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.
I asked, "Whose picket is that?"
My voice sounded strangely tremulous.
There was no answer.
If they were Confederates, I was in their rear, and there would be no sense in their refusal to reply; some one would have said, "Come up and see!" or something. There was no movement. I could see that the black spots had become large objects; the moon was shining.
I must ask again.
I remember that at that moment I thought of our Captain--dead that day.
I spoke again, "Gentlemen, is that the picket of Ramseur's brigade?"
No answer.
Again I spoke, "Gentlemen, is that Ramseur's North Carolina brigade?"
Not a word.
It now seemed folly for me to remain. Who were these men? Certainly Federals. I was in imminent danger of being captured. Two or three men might rush forward and seize me before I could get to my feet. Yet, would not a line of our men out here be silent? They would be very near the enemy and would be very silent. But they would send a man back to make me stop talking. They were Yankees; but why did they not say something? or do something? Perhaps they were in doubt about me. I was so near their lines they could hardly believe me a Confederate. I half decided to slip away at once.
But I wished some conclusion to the matter. I wanted to satisfy the lieutenant and myself also.
Again I spoke, "Will you please tell me what brigade that is?"
A voice replied, "Our brigade!"
This reply, in my opinion, was distinctly Confederate. I had heard it frequently. It was an old thing. Often, when waiting for troops to pass, you would ask, "What regiment is that?" and some-would-be wag would say, "Our regiment."
I rose to my feet behind the post, but dropped again as quickly. Before I had stood erect the thought came that possibly the Yankees also had this old by-word. Then another thought--had the Yankees selected one man to reply to me? Had all but one been ordered to preserve silence, and was this one an expert chosen to entrap me? A man perhaps who knew something of the sayings in the Southern army?
Now, in an effort to bring things to a pass, I shouted loud, "What army do you belong to?"
Another voice shouted loud, "What army do you belong to?"
I had emphasized the word "army." He had emphasized the word "you."
Perhaps they thought I might be one of their own men, sent out in front and trying to return; but if that were the case, why did they not bid me come in? If they thought me a Confederate, very likely they thought I was trying to desert, and feeling my way through fear of falling into the hands of the wrong people.
I replied at once, "I am a rebel."
What it was that influenced me to use the word I do not know, unless it was that I thought that if they were our men I was safe, being in their rear, and that if they were Yankees they would at once accept the challenge. I wanted to end the matter.
They accepted.
A dozen voices shouted, "We are for the Union!" and half a dozen rifles cracked.
They must have fired into the fence-row. I heard no bullet--but then, no bullet can be heard at such a nearness.
I kept my post--flat on my face. It would not be best for me to rise and run. Perhaps I could get off by doing so, but I could manage better. I would remain quiet until they should think I had gone. Then I would crawl away.
Two or three minutes passed. I was making up my mind to start. Suddenly a gruff voice spoke. It was near me. It was in the fence-row. A Yankee had crept toward me. He said, at an ordinary pitch, but very gruffly, "Who are you, anyhow?"
If he is yet alive, these lines may inform him that I was Jones. It was my time to be silent. I feared that he would continue to come, but the next instant I knew that he was in doubt as to how many I was, and I stuck fast.
I heard nothing more. No doubt he had given it up--had gone back and reported that the enemy had disappeared from the immediate front.
Five minutes more, and I had picked up my gun and was walking back to our line. I struck it in front of Company C, whose men had been warned that I was out, but who now had to be restrained from firing on me. They had heard the voices up the hill, and bullets had whistled over them, and they had thought me a prisoner, so when they saw a man coming toward them they were itching to shoot.
We remained all night as we were, with a gap in the skirmish-line at the left of Pender's division.