From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign Part 9

It was still early in the morning, about five or six o'clock, and, as yet, all was quiet in our front; we hadn't even seen a Federal soldier.

Suddenly! out of the woods to our right, just about five hundred yards in front, appeared the heads of three heavy blue columns, about fifty yards apart, marching across the open field toward our left. Here was impudence! Infantry trying to cross our front! _That's_ the way it seemed to strike our fellows. I don't know whether they knew our guns were there, but we took it for an insult, and it was with a great deal of personal feeling, we instantly jumped to our guns and loaded with case-shot. Lieutenant Anderson said, "Wait till they get half way across the field. You'll have more chance at them before they can get back into those woods." We waited, and soon they were stretched out to the middle of the field. It was a beautiful mark! Three, heavy well closed up columns, fifty yards apart, on ground gently sloped upward from us, lovely for ricochet shots,--with their flanks to us, and in easy range.

Dan McCarthy went up to Ned Stine, our acting gunner, who was very deaf, and yelled in his ear, loud enough for the Federals to hear, "Ned, aim at the nearest column, the ricochet pieces of sh.e.l.l will strike the columns beyond." "All right," he bawled back, with his head on one side, "sighting" the gun. "I've got sight on that column, now. Ain't it time to shoot?" This instant Anderson sung out, "Section commence firing! and get in as many shots as you can before they get away." "Yes," shouted Dan, "Fire!" "Eh?" said Ned, putting his hand up to his ear, "What did you say?" "I said Fire! you deaf old fool--Fire!" the last, in a tone calculated for a mile and a half. This fetched him. Ned threw up his hands (the gunner's signal to fire) and we let drive. All Ned wanted was a start, he was only slow in hearing. He jumped in now, and we kept that gun blazing almost continuously. It was the first time Stine had acted gunner, and he did splendidly here, and until Dibbrell, our gunner, got back.

Our first shot struck right in the nearest column, and burst, and we instantly saw a line opened through all three columns, and a great deal of confusion. The shot from the "Third Piece" struck at another point, and burst, just right for effect. I am sure not a single shot missed in that crowd, and we drove them in just as fast as we could. The columns were pretty badly broken, and in two minutes, they were rapidly crossing back into that woods, out of which they had come, and disappeared. The Texans were greatly pleased with this performance. Having nothing to do, as the enemy was out of effective rifle range, they stood around, and watched us work the guns, and noticed, with keen interest, the effect of our shots upon the blue columns, and they made the welkin ring, when the Federals turned to retire.

=Parrott's Reply to Napoleon's Twenty to Two=

In a minute or two we received notice of our work from another quarter.

That artillery, up there on the hill, beyond the woods, woke up. They got mad at our treatment of their infantry friends, furiously mad.

"Boom" went a loud report, over the way, and, the same instant, a savage shriek right over our heads, of a twenty pounder Parrott sh.e.l.l. Another followed, another, and another. They began to rain over. We could detect the sound of different sh.e.l.ls, three inch rifle, ten pounder Parrott, and twenty pounder Parrott.

Some fifteen or twenty guns joined in, and they hammered away most savagely. Most fortunately the treetops of that wood, out in our front, came up just high enough to conceal us from the enemy. They could see our smoke, and knew just _about_ our position, but they could not _exactly see us_, and correct their aim by the smoke of their sh.e.l.ls. So they could not get the _exact_ range. And that makes a great difference, in artillery firing, as it does in a great many other things. To know _just about_ and to know _exactly_, are two very different things in effect, and in satisfaction to the worker. If those people could have _seen_ our two guns, I suppose they could have smashed them both, and killed, or wounded every man of us, and their columns could have moved across our front, in peace, and accomplished this movement they were trying to get across them for, and about which they seemed very anxious.

As it was, neither man, nor gun, of ours, was touched, though it was hot as pepper all around there; and our guns stuck there a thorn in their sides, and broke up that movement altogether.

It seems that those columns were a part of Warren's Corps, and were trying to push into an interval between our Corps, and A. P. Hill's Corps, which, under command of General Jubal Early (Hill being very sick) began just on our left, our position being on the left of Longstreet's line, near its junction with Hill's. This infantry was pus.h.i.+ng across our front to get into that gap, and make it hot for "Old Jubal" over there in the woods. But, in order to get to that gap, they were forced to pa.s.s close to us, and across that open field.

Now, at once, to insult us, and to hurt our friends, was a move that we didn't at all approve, and were not going to stand. And as soon as we discovered the meaning of this move, we were very earnest to stop it.

Well! we had stopped it once, and driven back the Federal columns of attack. It remained to see what they were going to do about it. The Federal artillery thundered at us through the trees. We quietly sat and waited to see.

In about half an hour, (I suppose they thought we were pulverized by the fire their guns had been pouring upon us,) we saw those three infantry columns pouring out of the woods again, at a quick step. We manned the guns, and waited as before, till they reached the middle of the field.

Then we began to plow up the columns with shrapnel. This time some of our infantry tried and found it in range for their muskets and they adjusted their rifle sights and took careful aim, with a rest on the top of the works. Soon, the columns faltered, then stopped, then broke, and made good time back to their woods. We could see their officers trying to rally them, but they refused to hear "the voice of the charmer." Soon they disappeared!

Then the artillery began to pour in their sh.e.l.ls on us more furiously than ever! The air around us was kept in a blaze, and a roar of bursting sh.e.l.ls, and the ground, all about, was furrowed and torn. We quietly sat behind our works, and interchanged our individual observations on what had just taken place, and waited for further developments.

The two rifled pieces of our Battery, and the other rifled guns of our Battalion, "Cabells," had been laced in position, on a hill half a mile back of, and higher, than the low hill on which we were. The plan was for these long range guns to fire over our heads, at the enemy. We suspected that when that Federal infantry next tried to pa.s.s us, they would try to make a rush. So Lieutenant Anderson sent back to the other guns, calling attention to this probability, and suggesting that they should be on the lookout, and reinforce our fire, and try, also, to divert the Federal artillery, a little. We thought that with eight or ten rifled guns, added to the fire of ours, and what the infantry could do, we could sicken that Federal infantry of the effort to get by.

Presently we noticed the fire of the Federal guns increase in violence to a marked degree. At this savage outburst, Lieutenant Anderson said, "Boys, get to your guns, that infantry will try to get across under cover of this." We sprang to the guns, and sure enough, in a minute, those blue columns burst out of the woods at a double quick. "Open on them at once men. We can't let them get a start this time," shouted Anderson. Both guns instantly began to drive at the head of their columns.

The sound of our guns started our rifle guns on the hill behind. They opened furiously, and we could hear their sh.e.l.ls screeching over our heads, on into this enemy's columns. We did our best, and the Texans did what musket fire they could. The enemy still advanced at a run, but this storm was too much for them. Their columns were torn to pieces, were thrown into hopeless confusion. They had, by this time, gotten half way or more across the field, and they made a gallant effort to keep on, but torn and storm-beaten as they were, they could not stand. The crowd broke and parted. A few ran on across to the farther woods, and were captured by Hill's men. The rest, routed and scattered, ran madly back to the cover they had left. This gave them enough! They gave up the attempt, and tried it no more.

We thought that Hill's Corps "owed us one" for this job. We certainly saved them a lot of trouble by thus protecting their flank. They had to stand a heavy a.s.sault by Hanc.o.c.k's Corps, and had very hot work as it was. If these strong columns, that we were taking care of, had gotten into that gap, and taken them at disadvantage, they would have had a hard time, to say the least. Our work left them to deal with Hanc.o.c.k's Corps alone, which they did to their credit, and with entire success, as will appear.

That little scheme of our long-range guns on the hill behind, firing over our heads at the enemy acted very well, for a while. It came to have its very decided inconvenience to _us_, as well as to the enemy.

When the Federal infantry had retired, those guns turned their fire on the Federal artillery which was hammering us. They meant to divert their attention, and do us a good turn. They had better have left us to "the ills we had." Their line of fire, at that artillery, was exactly over our position. Very soon their sh.e.l.ls got tired travelling over, and began to stop _with us_. Our Confederate sh.e.l.ls were often very badly made, the weight in the conical sh.e.l.ls not well balanced. And so, very often, instead of going quietly, point foremost, like decent sh.e.l.ls, where they were _aimed_, they would get to _tumbling_, that is, going end over end, or "swappin' ends" as the Tar Heels used to describe it, and _then_, there was no telling _where_ they would go, except that they would _certainly go wrong_. And, they went very wrong, indeed, on this occasion, in our opinion.

The sound of a tumbling Parrott sh.e.l.l in full flight, is the most horrible noise that ever was heard!--a wild, venomous, fiendish scream, that makes every fellow, in half a mile of it, feel that it is looking for _him particularly_, and _certain_ that it's _going to get him_. I believe it would have made Julius Caesar, himself, "go for a tree," or want to, anyhow!

Well! these blood-curdlers came cras.h.i.+ng into us, from the rear, knocking up clouds of dirt, digging great holes, bursting, and raining fragments around us in the field. We were not firing, and had leisure to realize the fix we were in. With the enemy hotly sh.e.l.ling us from the front, and our friends from the rear, obliged to stay by our guns, expecting an infantry a.s.sault every minute, we certainly were in a pretty tight fix, "'Tween the devil and the deep sea."

It was the only time I ever saw Lieutenant Anderson excited under fire, but he was excited _now_, and mad too. He said to one of the fellows, "Go back under the hill, get on a horse, ride as hard as you can, and tell those men on the hill, what confounded work they are doing, and if they fire any more sh.e.l.ls, here, I will open on them immediately." In a few minutes it was stopped, with many regrets on the part of our friends.

=The Narrow Escape of an Entire Company=

In the midst of all this, an incident took place that created a great deal of amus.e.m.e.nt. Along the line, just back of and somewhat protected by the works, the Texans had pitched several of the little "shelter tents" we used to capture from the enemy, and found such a convenience.

One of these stood apart. It had a piece of cloth, b.u.t.toned on the back, and closing that end up to about eighteen inches from the top, leaving thus, a triangular hole just under the ridge pole. In this little tent sat four men, a captain and three privates, all that were left of a Company in this Texan Brigade. These fellows were playing "Seven-up"

and, despite the confusion around, were having a good time. Suddenly, one of the sh.e.l.ls from the hill behind, struck, tumbled over once or twice, and stopped, right in the mouth of that tent, the fuse still burning. The game stopped! The players were up, instantly. The next moment, one fellow came diving headforemost out of that triangular hole at the back, followed fast by the other three--the captain last. It only took "one time and one motion" to get out of that. Soon as they could pick themselves up, they, all four, jumped behind a tree that stood there; and then, the fuse went out, and the sh.e.l.l didn't burst.

Everybody had seen the sh.e.l.l fall, and were horror stricken at the apparently certain fate of those four men. Now, the absurdity of the scene struck us all, and there were shouts of laughter at their expense.

Despite their sudden, hasty retreat through that narrow hole everyone of the scamps had held on to his "hand," and they promptly kicked the sh.e.l.l aside, crawled into the tent again, and continued their little game; interrupted, however, by jokes from all sides. It was very funny! The smoking sh.e.l.l, in front, and those fellows shooting through that hole at the back, and alighting all in a heap, and then the scramble for that tree. As the sh.e.l.l went out, it was a roaring farce. If it hadn't, it would have been a tragedy. The Captain said that these three men were his whole company, and when that lighted sh.e.l.l struck, he thought that his company was "gone up" for good and all.

Such was about the size to which some of the companies of this Texan Brigade was reduced.

Well! after we got rid of those sh.e.l.ls from the rear we didn't so much mind the artillery fire from the front, which kept up more or less through the morning.

What with the wet, cheerless weather, and the mental discomfort of staying in a place where they were "shooting cannons" at us, and other kind of shooting might soon be expected, two of our men got sick, and went back to the position of our guns on the hill in the rear. The Captain appealed to them to go back, but their health was bad, and they didn't think the place where we were, _a health resort_. So Captain McCarthy called for volunteers to take their places, and instantly John W. Page, and George B. Harrison, of the First Detachment, offered, and came over to us.

=Successive Attacks by Federal Infantry=

Up to this time we had seen no infantry since their columns had tried to cross our front. No attack had been made on us and all seemed quiet out in front, except that artillery. But, out of our sight, over behind the woods, the enemy was conspiring to break up our quiet in the most decided manner. About ten o'clock we suddenly caught sight of a confused appearance down through the woods on our right front. It quickly defined itself as a line of battle, rapidly advancing. Our pickets fired upon it, then ran back over the works into our line. The Texans sprang into rank, we jumped to our guns, and sent a case-shot tearing down through the woods. Next instant, the Federal line dashed, cheering, out of the edge of the woods, and came charging at us. As they dashed out, they were met by a furious storm of bullets, and cannister, which at two hundred yards tore their ranks. They got about a hundred yards under that fire, then began to falter, then stopped, tried to stand for a moment, then with their battle line shot all to pieces, they turned and broke for the woods in headlong rout. We did our best to help them along, shooting at them with case-shot as long as we could catch any glimpse of them, moving back through the trees. Then that Federal artillery got savage again. We lay low and waited for some more infantry.

Very soon, here they came again! another line charging on, only to meet the same fate; shattered lines, hapless disorder, b.l.o.o.d.y repulse, and rapid retreat. Several times they tried to reach our lines, and every time failed, then gave it up for the time.

These various a.s.saults took up the time, I should say from ten-thirty to twelve o'clock. When they were over, the field, and wood in front of us displayed a most dreadful scene. The field was thickly strewn with the dead, and wounded. And just along the edge of the wood, where the advancing lines generally first met our full fire, in the several a.s.saults, the dead lay so thick and in such regular order, that it looked to us like a line of battle, lying down. And the poor wounded fellows lying thickly about! It was frightful to see and to hear them.

It was a b.l.o.o.d.y business, their oft-repeated effort to take our line.

Their loss was very severe, ours was almost nothing. The Texan Brigade in all their a.s.saults had several wounded, none killed; at our guns not a man was hurt.

One thing that struck me in that fighting was the utter coolness of the Texan infantry. I watched the soldier next to my gun, and can never forget his bearing. The whizzing bullets, the heavy storming columns pouring upon us, the yells and cries of the combatants were enough to excite anybody, but this fellow was just as easy and deliberate as if he had been shooting at a mark. He would drop the b.u.t.t of his musket on the ground and ram down a cartridge, raise the piece to his hip, put on a cap, c.o.c.k the hammer, and then, slowly draw the gun up to his eye, and shoot. I really don't think that Texan fired a shot that day until the sight on his gun covered a Federal soldier, and I think it likely he hit a man every time he shot. It was this sort of shooting that made the carnage in front so terrible.

And what a confident lot they were! After one or two of these lines had been repulsed, as the enemy were advancing again, you could hear the men in the line calling one to another, "Say, boys, don't shoot so quick this time! Let them get up closer. Too many of them get away, when you start so soon." Truly they were the unterrified! Our line was so thin; those storming lines of blue as they came storming on seemed _heavy_ enough to roll over us like a tidal wave. Yet it never seemed to occur to these fellows that they might be run over. Their only thought was to "let them get up closer next time." Their only concern was that "too many of them were getting away." Good men, they were, to hold a line!

_At last_, this furious attempt, by Warren and Hanc.o.c.k, to force our position ceased. And as we saw, out in front, the heavy losses of the enemy, and still had every one of our men ready for duty, we thought "_we_ could stand this sort of thing, if _they_ could, and just as long as they chose to keep on." They lost in dead and wounded about twelve hundred men to about four of ours. Certainly, we could stand it! So we piled some more canister in front of our guns, and watched to see what they would do next.

The long hours crept on until three o'clock,--when the warming up of the Federal artillery fire warned us of another attack. Soon came another stubborn a.s.sault by Warren's Corps. Same result. Line after line pushed out from the woods, only to be hurled back, bleeding and torn, leaving on the field large additions to the sad load of dead, and wounded, with which it was already enc.u.mbered. They effected nothing! Very little loss to us, heavy loss to them. We were using double shot of canister nearly every time, on ma.s.ses of men at short range; the infantry fire was rapid and deadly. Our fire soon swept the front clear of the enemy. We piled up more canister, and waited again.

There was now an interval of comparative quiet. We could walk around, and talk, and look about us, a little. Now and then a bullet struck the ground close to us, and presently one of the infantry was struck slightly. It was plain that a concealed sharp-shooter had our range, and we began to watch for him. Soon one of us caught a glimpse of him; he was up a tree some distance out in front, and he would cautiously edge around the trunk and fire, dodging back behind the trunk to load again.

One of the Texans went over the works, and stole from stump to stump off toward the left, and for some time was out of our sight. Presently, we saw that sharp-shooter slyly stealing around the tree, and raise his rifle. The next instant, we saw a puff of smoke from a bush, off to the left, and that sharp-shooter came plunging down, headforemost out of the tree, dead as Hector. Our man had crept round so that when the Federal slid around the tree, he exposed his body, and the Texan shot him.

Robert Stiles, the Adjutant of the Battalion, who had been, until lately, a member of our Battery, and was very devoted to it, and his comrades in it, had come to the lines to see how we were getting on, and gave us news of other parts of the line. He, Beau Barnes, and others of us were standing by our guns, talking, when a twenty pounder Parrott sh.e.l.l came grazing just over our guns, pa.s.sed on, and about forty yards behind us struck a pine tree, about two and a half to three feet in diameter. The sh.e.l.l had turned. It struck that big tree sideways, and cut it entirely off, and threw it from the stump. It fell in an upright position, struck the ground, stood, for an instant, and then, came cras.h.i.+ng down. It was a very creepy suggestion of what that sh.e.l.l might have done to one of us. A few moments after another struck the ground right by us and ricochetted. After it pa.s.sed us, as was frequently the case, we caught sight of it, and followed its upward flight until it seemed to be going straight up to the sky. Stiles said "There it goes as though flung by the hand of a giant." Beau Barnes, who was _not_ poetical, exclaimed, "Giant be darned; there ain't any giant can fling 'em like that." He was right!

Strange how the most trivial incidents keep their place in the memory, along with the great events, amidst which they occurred! I remember the fall of that tree, and the remark about that sh.e.l.l, and a small piece of pork which an Arkansas soldier gave me, and which, in jumping to the guns, I dropped into a mudhole, and never found again, though I fished for it diligently in the muddy water, and a _pig_, which was calmly rooting around near our guns, under fire, and which we watched, hoping he would be hit, so that we could get his meat, before the infantry did, to satisfy our wolfish hunger, just as distinctly as the several fierce battles which were fought that day.

About five o'clock the Federal guns on the hill in our front broke out again into a furious fire. It was a warning! We knew it meant that the infantry were about to charge again. We got to our guns, and the Texans stood to their arms. It seems that the balance of Hanc.o.c.k's Corps had got up, and now, with Warren's, and part of Sedgwick's Corps, formed in our front, Grant was going to make the supreme effort of the day, to break our line.

_What we saw_ was that far down in the woods, heavy columns of men were moving; the woods seemed to be full of them. The pickets, and our guns opened on them at once. The next moment they appeared, three heavy lines one close behind the other. As they reached the edge of the woods, our lines were blazing with fire. But on they came! The first line was cut to pieces, only to have its place taken by the next, and then, the next.

Closer and closer to our guns they pressed their b.l.o.o.d.y way, until they were within fifty yards of us. Heavens! how those men did strive, and strain to make their way against that tempest of bullets and canister!

It was too much for man to do! They stopped and stayed there, and fired and shouted, under our withering fire. The carnage was fearful. Their men were being butchered! Their lines had all fallen into utter confusion. They could not come on! Despair suddenly seized them! The next moment a panic stricken cloud of fugitives was fast vanis.h.i.+ng from our view, and the ground over which they had charged was blue with corpses, and red with blood.

=Eggleston's Heroic Death=

Just here, we of the "Howitzer" suffered our first, and only, loss in this day's fighting. Cary Eggleston, "No. 1" at third gun, had his arm shattered, and almost cut away from his body, by a fragment of sh.e.l.l. He quietly handed his rammer to John Ayres, who that instant came up to the gun, and said, "Here Johnny, you take it and go ahead!" Then, gripping his arm with his other hand, partly to stop the fast flowing blood, he turned to his comrades, and said in his jocular way, "Boys, I can never handle a sponge-staff any more. I reckon I'll have to go to teaching school." Then he stood a while, looking at the men working the gun. They urged him to go to the rear; he would not for a while. When he consented to go, they wanted to send a man with him, but he refused, and walked off by himself. As he pa.s.sed back an infantry officer, seeing what an awful wound he had, and the streaming blood, insisted that one of the men should go and help him to the hospital. "No," he said; "I'm all right, and you haven't got any men to spare from here." So, holding his own arm, and compressing the artery with his thumb, he got to the hospital.

His arm was amputated, and a few days after, as the battery pa.s.sed through Spottsylvania Court House, we went by the Court House building, used as a hospital, where he lay on the floor, and bade him "good-bye."

He was just as cheerful, and bright, as ever, and full of eager interest in all that was going on. Said "Since he had time to think about it, he believed he _could_ handle a sponge-staff _with one hand_; was going to practice it soon as he could get up, and would be back at his post _before long_." The next day, the brave young fellow died. The "Howitzers" will always remember him tenderly. No braver, cooler warrior ever lived! Always bright, full of fun in camp, and on the march, he was at the gun in action, the best "No. 1" I ever saw. One of the few men I ever knew who really seemed to enjoy a fight. His bearing, when he was wounded, was simply _heroic_. No wounded knight ever pa.s.sed off his last battlefield in n.o.bler sort. All honor to his memory!

John Ayres, the fellow to whom Cary Eggleston handed his rammer, was at his home in Buckingham County, Virginia, on furlough, when we started on the campaign. Off in the remote country, he didn't hear of our movements for several days. The moment he heard it, off he started, walked thirteen miles to the James River Ca.n.a.l boat; got to Richmond, came up to Louisa County on the Central Railroad, got off and walked twenty-three miles across country, guided by the sound of the battle, and reached his gun just in time to take Eggleston's place as "No. 1"

and finish the fight.

When the enemy had thus broken in such utter rout, and with such fearful losses, we did hope they would let us alone, for this day at least. We were wet, and hungry, and nearly worn out working the gun, off and on all day, and it was late in the afternoon. For an hour or more things were quiet; the woods in front seemed deserted and still; the Texans were lying stretched out on the ground, all along the line; many of them asleep. We cannoneers were wearily sitting about the guns, wis.h.i.+ng to gracious we had something to eat, and could go to bed, even if the _bed were_ only one blanket, on the wet ground.