Laying aside our knapsacks, we go to the Seminary, now rapidly filling with the wounded. This the enemy surely cannot know, or they wouldn't shell the building so hard! We get stretchers at the ambulances, and start out for the line of battle. We can just see our regimental colors waving in the orchard, near a log-house about three hundred yards ahead, and we start out for it—I on the lead, and Daney behind.
There is one of our batteries drawn up to our left a short distance as we run. It is engaged in a sharp artillery duel with one of the enemy's, which we cannot see, although we can hear it plainly enough, and straight between the two our road lies. So, up we go, Daney and I, at a lively trot, dodging the shells as best we can, till, panting for breath, we set down our stretcher under an apple-tree in the orchard, in which, under the brow of the hill, we find the regiment lying, one or two companies being out on the skirmish line ahead.
I count six men of Company C lying yonder in the grass—killed, they say, by a single shell. Close beside them lies a tall, magnificently built man, whom I recognize by his uniform as belonging to the "Iron Brigade," and therefore probably an Iowa boy. He lies on his back at full length, with his musket beside him—calm-looking as if asleep, but having a fatal blue mark on his forehead and the ashen pallor of death on his countenance. Andy calls me away for a moment to look after some poor fellow whose arm is off at the shoulder; and it was just time I got away, too, for immediately a shell plunges into the sod where I had been sitting, tearing my stretcher to tatters, and ploughing up a great furrow under one of the boys who had been sitting immediately behind me, and who thinks, "That was rather close shaving, wasn't it, now?" The bullets whistling overhead make pretty music with their ever-varying "z-i-p! z-i-p!" and we could imagine them so many bees, only they have such a terribly sharp sting. They tell me, too, of a certain cavalry-man (Dennis Buckley, Sixth Michigan cavalry it was, as I afterwards learned—let history preserve the brave boy's name) who, having had his horse shot under him, and seeing that first-named shell explode in Company C with such disaster, exclaimed, "That is the company for me!" He remained with the regiment all day, doing good service with his carbine, and he escaped unhurt!
"Here they come, boys; we'll have to go in at them on a charge, I guess!" Creeping close around the corner of the log-house, I can see the long lines of gray sweeping up in fine style over the fields; but I feel the colonel's hand on my shoulder.
"Keep back, my boy; no use exposing yourself in that way."
As I get back behind the house and look around, an old man is seen approaching our line through the orchard in the rear. He is dressed in a long blue swallow-tailed coat and high silk hat, and coming up to the colonel, he asks:
"Would you let an old chap like me have a chance to fight in your ranks, colonel?"
"Can you shoot?" inquires the colonel.
"Oh yes, I can shoot, I reckon," says he.
"But where are your cartridges?"