THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS—INCIDENTS AND SCENES ON THE BATTLEFIELD
These encounters were the preludes to the great battle for which both sides were preparing, almost two days having already been spent in maneuvering and feeling each other's lines. The afternoon, however, passed quietly with no further collisions worthy of mention. The following day, Saturday, was full of excitement. It was the third and last of this protracted battle, and the last for many a brave soldier in both armies.
The shifting of troops began early, our battery changing position several times during the forenoon. Neither army had buried its dead of the first day's battle. We held the ground on which were strewn the corpses of both Blue and Gray, in some places lying side by side. The hot August sun had parched the grass to a crisp, and it was frequently ignited by bursting shells. In this way the clothes of the dead were sometimes burned off, and the bodies partially roasted! Such spectacles made little or no impression at the time, and we moved to and fro over the field, scarcely heeding them.
About two o'clock we were ordered some distance forward, to fire on a battery posted on a low ridge near a piece of woods. By skirting along a body of woods on our left, and screened by it, we came out in full view of this battery and on its right flank. My gun, being in front and the first seen by them, attracted their whole fire; but most of their shells passed over our heads and burst among the guns in our rear and among the trees. None of us was hurt, and in a few minutes all four of our guns were unlimbered and opened on them most vigorously. In five or six rounds their guns ceased firing and were drawn by hand from the crest of the ridge entirely out of view and range.
As we stood by our guns, highly satisfied with our prowess, General Jackson came riding up to the first detachment and said, "That was handsomely done, very handsomely done," then passed on to the other detachments and to each one addressed some complimentary remark. In half an hour we were again at our rendezvous, the haystack, and he at his headquarters, and all quiet. But this time it was the calm before the real storm.
Across the open plains on which we stood, and some three hundred yards distant from us, was an extensive body of woods in which Longstreet's corps had quietly formed in line of battle. In front of this was open ground, sloping gently for one-fourth of a mile, and on its crest the enemy's line of battle. To our left another large body of woods extended toward our front, and concealed the movements of both armies from view in that direction. General Jackson had dismounted from his horse and was sitting on the rail-fence, and ours and one or two other batteries were in bivouac close by, and all as calm and peaceful as if the armies were in their respective winter quarters, when a roar and crash of musketry that was almost deafening burst forth in the woods in our immediate front, and a shower of Minie-bullets whistled through the air, striking here and there about us. Instantly everything was astir, with an occasional lamentation or cry of pain from some wounded man. General Jackson mounted his horse hurriedly. The fighting soon became general throughout the lines, in portions of it terrific. General Pope, after two days of preparation, had advanced his lines and made the attack instead of receiving it, as our lines were on the eve of advancing.
A projected but uncompleted railroad, with alternating cuts and embankments, afforded a splendid line of defense to our infantry on the left. The most continued and persistent fighting was where it began, on that portion of the line held by Jackson's old division. In the course of an hour the attack was repulsed and a counter-charge made, but, judging from the number of dead the enemy left on the field, and the rapidity of their pursuit, the Confederates met with but little resistance thereafter.
An attack had been made on Longstreet's corps at the same time, which met with the same ill success, and was followed by a counter-charge. I remember our noticing the high range of hills in front of Longstreet, completely commanding, as it did, the intervening ground, and some one remarking, while the charge was in progress, that it seemed impossible to carry it. But the reserves who occupied this high ground made but little resistance, and, joining those who had been repulsed, all fled hurriedly from the field. As soon as the retreat of the Federal army began, active participation in the battle by the artillery ceased. We joined in the pursuit, which was brought to a close soon after it began by approaching night.
In crossing a field in the pursuit, a short distance from our gun, I passed near a young infantryman lying entirely alone, with his thigh-bone broken by a Minie-bullet. He was in great distress of mind and body, and asked me most pleadingly to render him some assistance. If I could do nothing else, he begged that I should find his brother, who belonged to Johnston's battery, of Bedford County, Virginia. I told him I could not leave my gun, etc., which gave him little comfort; but he told me his name, which was Ferguson, and where his home was. Fortunately, however, I happened on Johnston's battery soon after, and sent his brother to him. I heard nothing further of him until five years later—two years after the war—when I was on a visit to some relatives in Bedford County. As we started to church in Liberty one Sunday morning I recalled the incident and mentioned it to my aunt's family, and was informed that Ferguson was still alive, had been very recently married, and that I would probably see him that morning at church. And, sure enough, I was scarcely seated in church when he came limping in and took a seat near me. I recognized him at once, but, fearing he had not forgotten what he felt was cruel indifference in his desperate situation, did not renew our acquaintance.
W. S. McClintic
After parting with him on the battlefield and overtaking my gun, our route for a time was through the enemy's dead and wounded of the battle which took place two days before, who had been lying between the two armies, exposed to the hot sun since that time. While taking a more direct route, as the battery was winding around an ascent, my attention was called to a Federal soldier of enormous size lying on the ground. His head was almost as large as a half-bushel and his face a dark-blue color. I supposed, as a matter of course, that he was dead, and considered him a curiosity even as a dead man. But, while standing near him, wondering at the size of the monster, he began to move, and turned as if about to rise to his feet. Thinking he might succeed, I hurried on and joined my gun.
Here we had a good opportunity of observing the marked and striking difference between the Federals and Confederates who remained unburied for twenty-four hours or more after being killed. While the Confederates underwent no perceptible change in color or otherwise, the Federals, on the contrary, became much swollen and discolored. This was, of course, attributable to the difference in their food and drink. And while some Confederates, no doubt for want of sufficient food, fell by the wayside on the march, the great majority of them, owing to their simple fare, could endure, and unquestionably did endure, more hardship than the Federals who were overfed and accustomed to regular and full rations.
Our following in the pursuit was a mere form, as the enemy had been driven by our infantry from all of their formidable positions, and night, as usual in such cases, had put a stop to further pursuit. As we countermarched, to find a suitable camping-ground, great care had to be taken in the darkness to avoid driving over the enemy's wounded who lay along the course of our route. I remember one of them especially, in a narrow place, was very grateful to me for standing near him and cautioning the drivers as they passed by.
On the next day, Sunday, August 31, after three days of occupation such as I have described, we were not averse to a Sabbath-day's rest, which also gave us the opportunity of reviewing at leisure the events and results of our experience, and going over other portions of the battlefield. Looking to the right front, spread out in full view, was the sloping ground over which Longstreet had fought and driven his antagonists. The extensive area presented the appearance of an immense flower-garden, the prevailing blue thickly dotted with red, the color of the Federal Zouave uniform. In front of the railroad-cut, and not more than fifty yards from it, where Jackson's old division had been attacked, at least three-fourths of the men who made the charge had been killed, and lay in line as they had fallen. I looked over and examined the ground carefully, and was confident that I could have walked a quarter of a mile in almost a straight line on their dead bodies without putting a foot on the ground. By such evidences as this, our minds had been entirely disabused of the idea that "the Northerners would not fight."
It was near this scene of carnage that I also saw two hundred or more citizens whose credulity under General Pope's assurance had brought them from Washington and other cities to see "Jackson bagged," and enjoy a gala day. They were now under guard, as prisoners, and responded promptly to the authority of those who marched them by at a lively pace. This sample of gentlemen of leisure gave an idea of the material the North had in reserve, to be utilized, if need be, in future.
During the three days—28th, 29th and 30th—the official reports give the Federal losses as 30,000, the Confederates as 8,000. On each of these days our town of Lexington had lost one of her most promising young men—Henry R. Payne, of our battery; Hugh White, captain of the College company, and Willie Preston, a private in the same company, a noble young fellow who had had the fortitude and moral courage, at the request of President Junkin, to pull down the palmetto flag hoisted by the students over Washington College. We remained about Manassas only long enough for the dead to be buried.
The suffering of the wounded for want of attention, bad enough at best, in this case must have been extraordinary. The aggregate of wounded of the two armies, Confederate and Federal, exceeded 15,000 in number. The surrounding country had been devastated by war until it was practically a desert. The railroad bridges and tracks, extending from the Rapidan in Orange County to Fairfax, a distance of fifty miles, had been destroyed, so that it would require several weeks before the Confederates could reach the hospitals in Richmond and Charlottesville, and then in box-cars, over rough, improvised roads. Those of the Federal army were cut off in like manner from their hospitals in the North. In addition to all this, the surgeons and ambulances and their corps continued with their respective commands, to meet emergencies of like nature, to be repeated before the September moon had begun to wane.