Sketches of the War / A Series of Letters to the North Moore Street School of New York

by Charles C. Nott

The bursting of the shells produced much less effect—apparent effect, I mean—than I anticipated. Their explosion, too, was much like a large powder cracker thrown in the air. There was a loud bang—fragments flew about, and all was over. It was so quickly done, that you had no time to anticipate or think—you were killed or you were safe, and it was over. But the most dispiriting thing was that we saw no enemy. The batteries were out of sight, and at the breastworks nothing could be seen but fire and smoke. It seemed as though we were attacking some invisible power, and that it was a simple question of time whether we could climb that slippery steep before we were all shot or not. But suddenly the firing at the summit ceased. The Second Iowa had charged the works, and driven out the regiments which held them. Then came the fire of the Second upon our flying foes, and then loud shouts along the line, "Hurrah, hurrah, the Second are in—hurry up, boys, and support them—close up—forward—forward." We reached the top and scrambled over the breastwork. I saw a second hill rising gradually before us, and on the top of it a second breastwork—between us and it about four hundred yards of broken ground. A second fire opened upon us from these inner works. We were ordered back, and, recrossing those we had taken, lay down upon the outer side of the embankment.

The breastwork that had sheltered the enemy now sheltered us. It was about six feet high on our side, and the men laid close against it. Occasionally a hat was pushed up above it, and then a rifle ball would come whistling over us from the second intrenchment. The batteries also continued to fire, but the shot passed lower down the hill, and did little execution. Having no specific duty to discharge, I turned, as soon as our troops reached the breastworks, and gave my aid to the wounded.

A singular fact for which I could not account was, that those near the foot of the hill were struck in the legs; higher up, the shots had gone through the body, and near the breastworks, through the head. Indeed, at the top of the hill I noticed no wounded; all who lay upon the ground there were dead. A little house in the field was used as a hospital. I tore my handkerchief into strips, and tied them round the wounds which were bleeding badly, and made the men hold snow upon them. I then took a poor fellow in my arms to carry to the little house. "Throw down your gun," I said, "you are too weak to carry it." "No, no," he replied, "I will hold on to it as long as I am alive." The house happened to be in the exact line of one of the batteries, and as we approached it, the shot flew over our path. Fortunately, the house was below the range, but one came so low as to knock off a shingle from the enable end. For a few minutes we thought they were firing on the wounded. We had no red flag to display; but I found a man with a red handkerchief, and tied it to a stick, and sent him on the roof with it. Within the house there were but three surgeons at this time. One of them asked me to take his horse and ride for the instruments, ambulances, and assistants; for no preparations had been made. It was then I passed Major Chipman carried by his soldiers.

When I returned, the ambulances were busy at their work; numerous couples of soldiers were supporting off wounded friends, and occasionally came four, carrying one in a blanket. The wounded men generally showed the greatest heroism. They hardly ever alluded to themselves, but shouted to the artillery that we met to hurry forward, and told stragglers that we had carried the day. One poor boy, carried in the arms of two soldiers, had his foot knocked off by a shell; it dangled horribly from his limb by a piece of skin, and the bleeding stump was uncovered. I stopped to tell the men to tie his stocking round the limb, and to put snow upon the wound. "Never mind the foot, captain," said he, "we drove the rebels out, and have got their trench, that's the most I care about." Yet I confess the sights and sounds were not as distressing as I anticipated. The small round bullet holes, though they might be mortal, looked no larger than a surgeon's lancet might have made. Only once did I hear distressing groans. A poor wretch in an ambulance shrieked whenever the wheels struck a stump. There was no help for it. The road was through the wood, the driver could only avoid the trees, and drive on regardless of his agony.

You will perhaps ask how I felt in the fight. There was nothing upon which I had had so much curiosity as to what my feelings would be. Much to my surprise I found myself unpleasantly cool. I did not get excited, and felt a great want of something to do. I thought if I only had something—my own company to lead on, or somebody to order, I should have much less to think about. There seemed such a certainty of being hit that I felt certain I should be, and after a few minutes had a vague sort of wish that it would come if it were coming, and be over with. The alarming effect of the bullets and shells was less than I supposed it would be, and my strongest sensation of danger was produced by the sight of the dead and wounded. The thing I was most afraid of was a panic among our men, and when the Seventh Illinois was ordered to fall back down the hill, I so much feared that the men might deem it a retreat that I entirely forgot the firing, and walked down in front of them talking to their major, so that any frightened man in the ranks might be reassured by our "matter of course" air. Take it altogether, I think I felt and acted pretty much as I do in any unusual and exciting affair. I know I found myself looking for an illustration of the effect of the shells, and wondering if there was no greater and grander illustration of the musketry than a bunch of powder crackers. I remember that I did little things from habit, as usual; when I threw off my overcoat, for example, I took a pipe which a friend had given me from the pocket, lest it should be lost; and I remember that I once corrected my grammar when I inadvertently adopted the western style of telling the men to lay down, and as I did so, I thought that one or two people at North Moore street would have been very apt to laugh if they had heard it. Yet for all this, I was by no means unconscious of danger. Some officers seemed utterly indifferent to it. Thus, in the fight of Thursday, Colonel Shaw, of the Fourteenth, after ordering his men to lie down, not only remained on horseback, but crossed his legs over the pommel of the saddle, sitting sidewise to be more comfortable. The sharpshooters of the enemy concentrated their fire on him, he being the only person visible. As the bullets thickened about him, the colonel said indignantly, "those rascals are firing at me, I shall have to move," and he threw his leg back, and walked his horse down to the other end of the line.

Our men lay in the trench all night, exposed to the western wind, which blew keenly round the summit of the hill—a large force of the enemy within a few yards, able to rush upon them at any moment.

I had gone back just after dark, with the adjutant, who had been hurt by the explosion of a shell, and my return with him saved me this. When morning came, we went back. As we reached the foot of the hill, we were told that a white flag had been displayed, and an officer had gone into the fort, but that the time was nearly up, and the attack was now to be renewed. We hurried on, expecting in a few moments to be in a second assault. We had nearly reached the trenches, when the men sprang from the ditch to the top of the breastwork, waving the colors and giving wild hurrahs. The fort had surrendered.

There was a load lifted off my mind, and I stopped to look around. The first glance fell on the blue coats scattered through the felled trees and stumps. The march of our troops up the hill had been somewhat in the form of a broom. Until near the top they had been in column, leaving a long, narrow line like the handle, and, as they rushed at the breastwork, they had spread out like the broom. This ground was plainly marked by the dead. Now that my attention was given, I was surprised to find how many were strewn upon the narrow strip. Here was one close to me; about the width of a class-room beyond was another; a little further on two had fallen, side by side. In a little triangle I counted eighteen bodies, and many I knew had been carried off during the night. Still the scene was not so painful as the dead-room of the hospital at St. Louis. The attitudes were peaceful. The arms were in all but one case thrown naturally over the breast, as in sleep; and no face gave any indication of a painful death. I passed on and entered the breastwork. It was about the height of a man. On top was a large log, and between the log and the earthwork a narrow slit. Through this they had fired on us. The log had hidden their heads, so that, while we were in plain view, they were to us an invisible foe. Immediately within were six more bodies of the Second Iowa, and one in simple homespun. He was the only one of the enemy upon the ground. The soldiers, gathering around him, looked as I did myself, with some curiosity upon one who had thus met the punishment of his treason. He had been shot through the back of the head while running, and his face expressed only wonderment and fright. It showed him a country-bred youth, illiterate, uncultivated—a contrast to the still intelligent faces that lay around him.

Meanwhile our troops were forming along the hill to take possession of the fort. All voices declared that the Second Iowa should lead. As it moved past the other regiments to the head of the column, the men cheered them, and the officers uncovered; but they seemed sad and wearied. I looked along their line, and found of the officers I knew hardly one was there.

It was a beautiful sight to see regiment after regiment mount the second breastwork, and watch them successively halt and cheer, and wave their colors as they crossed. I pushed on, scrambled over it, and found myself in the midst of five hundred of the prisoners. They were strange figures, in white blanket or carpet coats, having the same unintelligent faces as the one who had been killed outside. I stared at them, and they at me. They looked crestfallen and confused, but showed little feeling; and during the day I saw but few faces of common soldiers that awakened any pity. They, poor fellows, sat sadly looking at the scene. To one of them I spoke. He said he had done nothing to bring on the war; he had been for the Union, and had only enlisted a month before to avoid being impressed. His family lived, or had lived (he did not know where they were now), within a mile, and he would give a great, great deal to see them for only a minute. "Will your officers let me write to tell them I am alive?" "To be sure they will." "And will we be furnished with food?" "Yes, the same as our own soldiers." "Most of our men expected, if we surrendered unconditionally, that you would kill us." "You see we have not done so." "No, they have treated us very kindly: we have been deceived." Such was the tenor of our conversation. I may here say that our men behaved admirably; and I did not hear of a single indignity being offered to any of our prisoners. A few sentinels were placed around a regiment of prisoners, and, so far as appearances went, half of them might have escaped. But the woods around the fort contained regiments of our troops, and they knew the attempt would be hopeless. We were assigned the quarters of the Fiftieth Tennessee, and I slept in what had been the colonel's. It was a nice little house of oak blocks, laid up so that the wood and bark alternated, giving a very pretty tesselated appearance. They had all sorts of comforts, which we had never even hoped for at Camp Benton; and while we supposed they had been roughing it, found we had been roughing it ourselves.