When I returned to head-quarters, I found that Colonel Manning had recovered; and a Board, consisting of Manning and two Captains of Artillery, was appointed to examine me. The examination was both written and oral. I was to answer in writing certain questions which had been sent from Richmond, and was then to be examined by the members of the Board. The written examination was rather wide in its scope, as it ranged from questions so simple as: “What is the centre of gravity?” and “What is a logarithm?” to such a question as this: “With a gun of a given calibre and at a given elevation, and with a given charge of powder and a projectile of a given weight, what will be the velocity of the projectile as it passes the muzzle of the piece?” My answer to some such question as this was: “I don’t know.” The oral examination was very funny, as Colonel Manning insisted that the calibre of a 10-pound Parrott was three inches, although I assured him it was only two and nine-tenths. As may be imagined, taking Colonel Manning’s lack of familiarity with Ordnance duty into account and the suggestive endorsement of the Secretary of War, I passed my examination with flying colors.
Colonel Manning was taken ill and obliged to leave us for a time, and there was no event of importance, except a change in my head-quarters from Russellville to Abingdon, until April, 1864, when we were ordered to Gordonsville. On our way there I stopped to see Colonel Manning, who was being taken care of at a private house at Charlottesville, and to my great joy received from him my commission as Captain of Artillery, dated April 2d, 1864.
[XXV.]
On May 4th, Grant crossed the Rapidan, and the Wilderness Campaign began. General Lee put his troops in motion, and the next morning Ewell attacked Warren’s Corps. Grant immediately ordered Hancock to attack A. P. Hill, and the battle raged until night. The fight was renewed the next morning, when Hill was driven back in some confusion. It was a critical moment for our army. Longstreet arrived in time to change the tide of battle. Kershaw’s Division was in front, and the men were eager to show their old comrades that they had not become demoralized in the West. Without a pause, they formed in line of battle, arrested the enemy’s advance, and drove him rapidly back. General Lee put himself at the head of the troops to conduct the attack in person, but the men swarmed around him, telling him, with tears in their eyes, that he must go back, and that if he would go back they would make short work of the enemy. Everything went well with us for some time. General Longstreet ascertained that the left of the enemy’s line extended but a short distance beyond the Plank-road, and Lieutenant-Colonel Sorrell, the Adjutant-General of Longstreet’s Corps, was sent to conduct the brigades of Mahone, G. T. Anderson and Wofford around the enemy’s left, and attack him on his left and rear. They did this with perfect success, and the enemy fell back with heavy loss to a position about three-quarters of a mile from our front. It was the moment to make a bold stroke for victory. The whole of Longstreet’s Corps, with R. H. Anderson’s Division, was to be thrown en masse against the staggering enemy. Longstreet, with Colonel Sorrel, Captain Manning, of the Signal Corps, and myself, with some couriers, rode down the Plank-road at the head of our column. Just then, General Jenkins, who commanded a South Carolina brigade in our corps, rode up, his face flushed with joy, and, shaking hands with Longstreet, congratulated him on the result of the fight. Turning then to his brigade, which was formed in the road, Jenkins said: “Why do you not cheer, men?” The men cheered lustily, and hardly had the sound died away when a withering fire was poured in upon us from the woods on our right. Jenkins, rising in his stirrups, shouted out: “Steady, men! For God’s sake, steady!” and fell mortally wounded from his saddle. Longstreet, who had stood there like a lion at bay, reeled as the blood poured down over his breast, and was evidently badly hurt. Two of General Jenkins’ staff were killed by the same volley. What others thought I know not. My own conviction was that we had ridden into the midst of the enemy, and that nothing remained but to sell our lives dearly. The firing ended as suddenly as it began, and we then learned that Longstreet had been wounded and Jenkins had been killed, as Jackson was, by the fire of our own men. It was but the work of a few minutes. We lifted Longstreet from the saddle, and laid him on the side of the road. It seemed that he had not many minutes to live. My next thought was to obtain a surgeon, and, hurriedly mentioning my purpose, I mounted my horse and rode in desperate haste to the nearest field hospital. Giving the sad news to the first surgeon I could find, I made him jump on my horse, and bade him, for Heaven’s sake, ride as rapidly as he could to the front where Longstreet was. I followed afoot. The flow of blood was speedily staunched, and Longstreet was placed in an ambulance. Poor Jenkins also received every attention, but remained insensible until he died.
The disaster which had befallen us arrested for a time the movement of the troops, for none but Longstreet knew what General Lee’s intentions were. Sadly riding back, surrounding the ambulance, we met General Lee, and I shall not soon forget the sadness in his face, and the almost despairing movement of his hands, when he was told that Longstreet had fallen. It was a few minutes after twelve o’clock when Longstreet was hit, and General C. W. Field, the ranking Division Commander, took command of the corps. It was four o’clock when the attack was made. By this time, the shattered lines in our front had been restored, and our movement was unsuccessful. It seemed a fatality that our onslaught should have been arrested at the moment when the promise of victory was brightest. So ended the Battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864.
The next day I ascertained how the sad accident had happened. The woods are very dense in the Wilderness, and the dust was so thick as to reduce every tree and shrub to one uniform shade of gray. Mahone’s Brigade, which had formed part of the flanking column, was drawn up parallel with the Plank-road, and about sixty yards from it. The 6th Virginia became detached from the regiments on its right or left, and lost its position in the woods. When the 6th Virginia, isolated as it was, heard the cheering in front, the men supposed that the enemy were upon them. Without orders one soldier discharged his piece, and a volley was then fired by the whole line, with the mournful result I have described.
General R. H. Anderson was now placed in command of the corps, and with him my relations were pleasant from the beginning. Indeed, we became close friends.