THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG.
A mile south of the town is Cemetery Hill, the head and front of an
important ridge, running two miles farther south to Round Top,—the ridge
held by General Meade’s army during the great battles. The Rebels
attacked on three sides,—on the west, on the north, and on the east;
breaking their forces in vain upon this tremendous wedge, of which
Cemetery Hill may be considered the point. A portion of Ewell’s Corps
had passed through the town several days before, and neglected to secure
that very commanding position. Was it mere accident, or something more,
which thus gave the key to the country into our hands, and led the
invaders, alarmed by Meade’s vigorous pursuit, to fall back and fight
the decisive battle here?
With the old “hero” at my side pointing out the various points of
interest, I ascended Cemetery Hill. The view from the top is beautiful
and striking. On the north and east is spread a finely variegated farm
country; on the west, with woods and valleys and sunny slopes between,
rise the summits of the Blue Ridge.
It was a soft and peaceful summer day. There was scarce a sound to break
the stillness, save the shrill note of the locust, and the perpetual
click-click of the stone-cutters at work upon the granite headstones of
the soldiers’ cemetery. There was nothing to indicate to a stranger that
so tranquil a spot had ever been a scene of strife. We were walking in
the time-hallowed place of the dead, by whose side the martyr-soldiers
who fought so bravely and so well on those terrible first days of July,
slept as sweetly and securely as they.
“It don’t look here as it did after the battle,” said John Burns. “Sad
work was made with the tombstones. The ground was all covered with dead
horses, and broken wagons, and pieces of shells, and battered muskets,
and everything of that kind, not to speak of the heaps of dead.” But now
the tombstones have been replaced, the neat iron fences have been mostly
repaired, and scarcely a vestige of the fight remains. Only the
burial-places of the slain are there. _Thirty-five hundred and sixty
slaughtered Union soldiers lie on the field of Gettysburg._ This number
does not include those whose bodies have been claimed by friends and
removed.
The new cemetery, devoted to the patriot slain, and dedicated with
fitting ceremonies on the 19th of November, 1863, adjoins the old one.
In the centre is the spot reserved for the monument, the corner-stone of
which was laid on the 4th of July, 1865. The cemetery is semicircular,
in the form of an amphitheatre, except that the slope is reversed, the
monument occupying the highest place. The granite headstones resemble
rows of semicircular seats. Side by side, with two feet of ground
allotted to each, and with their heads towards the monument, rest the
three thousand five hundred and sixty. The name of each, when it could
be ascertained, together with the number of the company and regiment in
which he served, is lettered on the granite at his head. But the
barbarous practice of stripping such of our dead as fell into their
hands, in which the Rebels indulged here as elsewhere, rendered it
impossible to identify large numbers. The headstones of these are
lettered “Unknown.” At the time when I visited the cemetery, the
sections containing most of the unknown had not yet received their
headstones, and their resting-places were indicated by a forest of
stakes. I have seen few sadder sights.
The spectacle of so large a field crowded with the graves of the slain
brings home to the heart an overpowering sense of the horror and
wickedness of war. Yet, as I have said, not all our dead are here. None
of the Rebel dead are here. Not one of those who fell on other fields,
or died in hospitals and prisons in those States where the war was
chiefly waged,—not one out of those innumerable martyred hosts lies on
this pleasant hill. The bodies of once living and brave men, slowly
mouldering to dust in this sanctified soil, form but a small, a single
sheaf from that great recent harvest reaped by Death with the sickle of
war.
Once living and brave! How full of life, how full of unflinching courage
and fiery zeal they marched up hither to fight the great fight, and to
give their lives! And each man had his history; each soldier resting
here had his interests, his loves, his darling hopes, the same as you or
I. All were laid down with his life. It was no trifle to him: it was as
great a thing to him as it would be to you, thus to be cut off from all
things dear in this world, and to drop at once into a vague eternity.
Grown accustomed to the waste of life through years of war, we learn to
think too lightly of such sacrifices. “So many killed,”—with that brief
sentence we glide over the unimaginably fearful fact, and pass on to
other details. We indulge in pious commonplaces,—“They have gone to a
better world; they have their reward,” and the like. No doubt this is
true; if not, then life is a mockery, and hope a lie. But the future,
with all our faith, is vague and uncertain. It lies before us like one
of those unidentified heroes, hidden from sight, deep-buried,
mysterious, its headstone lettered “Unknown.” Will it ever rise? Through
trouble, toils, and privations,—not insensible to danger, but braving
it,—these men—and not these only, but the uncounted thousands
represented by these—confronted, for their country’s sake, that awful
uncertainty. Did they believe in your better world? Whether they did or
not, this world was a reality, and dear to them.
I looked into one of the trenches, in which workmen were laying
foundations for the headstones, and saw the ends of the coffins
protruding. It was silent and dark down there. Side by side the soldiers
slept, as side by side they fought. I chose out one coffin from among
the rest, and thought of him whose dust it contained,—your brother and
mine, although we never knew him. I thought of him as a child, tenderly
reared up—for this. I thought of his home, his heart-life:—
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
“Had he a father?
Had he a mother?
Had he a sister?
Had he a brother?
Or was there a nearer one
Still, and a dearer one
Yet, than all other?”
I could not know; in this world, none will ever know. He sleeps with the
undistinguishable multitude, and his headstone is lettered “Unknown.”
Eighteen loyal States are represented by the tenants of these graves.
New York has the greatest number,—upwards of eight hundred; Pennsylvania
comes next in order, having upwards of five hundred. Tall men from
Maine, young braves from Wisconsin, heroes from every State between, met
here to defend their country and their homes. Sons of Massachusetts
fought for Massachusetts on Pennsylvania soil. If they had not fought,
or if our armies had been annihilated here, the whole North would have
been at the mercy of Lee’s victorious legions. As Cemetery Hill was the
pivot on which turned the fortunes of the battle, so Gettysburg itself
was the pivot on which turned the destiny of the nation. Here the power
of aggressive treason culminated; and from that memorable Fourth of
July, when the Rebel invaders, beaten in the three days’ previous fight,
stole away down the valleys and behind the mountains on their
ignominious retreat,—from that day, signalized also by the fall of
Vicksburg in the West, it waned and waned, until it was swept from the
earth.
Cemetery Hill should be first visited by the tourist of the
battle-ground. Here a view of the entire field, and a clear
understanding of the military operations of the three days, are best
obtained. Looking north, away on your left lies Seminary Ridge, the
scene of the first day’s fight, in which the gallant Reynolds fell, and
from which our troops were driven back in confusion through the town by
overwhelming numbers in the afternoon. Farther south spread the
beautiful woods and vales that swarmed with Rebels on the second and
third day, and from which they made such desperate charges upon our
lines. On the right as you stand is Culp’s Hill, the scene of Ewell’s
furious but futile attempts to flank us there. You are in the focus of a
half-circle, from all points of which was poured in upon this now silent
hill such an artillery fire as has seldom been concentrated upon one
point of an open field in any of the great battles upon this planet.
From this spot extend your observations as you please.
Guided by the sturdy old man, I proceeded first to Culp’s Hill,
following a line of breastworks into the woods. Here are seen some of
the soldiers’ devices, hastily adopted for defence. A rude embankment of
stakes and logs and stones, covered with earth, forms the principal
work; aside from which you meet with little private breastworks, as it
were, consisting of rocks heaped up by the trunk of a tree, or beside a
larger rock, or across a cleft in the rocks, where some sharpshooter
stood and exercised his skill at his ease.
The woods are of oak chiefly, but with a liberal sprinkling of chestnut,
black-walnut, hickory, and other common forest-trees. Very beautiful
they were that day, with their great, silent trunks, all so friendly,
their clear vistas and sun-spotted spaces. Beneath reposed huge, sleepy
ledges and boulders, their broad backs covered with lichens and old
moss. A more fitting spot for a picnic, one would say, than for a
battle.
Yet here remain more astonishing evidences of fierce fighting than
anywhere else about Gettysburg. The trees in certain localities are all
scarred, disfigured, and literally dying or dead from their wounds. The
marks of balls in some of the trunks are countless. Here are limbs, and
yonder are whole tree-tops, cut off by shells. Many of these trees have
been hacked for lead, and chips containing bullets have been carried
away for relics.
Past the foot of the hill runs Rock Creek, a muddy, sluggish stream,
“great for eels,” said John Burns. Big boulders and blocks of stone lie
scattered along its bed. Its low shores are covered with thin grass,
shaded by the forest-trees. Plenty of Rebel knapsacks and haversacks lie
rotting upon the ground; and there are Rebel graves near by in the
woods. By these I was inclined to pause longer than John Burns thought
it worth the while. I felt a pity for these unhappy men, which he could
not understand. To him they were dead Rebels, and nothing more; and he
spoke with great disgust of an effort which had been made by certain
“Copperheads” of the town to have all the buried Rebels now scattered
about in the woods and fields gathered together in a cemetery near that
dedicated to our own dead.
“Yet consider, my friend,” I said, “though they were altogether in the
wrong, and their cause was infernal, these, too, were brave men; and,
under different circumstances, with no better hearts than they had, they
might have been lying in honored graves up yonder, instead of being
buried in heaps, like dead cattle, down here.”
Is there not a better future for these men also? The time will come when
we shall at least cease to hate them.
The cicada was singing, insects were humming in the air, crows were
cawing in the tree-tops, the sunshine slept on the boughs or nestled in
the beds of brown leaves on the ground,—all so pleasant and so pensive,
I could have passed the day there. But John reminded me that night was
approaching, and we returned to Gettysburg.
That evening I walked alone to Cemetery Hill, to see the sun set behind
the Blue Ridge. A quiet prevailed there still more profound than during
the day. The stone-cutters had finished their day’s work and gone home.
The katydids were singing, and the shrill, sad chirp of the crickets
welcomed the cool shades. The sun went down, and the stars came out and
shone upon the graves,—the same stars which were no doubt shining even
then upon many a vacant home and mourning heart left lonely by the
husbands, the fathers, the dear brothers and sons, who fell at
Gettysburg.
The next morning, according to agreement, I went to call on the old
hero. I found him living in the upper part of a little whitewashed
two-story house, on the corner of two streets west of the town. A flight
of wooden steps outside took me to his door. He was there to welcome me.
John Burns is a stoutish, slightly bent, hale old man, with a light-blue
eye, a long, aggressive nose, a firm-set mouth expressive of
determination of character, and a choleric temperament. His hair,
originally dark-brown, is considerably bleached with age; and his beard,
once sandy, covers his face (shaved once or twice a week) with a fine
crop of silver stubble. A short, massy kind of man; about five feet four
or five inches in height, I should judge. He was never measured but once
in his life. That was when he enlisted in the War of 1812. He was then
nineteen years old, and stood five feet in his shoes. “But I’ve growed a
heap since,” said John.
At my request he told his story.
On the morning of the first day’s fight he sent his wife away, telling
her that he would take care of the house. The firing was near by, over
Seminary Ridge. Soon a wounded soldier came into the town and stopped at
an old house on the opposite corner. Burns saw the poor fellow lay down
his musket, and the inspiration to go into the battle seems then first
to have seized him. He went over and demanded the gun.
“What are you going to do with it?” asked the soldier.
“I’m going to shoot some of the damned Rebels!” replied John.
He is not a swearing man, and the strong adjective is to be taken in a
strictly literal, not a profane, sense.
Having obtained the gun, he pushed out on the Chambersburg Pike, and was
soon in the thick of the skirmish.
“I wore a high-crowned hat and a long-tailed blue; and I was seventy
year old.”
The sight of so old a man, in such costume, rushing fearlessly forward
to get a shot in the very front of the battle, of course attracted
attention. He fought with the Seventh Wisconsin Regiment; the Colonel of
which ordered him back, and questioned him, and finally, seeing the old
man’s patriotic determination, gave him a good rifle in place of the
musket he had brought with him.
“Are you a good shot?”
“Tolerable good,” said John, who is an old fox-hunter.
“Do you see that Rebel riding yonder?”
“I do.”
“Can you fetch him?”
“I can try.”
The old man took deliberate aim and fired. He does not say he killed the
Rebel, but simply that his shot was cheered by the Wisconsin boys, and
that afterwards the horse the Rebel rode was seen galloping with an
empty saddle.
“That’s all I know about it.”
He fought until our forces were driven back in the afternoon. He had
already received two slight wounds, and a third one through the arm, to
which he paid little attention; “only the blood running down my hand
bothered me a heap.” Then, as he was slowly falling back with the rest,
he received a final shot through the leg. “Down I went, and the whole
Rebel army run over me.” Helpless, nearly bleeding to death from his
wounds, he lay upon the field all night. “About sun-up, next morning, I
crawled to a neighbor’s house, and found it full of wounded Rebels.” The
neighbor afterwards took him to his own house, which had also been
turned into a Rebel hospital. A Rebel surgeon dressed his wounds; and he
says he received decent treatment at the hands of the enemy, until a
Copperhead woman living opposite “told on him.”
“That’s the old man who said he was going out to shoot some of the
damned Rebels!”
Some officers came and questioned him, endeavoring to convict him of
bushwhacking. But the old man gave them little satisfaction. This was on
Friday, the third day of the battle; and he was alone with his wife in
the upper part of the house. The Rebels left; and soon after two shots
were fired. One bullet entered the window, passed over Burns’s head, and
penetrated the wall behind the lounge on which he was lying. The other
shot fell lower, passing through a door. Burns is certain that the
design was to assassinate him. That the shots were fired by the Rebels
there can be no doubt; and as they were fired from their own side,
towards the town, of which they held possession at the time, John’s
theory seems the true one. The hole in the window, and the bullet-marks
in the door and wall, remain.
Burns went with me over the ground where the first day’s fight took
place. He showed me the scene of his hot day’s work,—pointed out two
trees behind which he and one of the Wisconsin boys stood and “picked
off every Rebel that showed his head,” and the spot where he fell and
lay all night under the stars and dew.
This act of daring on the part of so aged a citizen, and his subsequent
sufferings from wounds, naturally called out a great deal of sympathy,
and caused him to be looked upon as a hero. But a hero, like a prophet,
has not all honor in his own country. There is a wide-spread, violent
prejudice against Burns among that class of the townspeople termed
“Copperheads.” The young men especially, who did not take their guns and
go into the fight as this old man did, but who ran, when running was
possible, in the opposite direction, dislike Burns; some averring that
he did not have a gun in his hand that day, but that he was wounded by
accident, happening to get between the two lines.
Of his going into the fight and _fighting_, there is no doubt whatever.
Of his bravery, amounting even to rashness, there can be no reasonable
question. He is a patriot of the most zealous sort; a hot, impulsive
man, who meant what he said when he started with the gun to go and shoot
some of the Rebels qualified with the strong adjective. A thoroughly
honest man, too, I think; although some of his remarks are to be taken
with considerable allowance. His temper causes him to form immoderate
opinions and to make strong statements. “_He always goes beyant_,” said
my landlord.
Burns is a sagacious observer of men and things, and makes occasionally
such shrewd remarks as this:
“Whenever you see the marks of shells and bullets on a house all covered
up, and painted and plastered over, that’s the house of a Rebel
sympathizer. But when you see them all preserved and kept in sight, as
something to be proud of, that’s the house of a true Union man!”
Well, whatever is said or thought of the old hero, he is _what he is_,
and has satisfaction in that, and not in other people’s opinions; for so
it must finally be with all. _Character_ is the one thing valuable.
_Reputation_, which is a mere shadow of the man, what his character is
_reputed_ to be, is, in the long run, of infinitely less importance.
I am happy to add that the old man has been awarded a pension.
The next day I mounted a hard-trotting horse and rode to Round Top. On
the way I stopped at the historical peach-orchard, known as Sherfy’s,
where Sickles’s Corps was repulsed, after a terrific conflict, on
Thursday, the second day of the battle. The peaches were green on the
trees then; but they were ripe now, and the branches were breaking down
with them. One of Mr. Sherfy’s girls—the youngest she told me—was in the
orchard. She had in her basket rareripes to sell. They were large and
juicy and sweet,—all the redder, no doubt, for the blood of the brave
that had drenched the sod. So calm and impassive is Nature, silently
turning all things to use. The carcass of a mule, or the godlike shape
of a warrior cut down in the hour of glory,—she knows no difference
between them, but straightway proceeds to convert both alike into new
forms of life and beauty.
Between fields made memorable by hard fighting I rode, eastward, and,
entering a pleasant wood, ascended Little Round Top. The eastern slope
of this rugged knob is covered with timber. The western side is steep,
and wild with rocks and bushes. Near by is the Devil’s Den, a dark
cavity in the rocks, interesting henceforth on account of the fight that
took place here for the possession of these heights. A photographic
view, taken the Sunday morning after the battle, shows eight dead Rebels
tumbled headlong, with their guns, among the rocks below the Den.
A little farther on is Round Top itself, a craggy tusk of the rock-jawed
earth pushed up there towards the azure. It is covered all over with
broken ledges, boulders, and fields of stones. Among these the
forest-trees have taken root,—thrifty Nature making the most of things
even here. The serene leafy tops of ancient oaks tower aloft in the
bluish-golden air. It is a natural fortress, which our boys strengthened
still further by throwing up the loose stones into handy breastworks.
Returning, I rode the whole length of the ridge held by our troops,
realizing more and more the importance of that extraordinary position.
It is like a shoe, of which Round Top represents the heel, and Cemetery
Hill the toe. Here all our forces were concentrated on Thursday and
Friday, within a space of two miles. Movements from one part to another
of this compact field could be made with celerity. Lee’s forces, on the
other hand, extended over a circle of seven miles or more around, in a
country where all their movements could be watched by us and
anticipated.
At a point well forward on the foot of this shoe, Meade had his
head-quarters. I tied my horse at the gate, and entered the little
square box of a house which enjoys that historical celebrity. It is
scarcely more than a hut, having but two little rooms on the
ground-floor, and I know not what narrow, low-roofed chambers above. Two
small girls, with brown German faces, were paring wormy apples under the
porch; and a round-shouldered, bareheaded, and barefooted woman, also
with a German face and a strong German accent, was drawing water at the
well. I asked her for drink, which she kindly gave me, and invited me
into the house.
The little box was whitewashed outside and in, except the floor and
ceilings and inside doors, which were neatly scoured. The woman sat down
to some mending, and entered freely into conversation. She was a widow,
and the mother of six children. The two girls cutting wormy apples at
the door were the youngest, and the only ones left to her. A son in the
army was expected home in a few days. She did not know how old her
children were; she did not know how old she was herself, “she was so
forgetful.”
She ran away at the time of the fight, but was sorry afterwards she did
not stay at home. “She lost a heap.” The house was robbed of almost
everything; “coverlids and sheets, and some of our own clo’es, all
carried away. They got about two ton of hay from me. I owed a little on
my land yit, and thought I’d put in two lots of wheat that year, and it
was all trampled down, and I didn’t git nothing from it. I had seven
pieces of meat yit, and them was all took. All I had when I got back was
jist a little bit of flour yit. The fences was all tore down, so that
there wa’n’t one standing, and the rails was burnt up. One shell come
into the house and knocked a bedstead all to pieces for me. One come in
under the roof and knocked out a rafter for me. The porch was all
knocked down. There was seventeen dead horses on my land. They burnt
five of ’em around my best peach-tree, and killed it; so I ha’n’t no
peaches this year. They broke down all my young apple-trees for me. The
dead horses sp’iled my spring, so I had to have my well dug.”
I inquired if she had ever got anything for the damage.
“Not much. I jist sold the bones of the dead horses. I couldn’t do it
till this year, for the meat hadn’t rotted off yit. I got fifty cents a
hundred. There was seven hundred and fifty pounds. You can reckon up
what they come to. That’s all I got.”
Not much, indeed!
This poor woman’s entire interest in the great battle was, I found,
centred in her own losses. What the country lost or gained, she did not
know nor care, never having once thought of that side of the question.
The town is full of similar reminiscences; and it is a subject which
everybody except the “Copperheads” likes to talk with you about. There
were heroic women here, too. On the evening of Wednesday, as our forces
were retreating, an exhausted Union soldier came to Mr. Culp’s house,
near Culp’s Hill, and said, as he sank down,—
“If I can’t have a drink of water, I must die.”
Mrs. Culp, who had taken refuge in the cellar,—for the house was now
between the two fires,—said,—
“I will go to the spring and get you some water.”
It was then nearly dark. As she was returning with the water, a bullet
whizzed past her. It was fired by a sharpshooter on our own side, who
had mistaken her for one of the advancing Rebels. Greatly frightened,
she hurried home, bringing the water safely. One poor soldier was made
eternally grateful by this courageous, womanly deed. A few days later
the sharpshooter came to the house and learned that it was a ministering
angel in the guise of a woman he had shot at. Great, also, must have
been his gratitude for the veil of darkness which caused him to miss his
aim.
Shortly after the battle, sad tales were told of the cruel inhospitality
shown to the wounded Union troops by the people of Gettysburg. Many of
these stories were doubtless true; but they were true only of the more
brutal of the Rebel sympathizers. The Union men threw open their hearts
and their houses to the wounded. One afternoon I met a soldier on
Cemetery Hill, who was in the battle; and who, being at Harrisburg for a
few days, had taken advantage of an excursion train to come over and
revisit the scene of that terrible experience. Getting into
conversation, we walked down the hill together. As we were approaching a
double house with high wooden steps, he pointed out the farther one, and
said,—
“Saturday morning, after the fight, I got a piece of bread at that
house. A man stood on the steps and gave each of our fellows a piece. We
were hungry as bears, and it was a godsend. I should like to see that
man and thank him.”
Just then the man himself appeared at the door. We went over, and I
introduced the soldier, who, with tears in his eyes, expressed his
gratitude for that act of Christian charity.
“Yes,” said the man, when reminded of the circumstance, “we did what we
could. We baked bread here night and day to give to every hungry soldier
who wanted it. We sent away our own children, to make room for the
wounded soldiers, and for days our house was a hospital.”
Instances of this kind are not few. Let them be remembered to the honor
of Gettysburg.
Of the magnitude of a battle fought so desperately during three days, by
armies numbering not far from two hundred thousand men, no adequate
conception can be formed. One or two facts may help to give a faint idea
of it. Mr. Culp’s meadow, below Cemetery Hill,—a lot of near twenty
acres,—was so thickly strown with Rebel dead, that Mr. Culp declared he
“could have walked across it without putting foot upon the ground.”
Upwards of three hundred Confederates were buried in that fair field in
one hole. On Mr. Gwynn’s farm, below Round Top, near five hundred sons
of the South lie promiscuously heaped in one huge sepulchre. Of the
quantities of iron, of the wagon-loads of arms, knapsacks, haversacks,
and clothing, which strewed the country, no estimate can be made.
Government set a guard over these, and for weeks officials were busy in
gathering together all the more valuable spoils. The harvest of bullets
was left for the citizens to glean. Many of the poorer people did a
thriving business picking up these missiles of death, and selling them
to dealers; two of whom alone sent to Baltimore fifty tons of lead
collected in this way from the battle-field.