"Suddenly every sound was hushed, for the distant boom of the two guns that opened the battle of Fredericksburg broke upon our ears. The silence was succeeded by wild shouts of enthusiasm, and soon we were on our way to the scene of action. The sharp rattle of musketry now began to mingle with the report of cannon. As we approached the river the roar of the artillery was truly grand and awful. I can only compare it to a very violent thunder-storm, wherein you hear, at one and the same time, the rumble and mutter of some peal dying away in the distance, the heavy, jarring roll more near, and the loud stunning explosion from the flash overhead. Our cavalry was crowded on a plain in the rear of our batteries. We did not know that the rebels were not replying to our guns, and expected every minute they would get our range. As we remained undisturbed, I concluded that our distance from the river was much greater than I had first supposed; but when the order came to march, and we filed off, by twos, down towards the river, past our batteries, I expected every moment to see the head of our column broken and shattered by shot and shell. I have heard much about "lazy soldiers and large pay," but I thought at that time that the soldier who marches steadily and determinedly forward on such occasions earns in five minutes all the pay he ever gets. But the heavy cannonading was only from our own guns, for the rebels were reserving their fire. We soon found that our orders were not to cross, but to go down the river and do picket duty on the extreme left flank. As we marched along, a shell from one of our batteries on a hill above me passed directly over my head. As it hissed by, it gave me an idea of the infinitely short space of time in which many of our poor boys are dashed into eternity.
"The early dawn of Saturday morning saw us returning to the battlefield. About nine o'clock we mounted the hill, and formed upon the plain on the opposite side of the river. As we were taking our position, I heard a whizzing sound, and saw the earth torn up by a solid shot quite near me. They soon screamed over our heads and fell all around us; but, as a general thing, the enemy fired too high. A few hundred yards to our front, the shells were bursting constantly. We remained on the plain all that day and night, the fire in front of us sometimes slackening, and sometimes ceasing altogether. We often cast anxious glances at some rebel batteries quite near us on the right, and often wondered why they did not open upon us, for if they did, they could have swept us from the plain in a few moments. Either our batteries occupied them, or they reserved their fire for some purpose. A little after noon, we heard that General Bayard, our division commander, was mortally wounded. Soon after word came that cavalry was needed. Two regiments of the enemy were running, it was said, and the Harris Light Cavalry was wanted to follow them up. Off dashed our men in close column, at full gallop, to the place designated, the surgeon and myself going to the hospital to prepare for our wounded. As we started, the road over which the regiment had just passed, and directly in front of us, was torn up by a solid shot. Whose earnest prayers were heard that day, and the Harris Light Cavalry saved from almost a massacre? The order for cavalry had to pass through three different hands before it reached us, and by the time our men arrived at the spot it was discovered that the enemy's retreat was only a feint, and that batteries were so arranged as to place the party who should follow them between two fires. Our regiment approached near enough to the trap, and were exposed to a sufficiently hot fire, for a few minutes, to be satisfied that if they had charged, as was intended, but few would have returned.
"At the hospital we found poor Bayard. Of all the ghastly wounds I saw that day his was the most awful. It needed but a glance to see, as he calmly stated to those who visited him, "that his days on earth were numbered." If his wound had been a mere scratch, he could not have been more cool, quiet, and collected. He talked calmly of his death as of a settled thing, and only inquired particularly how much time he had left on earth. He was told, 'perhaps forty-eight hours.' He did not live twenty-four. My heart sank within me as he gave me his hand in farewell, and I almost murmured, 'Why are the best taken?' The large house to which the wounded were brought was now filled with mutilated and dying men. Cries and groans resounded from every apartment. Ghastly and bloody wounds met the eye in every direction. Some had their eyes shot out; the tongues of some were swollen out of their mouths; some had their bodies shot through; others were torn and mangled by shell and solid shot, and all were crowded wherever there was any space. The surgeons were hacking off limbs and arms by the dozen. The odor of blood was oppressive. One man called me to him, thinking I was a surgeon, and said that one of his wounds had been dressed, but he found that he had another, which was bleeding rapidly. Another poor fellow held up his arm to me, with a great bulging hole in it, and asked with an expression of pain and anxiety that I could scarcely endure, whether I thought he would have to lose it? Such is the horrid reality of war behind the painted scenes of honor, glory, and romance. However cold an ear the poor fellows may have turned to the story of the Cross when in health, as a general thing they were ready enough now to listen to the offers of mercy. One wounded boy had his leg taken off just as he was entering the hospital, which building was under fire all day, and was repeatedly struck. The scene from the windows of the hospital was truly splendid as night came on. Innumerable camp-fires gleamed from the hillsides, and occasionally the darkness was lighted up by the flash of cannon. But weariness, and the knowledge that our own regiment might be engaged the next day, caused me to seek a place of rest. The medical department of our brigade had been rendered small by the absence of some of its members, and it might be that our duties on the morrow would be very arduous. The ground outside the hospital was so tramped up, muddy, and filled with horses, that it was impossible to sleep there. But there was a stone alley-way under the hospital, filled with tobacco in the leaf, part of it lying on the ground, and part drying overhead. One end of this place was already filled with wounded men, but the surgeon in charge said that the other would not be occupied before morning, and that I had better stay there. As a light came I saw something white lying near the wall. I first thought it was a dog, and going up, I stirred the object with my foot. On looking closer, I found that it was a ghastly pile of arms and legs from the amputating-room. But I had seen so much of blood and horror during the day that I had grown callous. I quietly spread my blanket within ten feet of the bloody heap, and listened sadly to the shrieks and groans from the hospital above till I fell asleep. The re-opening of the battle on Sunday morning awoke me, and as I was rolling up my blankets, a shell bursting near warned me to hasten. I joined the regiment, and with it recrossed the river. We have since been doing picket duty on the Rappahannock.
E. P. ROE AS CHAPLAIN, AGE 26.
"Many a careless, light-hearted soldier wore an anxious, troubled look that day, as we stood facing the rebel batteries, and many a loud-mouthed, coarse, swearing fellow was quiet and pale. But I saw no flinching or skulking. You at the North, who cosily read about battles in an arm-chair, know little of a man's sensations who stands in front of the enemy's guns. He hears shot and shell scream and explode over and around him. Before him arises the sulphurous smoke of the conflict. From out of that obscurity he knows that at any moment some swift messenger of death may be speeding on its way to his heart. He thinks of unfinished plans, of bright prospects and hopes for the future. His home, its beloved inmates, and the forms and features of those friends that hold the chief places within his soul rise up before him, and he knows that at any moment he may be snatched from all these, and lie a mangled, bleeding corpse upon the ground. And then come graver and still more solemn thoughts of the shadowy world beyond, and 'conscience, which makes cowards of us all,' awakes. In the mad excitement and tumult of a charge, everything is forgotten. When patiently standing under fire, everything is remembered, and this, of all that the soldier has to do and endure, is the most difficult and dreaded."
An occasional amusing incident would occur, however, to relieve the gloom of these tragic times. I remember hearing my brother tell of one that took place while crossing a narrow pontoon bridge. A mule, ridden by a contraband, and having a number of kettles strung on one side of the saddle and on the other some chickens that had been captured from henroosts along the march, suddenly became stubborn when about half-way across the bridge, and resisted all efforts on the part of his rider to make him move on. He was blocking the way for the whole troop. An officer, seeing the situation, shouted the order: "Charge mule!" Instantly half a dozen men rode up and with the points of their sabres convinced the animal of the necessity for a speedy advance. He started off at a dead run, scattering the rattling kettles and squawking hens by the wayside, the poor contraband holding on with arms clasped around the mule's neck, while the troopers followed in wild pursuit, amid shouts and laughter.
CHAPTER III
A WINTER CAMP