We had plenty of work to do in assisting the surgeons. Acres of ground were covered with bleeding, mangled men with the dust and smoke of battle upon them. It was touching to notice how bravely most of them endured suffering while needing attention and comforts that could not be given them.
I recall how little Will Whitney, one of the “ponies” of our company as the boys were called, lay there on the ground shot clear through the body, patiently waiting his turn, while a big fellow with a wounded hand was dancing around and making a terrible fuss until Whitney, thoroughly disgusted, spoke out. “Shut up, there, old man, you’re not the only one that got scratched in this fight.”
I assisted to the rear another of the lads of Co. H, Henry C. Potter, a former schoolmate at Carthage, and as bright and promising a young man as any who went to the war. His left arm was badly shattered, necessitating an amputation. There was not a murmur; not a regret. He was glad it was not his right one, for with that saved he could be of some help to his father in the store. He made me promise to stay by him during the operation, and after it was over I assisted him into an ambulance and bade him a last good-bye, for he did not live to see Jefferson county again.
IN INTRENCHMENTS.
After the fighting of June 3 Gen. Grant instructed the commanding officers to have the troops intrench themselves as best they could.
In many places the lines were only forty or fifty yards apart. The ground all about was low and marshy, which caused chills and fever.
Our regiment occupied a sort of angle so that we were exposed to bullets from the flank as well as front. The sharpshooters got in lots of their deadly work at Cold Harbor, and if a head was shown above the earthworks several “minies” would go whizzing past. Just for fun the boys used to elevate their caps on a bayonet for the “Johnnies” to shoot at.
The men on the picket line dug holes or trenches to protect themselves and could only be relieved at night under the cover of darkness. All day long they would lie there in the broiling sun with little food or water, and between the lines were dead men and horses which polluted the atmosphere. Some of the wounded from the fight of the 3d were on the field up to the 7th, completely covered by the fire of the enemy’s pickets and sharpshooters, although the men made heroic efforts every night to bring their comrades in.
A TRUCE.
“Let us bury our dead:
Since we may not of vantage or victory prate;
And our army, so grand in the onslaught of late,
All crippled has shrunk to its trenches instead,
For the carnage was great;
Let us bury our dead.”
“Haste and bury our dead!
No time for revolving of right and of wrong;
We must venture our souls with the rest of the throng;
And our God must be judge, as He sits over head,
Of the weak and the strong,
While we bury our dead.”