A Memory of Pickett’s Brigade
Reminiscences were being exchanged by veterans of both sides of the Civil War at a banquet given in their honor by the Board of Trade of New York City. Colonel J. J. Phillips, of the Ninth Virginia Regiment, Pickett’s Division, presided. Speaking of night attacks, he recalled one in particular because of the peculiar circumstances which resulted almost in the compulsory disobedience of orders, in response to a higher command.
“The point of attack had been carefully selected,” said Colonel Phillips, “the awaited dark night had arrived, and my command was to fire when General Pickett should signal the order.
“There was that dread, indescribable stillness; that weird ominous silence that always settles over everything before a fight. You felt that nowhere in the universe was there any voice or motion.
“Suddenly the awesome silence was broken by the sound of a deep, full voice rolling over the black void like the billows of a great sea, directly in line with our guns. It was singing the old hymn, ‘Jesus, Lover of My Soul.’
“I have heard that grand old music many times in circumstances which intensified its impressiveness, but never had it seemed so solemn as when it broke the stillness in which we waited for the order to fire. Just as it was given there rang through the night the words:
‘Cover my defenseless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.’
“‘Ready, aim! Fire to the left, boys!’ I said.
“The guns were shifted, the volley that blazed out swerved aside, and that ‘defenseless head’ was ‘covered’ with the shadow of His wing.”
A Federal veteran who listened to this story spoke up and said, “I remember that night, Colonel, and that midnight attack which carried off so many of my comrades. I was the singer.”
Such confirmation produced a deep impression, and after a silence “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” was again sung as on the fatal night in 1864 when it rang across the lines at Bermuda Hundred.
The reference to the same leader is brought out under exceptional circumstances in