These repeated advances and attacks made by the enemy's artillery plainly showed that they realized that our situation was a hazardous one, of which we, too, were fully aware, and unless Longstreet should soon show up we felt that the whole of Pope's army would soon be upon us. While quietly awaiting developments, we heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and, as a courier galloped up to General Jackson, to announce Longstreet's approach, the cloud of red dust raised by his vanguard in the direction of Thoroughfare Gap assured us that he would soon be at hand. Before he reached the field, however, and while we were enjoying the sense of relief at his coming, one of the enemy's batteries had quietly and unobserved managed to get into one of the positions occupied by our battery during the morning. Their first volley, coming from such an unexpected quarter, created a great commotion. Instantly we galloped to their front and unlimbered our guns at close range. Other of our batteries fired a few shots, but soon ceased, all seeming intent on witnessing a duel between the two batteries of four guns each. Their position was the more favorable, as their limbers and caissons were behind the crest of the hill, while we were on level ground with ours fully exposed. Each man worked as if success depended on his individual exertions, while Captain Poague and Lieutenant Graham galloped back and forth among the guns, urging us to our best efforts. Our antagonists got our range at once, and, with their twelve-pound Napoleon guns, poured in a raking fire. One shell I noticed particularly as it burst, and waited a moment to observe its effects as the fragments tore by. One of them struck Captain Poague's horse near the middle of the hip, tearing an ugly hole, from which there spurted a stream of blood the size of a man's wrist. To dismount before his horse fell required quick work, but the captain was equal to the occasion. Another shell robbed Henry Boteler of the seat of his trousers, but caused the shedding of no blood, and his narrow escape the shedding of no tears, although the loss was a serious one. Eugene Alexander, of Moorefield, had his thigh-bone broken and was incapacitated for service. Sergeant Henry Payne, a splendid man and an accomplished scholar, was struck by a solid shot just below the knee and his leg left hanging by shreds of flesh. An hour later, when being lifted into an ambulance, I heard him ask if his leg could not be saved, but in another hour he was dead.
After an hour of spirited work, our antagonists limbered up and hurried off, leaving us victors in the contest. Lieutenant Baxter McCorkle galloped over to the place to see what execution we had done, and found several dead men, as many or more dead horses, and one of their caissons as evidences of good aim; and brought back with him a fine army-pistol left in the caisson. When the affair was over, I found myself exhausted and faint from over-exertion in the hot sun. Remembering that my brother David had brought along a canteen of vinegar, gotten in the big capture of stores a few days before, and, thinking a swallow of it would revive me, I went to him and asked him to get it for me. Before I was done speaking, the world seemed to make a sudden revolution and turn black as I collapsed with it. My brother, thinking I was shot, hurried for the vinegar, but found the canteen, which hung at the rear of a caisson, entirely empty; it, too, having been struck by a piece of shell, and even the contents of the little canteen demanded by this insatiable plain.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS—INCIDENTS AND SCENES ON THE BATTLEFIELD
These encounters were the preludes to the great battle for which both sides were preparing, almost two days having already been spent in maneuvering and feeling each other's lines. The afternoon, however, passed quietly with no further collisions worthy of mention. The following day, Saturday, was full of excitement. It was the third and last of this protracted battle, and the last for many a brave soldier in both armies.
The shifting of troops began early, our battery changing position several times during the forenoon. Neither army had buried its dead of the first day's battle. We held the ground on which were strewn the corpses of both Blue and Gray, in some places lying side by side. The hot August sun had parched the grass to a crisp, and it was frequently ignited by bursting shells. In this way the clothes of the dead were sometimes burned off, and the bodies partially roasted! Such spectacles made little or no impression at the time, and we moved to and fro over the field, scarcely heeding them.
About two o'clock we were ordered some distance forward, to fire on a battery posted on a low ridge near a piece of woods. By skirting along a body of woods on our left, and screened by it, we came out in full view of this battery and on its right flank. My gun, being in front and the first seen by them, attracted their whole fire; but most of their shells passed over our heads and burst among the guns in our rear and among the trees. None of us was hurt, and in a few minutes all four of our guns were unlimbered and opened on them most vigorously. In five or six rounds their guns ceased firing and were drawn by hand from the crest of the ridge entirely out of view and range.
As we stood by our guns, highly satisfied with our prowess, General Jackson came riding up to the first detachment and said, "That was handsomely done, very handsomely done," then passed on to the other detachments and to each one addressed some complimentary remark. In half an hour we were again at our rendezvous, the haystack, and he at his headquarters, and all quiet. But this time it was the calm before the real storm.
Across the open plains on which we stood, and some three hundred yards distant from us, was an extensive body of woods in which Longstreet's corps had quietly formed in line of battle. In front of this was open ground, sloping gently for one-fourth of a mile, and on its crest the enemy's line of battle. To our left another large body of woods extended toward our front, and concealed the movements of both armies from view in that direction. General Jackson had dismounted from his horse and was sitting on the rail-fence, and ours and one or two other batteries were in bivouac close by, and all as calm and peaceful as if the armies were in their respective winter quarters, when a roar and crash of musketry that was almost deafening burst forth in the woods in our immediate front, and a shower of Minie-bullets whistled through the air, striking here and there about us. Instantly everything was astir, with an occasional lamentation or cry of pain from some wounded man. General Jackson mounted his horse hurriedly. The fighting soon became general throughout the lines, in portions of it terrific. General Pope, after two days of preparation, had advanced his lines and made the attack instead of receiving it, as our lines were on the eve of advancing.