good supper ready, as good as the army rations afforded, and in less
than fifteen minutes it was loaded into wagons, where the overcoats and
blankets already were piled, and dispatched to the front.