The Song of the Rappahannock: Sketches of the Civil War

by Ira Seymour Dodd

For two horrible hours this went on, until the arrival of the advanced division of the Second Corps brought relief. Fresh troops were sent in to hold the road, and the Vermonters were ordered to withdraw. This was easier said than done. Each side was holding the other as in a vice. Finally a daring but costly charge by one regiment, concentrating the enemy's fire upon it alone, made possible the retirement of the others in good order. The Vermont Brigade had held the road until reinforcements made it secure for that day at least, but at frightful cost. "Of five colonels of the brigade only one was left unhurt. Fifty of the best line officers were killed or wounded; a thousand Vermont soldiers fell that afternoon."

Darkness closed the battle for that day, but night brought little rest. The wounded had to be sought—too often vainly sought in the dark amid the thickets; from suspicious skirmish lines frequent gleam and rattle of nervous, fitful volleys flashed, startling the darkness, and at the dawn of day the battle opened with renewed fury. Again the bereft and decimated brigade was called to perilous and responsible duty, which they nobly fulfilled; and when the second evening came, they could count their total loss. Out of less than twenty-eight hundred who had gone into battle over twelve hundred had fallen, among whom were three-fourths of the officers on duty. The greater part of this loss fell within the two hours of the first day's fight in the woods.

It was then that the colonel of the Second Regiment was wounded, went to the rear, had his hurt dressed, returned to his post, and as he went along the line speaking words of cheer to his men was struck by a second bullet and instantly killed. His place was taken by the lieutenant-colonel, "a boy in years but of approved valour," who also was presently stricken down with a death wound, leaving the regiment without a field officer. It is worth noting that these two young officers both rose from lieutenancies to the command of their regiment, and both came out of those choice homes in which more than almost anywhere else on earth culture and conscience meet. They were sons of New England ministers. The faces of some of those fallen Vermonters rise before me to-day. There was the colonel of the Sixth, in whose regiment, along with a few comrades, I found myself at the time of the final onset of the Confederates at Bank's Ford. A thrill of admiration always goes through me whenever I think of the superbly calm courage with which he held us down in the sunken road in face of that charging whirlwind which, had it reached us, would have swept us away like chaff. I can hear his voice even now, as when the foe was almost upon us it rang out above the noise of battle in clear command, "Rise! Fire!"

Alas, he was one of the Wilderness victims: a Christian gentleman, reverenced and beloved by his men and fellow-officers. And the captain of that company whose line we lengthened, he too met a pathetically heroic death. Early in the afternoon's fight in the woods he received a severe wound in the head: a wound which, as one of his comrades told me, was more than enough to have sent most men out of the battle. His men all loved him, and they begged him to go to the rear and have his hurt cared for. But with the blood streaming down his face, and the anger of battle in his strong soul, he sternly refused, saying, "It is the business of no live man to go to the rear at a time like this!" A few moments later, and again he was struck by a bullet in the thigh. He retired a short distance, took off his sash, bound up his second wound, returned to his place in the line, and while cheering his men a third bullet found this hero's heart and silenced his voice forever.

The sacrifice of the Vermont Brigade was not one of numbers only. Ghastly incidents abounded in that Wilderness battle-field. One of them, told me in a letter from a Fifth Corps comrade, is unique in its horror. He was severely wounded, and, finding himself useless on the line of battle, tried to make his way to the rear. After several narrow escapes from capture, he came to a little open field. Here a number of others, like himself wounded, were gathered, and faint from loss of blood and from hunger they sat down together and tried to eat a little from shared rations of such as had any.

The little field, scarce a hundred yards across, had been the scene of conflict earlier in the day, and hundreds of dead and mortally wounded lay scattered about it.

Close by where they sat down lay a young soldier from a Connecticut regiment, frightfully shot in the breast so that his lungs protruded. His life was slowly, painfully ebbing away.

My friend and his comrades, forgetting their own hurts at the sight, tried to do what they could for him. They raised him up, put a blanket under him, and propped him against a tree so that he could breathe a little easier. By feeble motions he made them understand that he wanted something from his pocket. They searched and found a photograph of some loved one at home, which he eagerly grasped with both hands and held before his dying eyes while big tears rolled down his cheeks. But he seemed satisfied, he wanted nothing more, and my friend and his companions moved away to a little distance where they could eat their lunch undisturbed by the gruesome sight of the mangled dying man.

Presently a Georgian strayed into the field. He was wounded in the toe and was making a terrible fuss about it, limping along and using his musket for a crutch, but he stopped now and then to search the bodies of the dead for plunder. There were such ghouls, a few of them, in both armies. He came to the young Connecticut soldier; they could see him snatch the picture from the dying man's hands, they heard a smothered exclamation which sounded like, "Oh, don't!" and then they saw the brute strike the dying man with the butt of his musket.

My friend, who was an officer, sprang to his feet, wounded as he was, and emptied his revolver at the man, who at the first shot took refuge behind the tree. Then the officer called for a loaded musket, and a singular duel began, the villain behind the tree and my friend in the open exchanging shots ineffectually, when the Georgian, reloading in nervous haste, sprang his ramrod. It flew out of his hand and fell just out of reach. Unwilling to expose himself he clawed for it with his musket barrel, but in vain. At this juncture another wounded Confederate wandered into the horrible little field. He had not seen the prelude, he saw only a comrade in trouble, and going boldly to his help was about to hand him his ramrod; but from a dozen mangled men still able to handle a rifle threatening voices warned him to desist and let the two have it out alone. A few more wild attempts to hook the rammer toward him, and then in desperation he suddenly lunged his body toward it. My friend says, "He looked at me sideways with a scared look, as he reached out, but I just laughed to myself and fired. He fell dead, and I fainted and knew no more till I found myself in the hospital."