To resume the narrative: The enemy fell back as we approached. On arriving at the fence, we opened fire, and then rushed into the woods for such cover as the trees, &c., offered. The enemy also was well scattered through the woods, behind numerous ledges, logs, trees and piles of cord wood, a few men only being east of the Smoketown road, which at that time was not fenced.
The fire of the enemy was exceedingly well aimed; and as the distance between us was only about one hundred yards we had a bloody time of it.
We had fired only a few rounds, before some of us noticed Gens. Mansfield and Crawford, and other mounted officers, over on the Croasdale Knoll, which, with the intervening ground, was open woods. Mansfield at once came galloping down the hill and passed through the scattered men of the right companies, shouting “Cease firing, you are firing into our own men!” He rode very rapidly and fearlessly till he reached the place where our line bent to the rear (behind the fence). Captain Jordan now ran forward as far as the fence, along the top of the ledge behind which his division was sheltered, and insisted that Gen. Mansfield should “Look and see.” He and Sergt. Burnham pointed out particular men of the enemy, who were not 50 yards away, that were then aiming their rifles at us and at him. Doubtless the General was wounded while talking with Jordan; at all events he was convinced, and remarked, “Yes, you are right.” He then turned his horse and passed along to the lower land where the fence was down, and attempted to go through, but the horse, which also appeared to be wounded, refused to step into the trap-like mass of rails and rubbish, or to jump over. The General thereupon promptly dismounted and led the horse into Sam Poffenberger’s field. I had noticed the General when he was with Crawford on the Croasdale Knoll, and had followed him with my eye in all his ride. Col. Beal was having a great deal of trouble with his horse, which was wounded and appeared to be trying to throw the Colonel, and I was slow in starting from the Colonel to see what Mansfield’s gestures meant. I met him at the gap in the fence. As he dismounted his coat blew open, and I saw that blood was streaming down the right side of his vest.
The General was very quick in all his motions and attempted to mount as soon as the horse had got through the fence; but his strength was evidently failing, and he yielded to the suggestion that we should take him to a surgeon. What became of the orderly and the horse none of us noticed. Sergt. Joe Merrill, of Co. F, helped carry the General off; a young black man, who had just come up the ravine from the direction of Sam Poffenberger’s, was pressed into service. He was very unwilling to come with us, as he was hunting for Capt. Somebody’s[10] frying-pan, the loss of which disturbed him more than the National calamity. Joe Merrill was so incensed at the Contraband’s sauciness, his indifference to the danger, and his slovenly way of handling the General, that he begged me to put down the General and “fix things.” It turned out that Joe’s intention was to “fix” the darkey, whom he cuffed and kicked most unmercifully. We then got a blanket and other men, and I started off ahead of the re-formed squad[11] to find a Surgeon.
The road had appeared to be full of ambulances a half hour before, but all were gone now and we carried the General clear to Sam Poffenberger’s woods. Here I saw Gen. Geo. H. Gordon, commanding the 3d brigade of our division, told him the story and asked him to send an orderly or aide for a surgeon, but he said he could not as he had neither with him. He was moving the 107th N. Y., a new, large regiment; an ambulance was found and two medical officers, just inside the woods, a few steps north of where Sam Poffenberger’s gate now hangs, marked K on the map. The younger doctor put a flask to the General’s mouth. The whiskey, or whatever it was, choked the General and added greatly to his distress. We put the General into the ambulance and that was the last I saw of him. Lieut. Edw. R. Witman, 46th Penn., an aide to Gen. Crawford, had been sent back by Gen. Crawford, who evidently saw Mansfield in his fatal ride. I turned over ambulance[12] and all to him and returned to the regiment; but when I arrived I found that Tyndale’s and Stainrook’s brigades of Greene’s division had swept the woods a little while after I had gone, carrying a dozen or two of the 10th with them, and that Gen. Gordon had followed later with the 107th New York. Only twenty or thirty men of the 10th Maine were left on the ground; the colors and the others had gone out and taken position somewhere back of the Croasdale Knoll.
We buried some of the dead of our regiment in the north edge of “the bushes,” near to the Smoketown road fence. During the remainder of the day a very large number of the officers and men of the regiment were detailed by various medical officers to bring off wounded men from “the cornfield” and woods, for the ambulance department was not organized at that time as it was later in the war, and was not equal to the task.
We also buried the Confederate dead that fell in our immediate front, but somehow the cracker-box head boards were marked (20 GEO), and this little error made trouble enough for me as Historian of the regimental association.
At night we bivouacked north of Sam Poffenberger’s woods, and on the 18th marched into East Woods, just beyond where we fought, halted, stacked arms, and during the truce dispersed to look at all the sights in our neighborhood.
On the 19th we were moved into the woods again and took a more extended view of the field.
In June, 1863, the 10th Maine Battalion, in its march to Gettysburg, passed near the field, and four or five of those who had been in the battle turned aside to see the old grounds. The graves near “the bushes” and those of the “20th Georgia” were just as we left them.