Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman / With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War

by James Harvey Kidd

The journey to Hagerstown was by way of Williamsport and the same pike we had marched over on the 6th of the month when Jewett was killed, and on the morning of the 14th when Weber was riding to "one more saber charge" at Falling Waters.

Nothing is more depressing than to pass over ground where a battle has recently been fought. Any veteran will say that he prefers the advance to the retreat—the front to the rear of an army. The true soldier would rather be on the skirmish-line than in the hospital or among the trains. Men who can face the cannon's mouth without flinching, shrink from the surgeon's knife and the amputating-table. The excitement, the noise, the bugle's note and beat of drum, the roar of artillery, the shriek of shell, the volley of musketry, the "zip" of bullet or "ping" of spent ball, the orderly movement of masses of men, the shouting of orders, the waving of battle-flags—all these things inflame the imagination, stir the blood, and stimulate men to heroic actions. Above all, the consciousness that the eyes of comrades are upon him, puts a man upon his mettle and upon his pride, and compels him oftentimes to simulate a contempt for danger which he does not feel. The senses are too, in some sort, deadened to the hazards of the scene and, in battle, one finds himself doing with resolute will things which under normal conditions would fill him with abhorrence.

Men fight from mingled motives. Pride, the fear of disgrace, ambition, the sense of duty—all contribute to keep the courage up to the sticking point. Few fight because they like it. The bravest are those who, fully alive to the danger, are possessed of that sublime moral heroism which sustains them in emergencies that daunt weaker men.

But, when the excitement is over, when the pomp and circumstance are eliminated, when the unnatural ardor has subsided, when the tumult and rush have passed, leaving behind only the dismal effects—the ruin and desolation, the mangled corpses of the killed, the saddening spectacle of the dying, the sufferings of the wounded—the bravest would, if he could, blot these things from his sight and from his memory.

The night in the field hospital at Falling Waters did more to put out the fires of my military spirit and to quench my martial ambition than did all the experiences of Hunterstown and Gettysburg, of Boonsborough and Williamsport. And, as the ambulance train laden with wounded wound its tortuous way through the theater of many a bloody recent rencounter, it set in motion a train of reflections which were by no means pleasing. The abandoned arms and accouterments; the debris of broken-down army wagons; the wrecks of caissons and gun-carriages; the bloated carcasses of once proud and sleek cavalry chargers; the mounds showing where the earth had been hastily shoveled over the forms of late companions-in-arms; everything was suggestive of the desolation, nothing of the glory, of war.

It was nearly dark when the long train of ambulances halted in the streets of Hagerstown. Some large buildings had been taken for hospitals and the wounded were being placed therein as the ambulances successively arrived. This consumed much time and, while waiting for the forward wagons to be unloaded, it occurred to me that it would be a nice thing to obtain quarters in a private house. Barnhart, first sergeant of the troop, who accompanied me, proposed to make inquiry at once, and ran up the stone steps of a comfortable-looking brick house opposite the ambulance and rang the bell. In a moment the door opened and a pleasant voice inquired what was wanted.

"A wounded officer in the ambulance yonder wants to know if you will take him in for a day or two until he can get ordered to Washington. He has funds to recompense you and does not like to go to the hospital."

"Certainly," replied the voice, "bring him in."

And Barnhart, taking me in his arms, carried me into the house and, guided to the second floor by the same lady who had met him at the door, deposited his burden on a couch in a well furnished apartment and we were bidden to make ourselves at home.

In a little while, a nice hot supper of tea, toast, eggs and beefsteak, enough for both, was brought to the room by our hospitable hostess, who seemed to take the greatest pleasure in serving her guests with her own hands. Later in the evening, she called with her husband and they formally introduced themselves. They were young married people with one child, a beautiful little girl of six or eight summers. He was a merchant and kept a store in an adjoining building. They spent the evening in the room, chatting of the stirring events of the month and, indeed, their experiences had been scarcely less exciting than our own. Hagerstown had been right in the whirl of the battle-storm which had been raging in Maryland. Both armies had passed through its streets and bivouacked in its environs. More than once the opposing forces had contended for possession of the town. Twice the union cavalry had charged in and driven the confederates out, and once had been forced, themselves, to vacate in a hurry. It was almost inside its limits that Captain Snyder, of the First Michigan cavalry, serving on Kilpatrick's staff, had with the saber fought single-handed five confederate horsemen and he was lying wounded mortally in a neighboring building. Our kind host and hostess entertained us until a late hour with interesting recitals of what they had seen from the inside or "between the lines."