That seemed to be all there was to say. “Blood is thicker than water.”
A FAMILY THAT HAD NO LUCK
THERE were two instances of supreme heroism in the Civil War. One was upon the one side, the other upon the other.
One was the charge of Pickett’s Southerners at Gettysburg. The other was the heroic series of assaults, made by the Northern troops on Marye’s Heights, at Fredericksburg.
General Lee’s works in the last-named battle were high up on the hill. Crossing the field in front of them was a sunken road—a perfect breastwork already formed. The main body of the army was in the works above; but a multitude of us were thrown forward into the sunken road.
The enemy knew nothing of this geographical peculiarity. But their first advance revealed the impossibility of breaking Lee’s lines at that point. The column that advanced was swept away as with a broom before it got within firing distance of the works it supposed itself to be attacking. The men knew what that meant. Wiser than their general, they saw the necessity of selecting some other point of attack. Nevertheless when their commander persisted, they six times came unflinchingly to an assault which every man of them knew to be hopeless. This may not have been war, but it was heroism.
We who faced them there honored it as such.
Just as we tumbled into the sunken road, an old man came in bearing an Enfield rifle and wearing an old pot hat of the date of 1857 or thereabouts. With a gentle courtesy that was unusual in war, he apologized to the two men between whom he placed himself, saying: “I hope I don’t crowd you, but I must find a place somewhere from which I can shoot.”
At that moment one of the great assaults occurred. The old man used his gun like an expert. He wasted no bullet. He took aim every time and fired only when he knew his aim to be effective. Yet he fired rapidly. Tom Booker, who stood next to him, said as the advancing column was swept away: “You must have shot birds on the wing in your time.”
The old man answered: “I did up to twenty year ago; but then I sort o’ lost my sight, you know, and my interest in shootin’.”