Читать книгу In The Ranks: From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House - R. E. McBride - Страница 10

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April 29th we broke camp and proceeded to near Culpepper Court-house. Before leaving camp we sent our extra baggage, clothing, etc., to Washington, and, of course, never saw them again. During the night of May 3d we marched for the Rapidan, crossing at Germania Ford. The next evening we camped in order of battle near the Wilderness Tavern. The following morning the division moved out on a country road toward Robertson's Tavern. Passing through woods, we came to an open field, where line of battle was formed. The Bucktails were in front, skirmishing. We could see them on the ridge, and their occasional shouts and rapid firing showed that the battle had begun. For the first time I heard the whistle of the rifle ball, as a stray one now and then whistled over the line of battle. After waiting thus for some time, we moved back some distance, in the direction from which we had come. Here I spoke a few words with John Elliot, the last we ever exchanged. In the confusion which followed he was made prisoner, and died at Andersonville. Soon the noise of battle began to deepen in our front and at the right. Hurried orders were received; the line moved by the right flank, double-quick. The Seventh Regiment deployed and vanished into the woods, forward, and the Eleventh followed in line of battle. Moving on through the thick underbrush, the enemy was quickly encountered. Their first volley was deadly. A ball struck Boss. M'Cullough in the forehead. He fell dead, a portion of his shattered brain lodging on the arm of John Stanley, a boy of seventeen, who had come to us during the Spring. John shuddered, shook it from the sleeve of his blouse, raised his gun and began firing. Captain Jones, of Company A, White, of Company C, and many others, fell dead before this first volley. Soon it was discovered that the division was flanked. Our line was at right angles with the position in which the subsequent fighting took place. To crown all, the woods took fire, and soon the only problem that remained was to withdraw as quickly and safely as possible.

While this turmoil was progressing, to me so strange and bewildering, the surgeon, Dr. Lyon, came across me, and directed me to go to a certain point at the edge of the woods, east of the Wilderness Tavern, to help care for the wounded. Thither I made my way. As I passed on through the woods, I was soon out of reach of the bullets, which had been flying thick and fast. When I came to the open ground, I saw more clearly than ever the results of the battle, still going on in the woods beyond. The multitude of wounded and dying men crowded the road. Some were limping painfully along; others were being carried on stretchers, or helped along by comrades.

Reaching the designated place, I found the field tents erected, and all full of suffering men. I took charge of one in which were twenty-seven wounded, several amputations, and other bad cases. They lay with their heads toward the canvas, a narrow path being left between their feet. All that could be done for them was to give them food and water, bathe their wounds, and render any little service by which their sufferings might be mitigated. Their heroic patience astonished me. Men, torn and mangled, would utter no groan, nor give any vocal expression to the agonies which racked them, except sometimes when sleep or delirium found the overmastering will off guard.

Toward evening I learned that the regiment was just beyond the Wilderness tavern; and, getting relieved for a short time, I started to go to them, as I had the extra coffee of the mess. As I came in sight, they moved hurriedly away toward the right, where the battle was raging fiercely. It was useless to follow, and I began to retrace my steps. Pausing a moment on an elevated knoll, I gazed on the strange scene that spread out before me. From the right on the turnpike, a line, somewhat curved, extended a distance of three or four miles to the left. On the right the line was enveloped in woods, in which a terrific conflict was going on. Sedgwick's corps was standing between the army and disaster. In the center, on elevated ground, beyond some low woods, I could see a rebel line of battle, while the sharp fire of skirmishers in front showed that here the lines of blue and gray would soon smite together. Further toward the left, a line of blue extended along the edge of a narrow field, facing the woods just beyond, into which it poured incessant volleys, while the smoke that rose up from the woods showed that an active foe was there. Behind our line, flat on the ground, lay a second one. A tragedy, grandly, awfully sublime, was enacting before me. A hundred thousand men were grappling in deadly conflict. While I gazed the line of battle slackened its fire; the second one rose from the ground; then both swept forward across the field and into the woods beyond, bearing the enemy before them. For a few moments there was silence, and then the struggle was renewed as fiercely as ever. I returned to the field-tents to go on with my work of mercy among the suffering.

As night drew on the battle ceased, and the men lay down to sleep where they had fought, ready to renew the strife at the return of light. In the tents there, while the army beyond was resting, part of our nation's heroes continued the contest through the solemn hours of night. They fought with the giant Pain, and some of them went down into the dark valley, and close by the chill waters they faced the King of Terrors.

I slept none that night. As morning approached, I went to the edge of the little opening which had been cleared in the woods for the tents. While I stood here looking off toward the scene of yesterday's battle, the sound of a single rifle shot rang out on the air, then another and another, and then a deafening roar of musketry burst forth and raged along the whole line, continuing almost without interruption all day.

In the afternoon Lieutenant Boggs and David Steen were brought in wounded, the former by a rifle ball in the thigh, the latter severely bruised by a fragment of shell. He had been wounded at Gaines' Mill and Fredericksburg. After his return this time, I heard him say that he had come to have more dread of going into battle since he had been wounded so often. Still he never shrank from duty. He was killed the following August at Welden Railroad.

Here I saw the only instance of impatience on the part of a wounded man of which I have any recollection. A young fellow lay about the middle of the tent, wounded in the knee, a ball having cut the skin on one side without injuring the bone. His long legs were extended almost across the narrow path along which I was compelled to walk in passing from one to another. He was grumbling and complaining, demanding and receiving attentions in a gruff and uncivil manner. He would also mutter threatenings of what he would do should I hurt him in stepping over his crooked legs outstretched in my way. To all of this I paid no attention and signs of ill-nature continued. Finally, a bright young man opposite, whose leg was amputated at the thigh, raised himself on his elbow and proceeded to express his opinion of such conduct in language much more forcible than pious.

From this place we moved some distance to the left, where the tents were erected in an open field. Here an incident occurred which illustrates the false estimate placed upon the civilization of the North by the masses of the South. A wounded rebel, an intelligent-looking young man, was brought in from the field in an ambulance. We came with a stretcher to carry him into the tent. He looked at us with a frightened, helpless look, and asked:

"You won't hurt me, will you?"

I assured him we would be just as careful as possible. He seemed surprised to be treated with kindness, having been taught, evidently, that the Yankee invader was a barbarian. Removed to the tent, I examined his wound. A bullet had passed through the ankle joint, and the only remedy was amputation. He inquired how it was. It seemed hard to tell him that he must go through life maimed.

"That is a bad foot; but the surgeons will do the best they can for it. You may lose it." Some time after he was removed, I suppose to have his foot amputated, and I saw him no more.

The next move was to Spotsylvania. Grant had grappled with his enemy, intending to hold on "all Summer." The same spirit seemed to animate his army, from General Meade down to the latest recruit in the ranks. The lines of blue came out from the smoking underbrush of the Wilderness, their ranks torn and decimated, and closed in around the bristling batteries and rifle-pits of Spotsylvania with a relentless courage that was sublime.

Here the tents were pitched in a little, open lot, a house to the right as you faced the position where the fighting was in progress. The tents were not sufficient to contain the wounded, and they lay on the ground on the outside by thousands. Those long rows of suffering forms, gashed and mangled in every conceivable manner, told a dreadful tale of human wrath. That gallant division, the Reserves, had preserved their well-earned reputation for stubborn valor at a terrible cost. Their greatest loss was sustained in a single onset against the rebel position. The enemy was posted in strong rifle-pits, beyond a narrow strip of swamp. Orders were given to charge these works. The division moved forward. They had never failed in such an undertaking. Their charge had always pierced the enemy's line. This had been their record during three years of warfare. But men can not accomplish impossibilities. Baffled by the swamp, cut by the merciless fire that blazed out from the pits, they are driven back, rally, re-form and charge the second and third time, and then retire to the position from which they had come out.

The field-tents here were nearer the front than before. Bullets and an occasional shell whistled over us. My work was still the same, caring for the wounded, assisting the surgeon, or occasionally binding up a wound myself.

During the second day, while engaged at the farther end of the tent, I heard at the front a familiar voice. As soon as I was disengaged I went to the front end of the tent, eager to learn from whom the well-known voice proceeded. There lay a large, noble-looking young man, severely wounded in the thigh. He was conversing quietly with a wounded comrade by his side. Voice and face were as familiar as if heard and seen but yesterday. Puzzled and deeply interested, I did not speak, but proceeded to bathe his wound. While thus engaged, his eyes fell upon my face. Looking at me intently a moment, his face brightened, and he exclaimed:

"You are Rob M'Bride, aren't you?"

"Yes; and you are Billy Craig," was the immediate reply.

As soon as he pronounced my name, it all came to me in a moment. We had been school-mates at Courtney's School-house. He was then one of the "big boys," and I a lad of nine or ten. I had not seen him since. He was one of those large-hearted, royal souls, that could find pleasure in little acts of kindness, that bound me to him very closely. He bore his sufferings with heroic fortitude. When the time came to remove the wounded, and they were being hurried away in ambulances and rough army wagons, I went to Dr. Lyon and told him of the case. He went with me to an ambulance and ordered room reserved in it for him. I then had him carried to it, made him as comfortable as possible, bade him good-bye and God speed, and saw him no more on earth. He died from his wound some time in June.

May 11th, Lewis Grossman, of Company C, was brought in, terribly wounded by a shell. One arm and leg were crushed, and he was otherwise bruised. I did not see him until after the arm and leg were amputated. He was a young man of great physical endurance, or he would never have rallied from the shock. He was as pale as a corpse when first brought into the tent, but rallied in a little while, and was able to take some refreshment. When left to himself his mind wandered, and he would talk as if he were engaged in the quiet pursuits of peace. Unless prevented, he would remove the bandages from the stumps of his amputated limbs. When spoken to, however, he would refrain from this, and talk rationally of the present circumstances. Dr. Lyon finally told me to give my attention entirely to him. This I did until he was sent away. He told me how his wound was received. He was in front, skirmishing. He was in the road in front of a rebel battery, and in the act of loading his gun. Perceiving they were about to fire, he still delayed a moment, thinking to get in another shot before leaping to the shelter of a large tree that stood near. It was a costly delay.

The shell came screaming toward him, burst, and dashed him stunned and mangled to the ground. As he concluded this narrative, he added, with the utmost seriousness: "But they haven't made much off me, after all. I've peppered them in almost every battle the Potomac army has fought since the war began."

He got along finely, and there seemed every prospect of recovery. When some of the boys called on him at Washington, on their way home in June, he requested them to say nothing to his friends about the extent of his wounds. But from some cause—perhaps gangrene—he died August 3d, and is buried in the National Cemetery at Arlington.

Nearly opposite Lewis lay a young man of very fine face and attractive appearance. He was mortally wounded. Most of the time his sufferings were very great, but no earthly skill could bring any relief. As death drew on, his mind wandered. He was fighting his battles over again. He was not the poor, crushed mortality that lay here. His spirit was over yonder, where the cannon's sullen roar and the awful din of musketry, the cheers of the struggling combatants, told of a deadly strife. Sometimes he was distressed and troubled, sometimes exultant. Anon his face would light up with the strange fire of battle, and he would raise his arm and cheer. Once he said quite distinctly: "Here is a chance for a brave man." Later he became calm, and quietly fell asleep, to wake no more on earth till the great day of God.