INCIDENTS OF THE BATTLE.
It is a thousand pities that the many notable incidents of this fight are not on record; but, so far as I am aware, no one has sought to gather them in any complete and authentic form.
Corse caught his wound about 1 o’clock while scanning the movements and position of the enemy from the Redoubt. It was a close call for his life, the ball ploughing his cheek and splitting his ear, and, as might be imagined, dazing him. A surgeon took him in charge and ministered as well as the circumstances permitted. At intervals Corse was unconscious, but rallied from time to time, as though the spirit within him crowded itself up through the physical deadening of his senses. At one of these occasions he caught the words “Cease firing,” and as mentioned in his report, feared some attempt to surrender. On this point, in a private letter, he speaks as follows: “Do you remember our losing a large number of Springfield rifled muskets that exploded near the muzzle after becoming foul from over-shooting? I saw some that had exploded, say about the shank of the bayonet. It was so phenomenal as to make a decided impression on my mind at the time. I think a large number of these must have been lost, and when the order was given to cease firing, it was under the impression that if the men were not given a chance to clean their guns, we would lose them all and be overwhelmed. My impression, you remember, at the time was that the order to cease firing meant surrender, but Rowett removed that impression in subsequent interviews, during and after the war.”
Rowett’s order to “Cease firing” had, of course, nothing to do with the cry of “Surrender.” It is true that there were men in that Redoubt ready to surrender or to do anything else in order to get out of it alive. Happily these were few, and most of them lay prone, close under the parapet, “playing dead,” with the combatants and wounded standing and sitting upon them. If I mistake not, Corse himself, at least for a time, was holding down of these “living corpses” who preferred to endure all the pain and discomfort of his position rather than get up and face the deadly music that filled the air with leaden notes. It came about this way: The Redoubt was crowded, and as bloody as a slaughter pen. In its actual construction the parapet encircled a higher elevation in the center, which had not been sufficiently excavated, so that a man standing, or in fact, lying, in the middle of the work was exposed to bullets coming in close over the parapet. It was absolutely necessary to keep room for the fighting force along the parapet, so the wounded were drawn back, and in some cases were shot over and over again. The dead were disposed of in the same way, except that as the ground became covered with them they were let lie as they fell, and were stood or sat upon by the fighters. Several of the “skulkers” lay among these, but a few were in the ranks. The slaughter had been frightful. One of our guns was disabled from the jamming of a shot, and we were out of ammunition for the other two, thereby losing both the deterrent effect upon the enemy, and the moral encouragement that the friendly roar of cannon always gives to infantry in action. I recall distinctly the fact that a regimental flagstaff on the parapet, which had been several times shot away, fell again at a critical moment towards the end of the action. There was a mad yell from our friends outside and a few cries of “Surrender” among our own people, but a brave fellow leaped to the summit of the parapet, where it did not seem possible to live for a single second, grasped the flagstaff, waved it, drove the stump into the parapet, and dropped back again unhurt. Of course nobody knows the name of that man, but his action restored confidence, and a great Yankee cheer drowned the tumult, and no cry of “Surrender” was afterwards heard.
What saved us that day—among forty other things—was the fact that we had a number of Henry rifles (16-shooters), since improved and known as “Winchesters.” These were new guns in those days, and Rowett, as I remember, had held in reserve a company of an Illinois Regiment that was armed with them until a final assault should be made. When the artillery reopened, after the incident related by Corse of the man crossing the cut and coming back with an armful of case shot, this company of 16-shooters sprang to the parapet and poured out such a multiplied, rapid, and deadly fire that no men could stay in front of it, and no serious effort was thereafter made to take the fort by assault.
It is not possible, within any reasonable limits, for a paper already too long for your patience, to undertake the recital of the numerous thrilling incidents. One may be mentioned:
An artillery sergeant, whose gun was at first stationed outside the fort behind an exterior parapet, was driven in by the rush of the enemy, and his men being all killed, he had to abandon it. Wounded himself in several places, he came into the Redoubt, frothing with rage at the loss of his piece, and demanded a crew of volunteers to go out with him and get it. Notwithstanding the deadly fire, he got them, and in three minutes was back with his recovered prize with more wounds to his account. A bloodier man was never seen, but he kept at his work, loading and firing, until a musket ball passed through his neck, and he dropped dead. The same ball traversed the body of an Iowa officer, with whom I was standing further back, and then struck me with force enough to take my breath. That ball had killed two men, and I preserved it with the name and date of the battle scratched on its but slightly distorted surface.
On Tourtellotte’s side a grim war comedy was enacted. The remains of two Mississippi Regiments—the 35th and 39th of Sears’ brigade, that had charged with desperation, found themselves as the surge of battle that broke upon the hill went back, lodged in a sheltered depression of the north front, whence they could move neither up nor down without concentrating upon themselves the fire of Tourtellotte’s whole front. Unable to determine what course to take, they remained where they were to think it over, and Tourtellotte, observing their embarrassment, thoughtfully sent a portion of the 4th Minnesota to their rescue and invited them to come in. One field and several line officers and 80 men with the colors of the two regiments were the reward of the Yankee courtesy.
After the fight was over we thankfully emerged from the shambles and went out to survey the field. The dead, the dying and the wounded lay everywhere. The ditches immediately outside the Redoubt were crammed with corpses. There were dead rebels within 100 feet of the work, and they were piled in stacks near the house where they had massed for the final assault which was never made, against the reopened artillery, and the rattle of the Henry rifles. But the appalling center of the tragedy was the pit in which lay the heroes of the 39th Iowa and the 7th Illinois. Such a sight probably was never before presented to the eye of heaven. There is no language to describe it. With all the glad reaction of feeling after the prolonged strain of that mortal day, and the exultant surge of victory that swelled our hearts, it was difficult to stand on the verge of that open grave without a rush of tears to the eye and a spasm of pity clutching at the throat. The trench was crowded with the dead, blue and homespun, Yank and Johnny, inextricably mingled in their last ditch. Our heroes, ordered to hold the place to the last, with supreme fidelity, had died at their posts. As the rebel line run over them, they struck up with their bayonets as the foe struck down, and rolling together in the embrace of death, we found them in some cases mutually transfixed. The theme cannot be dwelt upon.
For relief, take another one, so unique in the circumstances that I doubt at times my own recollection of it. It was in the morning when French first gained the west end of the ridge. The 93rd Illinois was in the vicinity of the outworks, a quarter of a mile or so from the Redoubt. I had been reconnoitering the ground, and the rebel column charged us sharply and without warning. We ran, of course, but in passing through or rather over an old work of low relief, one of our men stooped, grabbed a brick and turned. Curiosity overcame discretion, and I had to look. He threw the brick straight as a bullet at a rebel running toward us, and if I may be believed, the brick caught the man full in the face, and he went down like a log.
One more incident, and I am done. After the battle the wounded of both sides were collected, housed and cared for. One of the surgeons invited me to come to the hospital with him, and on the way said he had a wounded woman there. I expressed surprise, and he said: “See if you can pick her out.” We went through the hospital, and I saw no woman, but passing through again on the way back, the doctor stopped at a bed where a tanned and freckled young rebel, hands and face grimy with dirt and powder, lay resting on an elbow, smoking a corn-cob pipe. The doctor inquired, “How do you feel?” and the answer was, “Pretty well, but my leg hurts like the devil.” As we turned, the doctor said, “That is the woman,” and told me that she belonged to the Missouri Brigade, had had a husband and one or two brothers in one of the regiments, and followed them to the war. When they were all killed, having no home but the regiment, she took a musket and served in the ranks. Like an actor of the old Greek dramas, war has its two masks of tragedy and comedy, although it is difficult at times to determine to which the antiphonal scene belongs—so of this case. It is perhaps not proper in such a paper as this to expose or call attention to the shifts to which the Confederates were forced to fill their ranks, but the incident may be told nevertheless.