No one came near us; we heard far away the dropping fire of musketry on the picket lines, the occasional booming of the cannon, and the groans wrung from the lips of hundreds of wounded men around us. My young friend knew that he must die; never again to hear the familiar voices of home, never to feel a mother’s kiss, away from brothers, sisters, and friends; yet as we talked he told me that he did not for a moment regret the course he had taken in enlisting in the war of the Union, but that he was ready, willing to die, contented in the thought that his life was given in the performance of his duty to his country.”
XII.
AFTER GETTYSBURG.
THE day succeeding the battle, we left Gettysburg in pursuit of the defeated enemy, followed closely by the 6th Corps, by way of Emmetsburg, Adamsville, and Middletown to Williamsport. Much of this time it rained heavily and the roads were bad, but we had the good spirits which attend success, and were cheery, as became victors. Near Williamsport we encountered the enemy, and on the 11th and 12th of July pressed him back toward the river, but he succeeded in crossing the Potomac without further serious loss.
Perhaps the finest thing that the army ever saw was the movement forward in line of battle near Williamsport and Hagerstown. As far as the eye could reach on either hand were broad open fields of grain with here and there little woods, the ground being undulating but not broken, and we were formed in close column of division by brigade, the 3d Corps touching our left and the 6th Corps our right; and so we advanced across the wide, yellow fields in two dense lines which extended apparently to the horizon. This movement was continued on two successive days.
Then we tried a flank movement by our left, crossed the Potomac on the 17th, near Berlin, and keeping east of the Blue Ridge, were at Manassas Gap on the 23d, and stood spectators of some pretty fighting done by the 3d Corps, who secured possession of the pass. On the 26th we were at Warrenton, and remained there until August 8th, when we moved to Beverly Ford, and encamped there for five weeks.
Sergeant Spalding, in a letter home, describes our camp there as the cosiest he ever saw: “Our camp is in a forest of young pines, planted since our arrival. It looks beautifully, especially in the evening. I went out a little way from our camp last evening to take a bird’s-eye view of it. How cosy it looked with the lights from our tallow candles glimmering through the trees from nearly every tent, which seemed almost buried in the green foliage that surrounded it. Our camp is laid out in streets, one for each company. At the head of each street is the captain’s tent, which is surrounded by an artificial evergreen hedge with an arched entrance, with some device in evergreen wrought into or suspended from the arch—as, for instance, Company K has a Maltese Cross (our corps badge). Company I, of Charlestown, has the Bunker Hill Monument. Company D, of Gloucester (fishermen), has an anchor, &c., &c. But our tented cities, be they ever so comfortable and attractive, are short-lived. We build them up to-day and pull them down to-morrow. We may be quietly enjoying our quarters to-day, and to-morrow be twenty-five miles away. Such is a soldier’s life.”
On the 12th October, 1862, General Porter ordered our Colonel to detail one company for detached service as guard to the reserve artillery of the army, and Company C (Captain Fuller) was detailed. When the detail was made it was supposed that it would be only for a few weeks, but they did their duty so acceptably as to result in being separated from the Regiment for more than ten months.
It was their duty to accompany the trains of the artillery reserve on the march, the men being distributed along the whole column and on each side of it, and they furnished the sentinels about the ammunition and supply trains, when parked for the night.
The duty was not very severe, and their position was one of comparative independence. It was pleasant to hear that a company of ours received praises alike from every commander of the reserve, and from the families of the Virginia farmers whose premises they had occasion to occupy. Their route was the general route of the army, and at Gettysburg they were under sharp fire on the 3d of July, when Lee made his last assault, but the total of their casualties, while absent from the Regiment, was small.