Captain Northrop took Colonel Rhett's sword and pistol. The sword was lost some years ago in a railway train, but he has the pistol still, with Colonel Rhett's name engraved on it.
The fight took place in a piece of pine forest, and there were many trees that afforded protection to the men on both sides. The lines were very close together, so close that I could at times clearly observe the faces of the Federal soldiers opposite. At one time I was protected by a good pine tree and felt quite comfortable as the bullets thwacked against the other side of it; but within a few feet, to my left, was an old stump-hole full of dry leaves, and the bullets striking in those leaves made a terrible racket. I stood the racket as long as I could, but finally could stand it no longer, and contrary to common sense abandoned my friendly tree and stepped a few paces to the right, away from that noisy stump-hole. There I stood unprotected in the open, but not many minutes before I was struck full in the middle of my body and knocked down to a sitting posture. My blanket was rolled in a tight roll, not over three inches thick, and being of course on my left shoulder, and across my body downwards to the right, had saved my life. The ball had passed through the roll, and striking a button on my jacket had stopped, and as I dropped it fell down, flattened out of all shape. I lay on the ground for a few moments, paralyzed by the blow, and I recollect hearing a comrade, who received a bullet through the brain only a few moments afterwards, call out, "Ford's killed." I gathered myself back into a sitting posture and replied, "No, I'm not. I think I'm all right." But the pain was intense, as every boy knows who in a boxing bout gets a lick in "the short wind." In a few moments I was back again on my feet, and resumed my place in line, although suffering considerable pain and nausea. For some time after I carried on my body a black and blue spot the size of a dollar.
I recollect noticing the conspicuous coolness of Maj. Thos. Huguenin, of the First Infantry. During the hardest of the fighting he walked slowly immediately behind the line in which I was, smoking his pipe as calmly as if he had been at home.
Here an incident occurred that showed how, under the most serious condition, with death and imminent danger all around, a soldier's mind is often diverted by the most trivial thing. It is a strange phase of the mind which I have heard old soldiers, who have seen much hard fighting, comment upon. During the sharpest of the fighting, a hog started from the swamp on my left and ran squealing and terrified directly down the front of our line, presenting quite a ludicrous spectacle, and I heard a number of men, as he passed along the line, whoop at him and call out, "Go it, piggy!" "Save your bacon, piggy!" etc. But piggy had not got more than a hundred feet past me when he turned a somersault, kicked a moment or two, and lay still. He had evidently stopped a bullet.
An incident showing the same phase of mind was told me by a member of the Fourteenth South Carolina Volunteers, as occurring during the great battle of Gettysburg. As Kershaw's brigade, on the second day, was advancing to the assault of Little Round Top, a company of the Fourteenth was among those thrown forward as skirmishers, and as they advanced across the field toward the Federals, they came to a large patch of ripe blackberries. The men with one accord immediately turned their attention to the ripe fruit which was in great abundance on every side, and, stooping down, kept picking, and eating berries, as they went slowly forward, actually into action. And so much was their attention distracted by the blackberries that they were actually within 50 yards of the enemy's advanced line before they realized their position, when they rushed forward with a yell, and got possession of a slightly elevated roadway, which they held until the main line came up.
During the assault on the breastworks, Capt. S. Porcher Smith, who was standing just behind me, was shot through the face and fell. The litter-bearers picked him up, and as they were carrying him to the rear, one of them was shot and fell, and Captain Smith rolled headlong out of the litter. I well remember this incident.
We held our position until about midnight, when we fell back to a place called Elevation. This night's march was a very trying one. The road was terribly cut up by the wagons and artillery, and as the rains had been frequent it seemed as if the clay mud was knee deep. We floundered along for about six hours, and at daylight on the 17th halted and were given some rations. Most of us had not had a morsel of food since the night of the 15th. It happened in this way. On the night of the 15th we cooked our cornmeal and bacon and ate our supper, saving half for the next day. At the early break of day on the 16th, as I was warming my bacon and corn pone in a frying-pan before eating some of it, the Federals attacked us, and we had to fall into line instantly. So I had to leave the frying-pan with all my food as it was on the fire and go through that day's hardship, and until the next day at Elevation, without any food whatever. It had been General Hardee's intention to give us two or three days' rest at Elevation, but it having been ascertained that the Federal army was pushing toward Goldsboro, Gen. Jos. E. Johnston, then only recently put in command of the Confederate troops in North Carolina, ordered General Hardee to hurry forward and intercept Sherman near Bentonville. So about 3 o'clock on the morning of the 19th we were aroused and hurried on toward Bentonville, where we arrived a little before three in the afternoon, having made the 20 miles in rather less than 12 hours.
It was on the march this day that an amusing incident occurred. I had not owned a pair of socks since I left James Island a month before, and my shoes were in such tattered condition that I could keep uppers and soles together only by tying them with several leather strings, but most of my toes stuck out very conspicuously. I had read of the importance that great generals attached to the good condition of infantry soldiers' feet, and hence the aphorism, "A marching man is no stronger than his feet," and I determined to keep mine in good condition if possible. I knew that frequent bathing prevented blistering; therefore, every night before going to sleep, and often on the march during the day I would bathe my feet, so that they were never blistered, and I kept well up with my company in marching. On this day as we crossed a little stream, according to my custom I stepped aside, and pulling off my shoes soaked my feet in the running water. General Hardee and his staff rode by at the moment. He checked his horse and called sternly to me, "You there, sir! What are you doing straggling from your command? I suppose you are one of those men who behaved so badly at Averysboro." (A few men had been guilty of misconduct there.) I sprang to my feet, and saluting him said, "Excuse me, General, but you are speaking to the wrong man, sir. I have never misbehaved, and never straggled. I am only bathing my feet to prevent them from blistering. There is my company right ahead there, sir, and I always keep up with it." My injured tone and evident sincerity struck the old man, and he saluted me with the words, "I beg your pardon, sir," and rode on. He was a courtly and knightly soldier, and a great favorite with the men.
We reached Bentonville at about 3 o'clock p. m., only a short time after the battle had begun, and as we marched hurriedly along the road in the direction of the firing we passed a number of wounded men coming to the rear; and then several operating tables on both sides of the road, some with wounded men stretched on them with the surgeons at work, and all of them with several bloody amputated legs and arms thrown alongside on the grass. The sight was temporarily depressing, as it foreshadowed what we had to expect. But we hurried on, and our division halted for a few moments on the ground from which the Federals had just been repulsed, and there were quite a number of their dead and wounded lying about. One of the Federal wounded, a lieutenant, begged us for some water, and I stepped from the line and gave him a drink from my canteen. Others begged me likewise, and in a few moments my canteen was empty. I knew that this might result seriously to me, in case I should need the water badly for myself, but I could not refuse a wounded man's appeal even if he was my enemy; and one of our men, a thrifty fellow, who always managed to have things, produced a little flask of whiskey, and gave a good drink to a Federal who had his leg badly crushed. The blue-coat raised his eyes to Heaven with, "Thank God, Johnnie; it may come around that I may be able to do you a kindness, and I'll never forget this drink of liquor." We were not allowed to remain long relieving the suffering, but soon were called to "attention," and received orders to create it, by an attack upon the enemy from our extreme right. At this moment Maj. A. Burnett Rhett, of the artillery, rode along the line and called out that news had been received that France had recognized the Confederacy and would send warships to open our ports immediately. The men cheered, few of us realizing that the end was so near. We were blinded by our patriotism. There was Lee with his 30,000 men that moment surrounded by Grant with his 150,000. Here was Johnston with his 14,000 trying to keep at bay Sherman with his 70,000, with the knowledge that Schofield was only two days off with 40,000 more. And this was about all there was to the Confederacy; and they talked of recognition! Oh, the pity of it!
As we stood in line ready to advance my next comrade remarked, "Well, boys, one out of every three of us will drop to-day. I wonder who it will be?" This had been about our proportion in our two previous infantry engagements, and it was not far short of the same here, for out of the twenty-one men the company carried into the fight five were left on the field. At the word the line advanced through a very thick black jack-oak woods full of briars, and then double-quicked. We ran right over the Federal picket line and captured or shot every one of the pickets. One picket was in the act of eating his dinner, and as we ran upon him he dropped his tin bucket, which, strange to say, had rice and peas boiled together. Our lieutenant grabbed it up, and carried it, with the spoon still in the porridge, in his left hand in the charge. We went through the bushes yelling and at a run until we struck a worm rail fence on the edge of an old field. I sprang up on the fence to get over, but when on top could see no enemy, and so called out to the men, a number of whom were likewise immediately on the fence. Just at this moment the officers called to us to come back, as a mistake had been made. Our division had not gone far enough to our right. The line was again formed in the thick bushes, and we went about two hundred yards or so farther to the right, and during this movement the lieutenant ate the captured porridge, and gave me the empty tin bucket and spoon. I attached the bucket to my waist belt, and kept it for about a month, when in an amusing encounter with Gen. Sam Cooper, of which I will tell farther on, it got crushed. The spoon I have kept to the present time.