I rode hurriedly down to the river, below town, to see what it was all about. In those days, I never stopped to ask anybody's advice or consent, but followed my own impulses and inclinations. I passed some General officers and Staff on a hill-side near the batteries that were firing, who had their glasses pointed in the direction of the hammering.
When I got to the river, as close as my horse could go without jumping down the steep bank, I saw, to my surprise, that from all along the rifle-pits that lined the top of the bank on the Rebel side was a line of white smoke—indeed, the smoke almost concealed the rifle-pits.
It was from behind this bank of foggy smoke that all the hammering noises came. It was caused by the sounds of hundreds and hundreds of rifle-shots "at will," but in such rapid succession that it resembled, as I have said, innumerable hammers on a frame house.
My horse could not get me close enough to see down to the edge of the water on our side, and I was about to dismount and get closer, when I saw coming up the steep road, that had been cut in the bank, a procession that took the blood out of my heart. There were two men dragging (not carrying) a dead soldier, while a closer glance showed all along the side of that steep bank dozens of others, either dead or dying.
It was the Engineer Corps of the Army of the Potomac that were down there behind that bank trying to lay a pontoon bridge over the Rappahannock.
The artillery "support" had no more effect in quieting that incessant hammering than if their shots had been fired into the air.
I stood there for a while, absolutely paralyzed, at a distance not much greater than the width of a street, watching those Rebels bob up all along that rifle-pit, puff out the white smoke, and their heads go down behind the long line of yellow clay out of sight, all along the line.
I have often since wondered that one of those fellows did not pick me off my horse, as I sat there an absurdly-conspicuous mark.
If they had not been so busy watching those who were trying to lay that pontoon, they would undoubtedly have dropped me. My position on the horse would naturally be taken for that of an officer. I assert here that more desperate or more heroic service has never been performed than by those of our Engineer Corps in their laying of pontoons in the face of the enemy's fire from rifle-pits.
It seemed to me, on a closer inspection of the work that day, that they carried out a dead man for every plank they laid on the pontoons. When it is remembered that these men necessarily work en masse, and that almost every shot from an enemy must hit something, it will be seen how much exposed to deadly fire the quiet Engineer Corps become. In the charges on rifle-pits or forts, or on an enemy's line, there is always something of the excitement of a rush or hurrah that impels men forward with loaded guns and pointed bayonets in their hands; but, in laying pontoons over a river in the face of the enemy, a courage and nerve are required that, to my notion, is far beyond the ordinary.