The committee’s announcement, that on this evening there would be read by me a paper relating to the history of the regiment, I fear may have awakened false expectations. But it was suggested that a little personal history of my own experiences, from the moment when that terrific flank fire caused the regiment to leave me for dead on the field of Cedar Mountain to the moment when, three months later, I again came under the stars and stripes at Aiken’s Landing, would interest former comrades for a short time to-night. It is safe to say, perhaps, that our regiment passed through every possible experience of the war. In all the various scenes of suffering and endurance, both physical and mental, which the war could offer, the Second Massachusetts was represented; and in that view, perhaps, the personal adventures of those who, while separated from the corps, always considered its membership the highest of honors, may be considered as forming part of the general history of the regiment itself.
I was fortunate enough to find in my blouse pocket, after acute physical suffering had in a measure given place to the prisoner’s worst enemy, the leaden vacuity of ennui, a little duodecimo almanac and diary for 1862, with half a lead pencil. With these, by dint of fine writing, I succeeded in keeping a sort of journal of daily events, with my reflections thereupon, during the whole period of my captivity, the last entry being comprised in the words, “A free man at Willard’s.” From this journal, I shall make copious extracts, believing that words then written will reproduce the situation better than any subsequent description from memory.
At about 2 P.M. on the 8th of August, the long roll was beaten in the camp of the Second Massachusetts, at Little Washington. As has often happened, we fell in only to fall out again with the news that it only meant get ready to march; and in fact it was nearly five before we were off. The heat during the first hour or two of the march was severe, but the latter part was by moonlight and very pleasant. Still, I find it recorded that some unfortunate and unseasoned recruits, who had just joined us from home with knapsacks heavy with five times what they really needed, were utterly played out before the sun was down. And here I take up the narration as I find it in the little book referred to, with an occasional interpolation and explanation which will be marked as such in brackets.
August 14, 1862.—One week to-day since the fight. Let us attempt a résumé. On arriving at Culpeper, Friday night, after a moonlight march which about played out the unfortunate recruits with their heavy knapsacks, we lay down in a field, Stephen and I cracking my provision box, which had come on with the blankets. [This was Lieutenant Stephen Perkins of Company A with whom I had become intimate, and who shared with me a great and innocent passion for tea. Whichever of us was known to possess a supply of the article was sure of a visit from the other at his camp fire after a march. Before separating that night, I remember he said to me, “Sam, we shall see more fighting soon: I feel it; there is a battle in the air.” There was, indeed, and it ended the battle of life for him.] We then slept on the moor, to the sound of freshly arriving troops and wagons. In the morning, we find an army around us. After a breakfast at the sound of the triangle [for by this unmilitary instrument did Johnson, our caterer, call the officers’ mess to meals], under the sun, we fall in and take arms, but have hardly done so when we stack them again and proceed to stake out ground for a camp. But this is just done and tents beginning to rise when Sherman, of Pope’s staff, rushes by to head-quarters at a rate which “spared not for spoiling of his steed,” and which caused us to hold our hands in expectation for a moment; and, sure enough, in two minutes we were again in line, and this time off under a blazing sun, though for once without our knapsacks. Through Culpeper and about six or seven miles further in a fiery furnace hotter even than that of Shadrach & Co. Near the front, heard a little firing. Sergeant Parsons fell with sun-stroke. Left two recruits with him and pushed on for the right, where at last, panting and half dead, we got into a wood where we stacked arms and fell down behind them. The half hour of breeze and shade which ensued made men of us once more, so that when my company was ordered to skirmish we were actually able to do it. The firing of artillery commenced at about 3 P.M., as I should judge, pretty heavy and well-sustained. Ned Abbott’s company and mine were ordered to report forward, and deployed our skirmishers on the garden fence, with reserves behind; and there, for a couple of hours, we watched the swayings of the artillery fight, timing the explosion of the heavy shells, and watching the varying intervals between the shots of the rebel batteries. At last, as the sun seemed not more than an hour high, and just as Ned Abbott, lying by my side in the rear of our skirmishers, had expressed his disbelief in the fight’s coming off that afternoon, an orderly, followed by Pitman of Banks’ staff, came up to where Gordon was sitting on his horse near us, watching the field through his glass; and it seemed, for the first time, that something was going wrong. I was near enough to hear that he wanted a regiment of Gordon’s brigade to report, as I understood it, to Banks at the centre. “You must take him your regiment, then,” said Gordon to Colonel Andrews. Abbott and I jumped to our feet, and were ordered to rally our men on the battalion; and hardly, panting and breathless, had we resumed our places in line when the regiment advanced by the right of companies to the front, until we had cleared the garden, and then by company into line.
Then commenced the furious and incessant roll and crash of musketry, leaving, as Copeland expressed it, no interval in which a single other shot could have been inserted. We plunged over the ditch and crashed through a wood, out of which came Crane of the Third Wisconsin, covered with blood, and reeling in his saddle, until after about a quarter of a mile we came to a fence with a wheat-field beyond. In this, a brigade of rebels were in line, but what they were firing at we couldn’t see. We opened fire and then were ordered to cease—why, I don’t know, as I could see no one between us and them. But, as their line advanced, we soon re-opened fire, as the converging storm of balls hailed upon us.
How long this lasted, I could not tell. Their red flags advanced, but large gaps were opening in their lines. Finally, the bullets seemed to come from all sides at once. Pattison, my lieutenant, shouted in my ear that Cary was down, and he had been ordered to take his company; and he left. Then the red flags seemed close upon the fence, and it seemed to me that the right had fallen back; and I started across the little gap in the fence to see. Yes, the right had gone; but in that instant I caught it, first in the right leg, then through the left foot, and in that same instant the enemy were upon us, or rather upon me, for what was left of my company had gone with the rest. Though staggering, I had not yet fallen, when one rushed up, aimed at my head with “Surrender, G—d d—n your soul!” which I did. But if I had known then, what now I know, I would have lain there for dead till they were gone, and then dragged myself slowly toward our side. [This refers to the fact that one of the first pleasing pieces of information communicated to me by my captors, who were surprised that I did not already know it, was that, by special orders of Jeff. Davis, none of Pope’s officers were to be treated as prisoners of war or paroled, but kept as hostages to be hanged from time to time in retaliation for any such execution of guerrillas as was threatened in Pope’s celebrated orders, of which we then had not yet heard.]
But as it was [the journal resumes], I gave up my sword and pistol, sat down, borrowed my captor’s knife, ripped my trousers open and shoe off, and examined damages. An awful hole in foot and little one in leg, at the bottom of which the bullet was plainly visible. Seeing this, the Confederate gentleman to whom I then belonged was seized with a desire to perform a surgical operation with the knife referred to, but yielded to my remonstrance and request that he would be satisfied with having put it in, and allow some gentleman of the medical staff to undertake the bullet’s extraction. Two of them then offered to take me across the wheat-field to where their own wounded were, asking me at the same time what money I had for them. They did not offer any violence or undertake to search me. Had they done so, they would have made prize of my money-belt, containing over $90 in greenbacks and a gold watch. I gave them some ten or twelve gold dollars which I had in my pocket, reserving one by great good luck, as will presently appear. Then they carried me across the field, with each arm affectionately round a rebel neck. As I passed the fence where the right had been, there lay poor Ned,—who half an hour before had joked about being two hours in action without losing a man,—with white, waxen face against the dead leaves. It was just light enough for me to recognize him. Who else of the officers had fallen, I did not know, save that Cary was down, as Pattison had told me, before our lines gave way. With occasional halts, they carried me across the field, and put me down among a groaning mass of wounded of both sides. The men next me gave me water and a knapsack for my head, a man came along with a canteen of whiskey and I got a drink. The moon rose full over the trees, and the cannonade recommenced. I got a piece of the wounded rebel’s blanket next me over my shoulder, lay as near him as I could; for, though the day had been blazing, the night mist and loss of blood made me shiver; and I slept. Once I was waked by some one attempting to pull off my seal ring; but he desisted when I pulled my hand away, remarked, “A handsome ring,” and went on. Very likely he thought me dead, as my companion under the blanket was by that time.
Before daylight, the pain of my shattered bones brought me again to consciousness. Somehow, I hated to see the sky begin to brighten, knowing how soon the sun would blaze furiously down upon us. And yet I didn’t seem to realize the horrors of the position, but looked upon myself as acting a part for which I had expected to be cast, and with the stage business of which I was perfectly familiar; and all the wounded took it more or less as a business matter. As the sun rose, I gradually dragged myself under trees with the rest of the groaning set, leaving those who had died to sleep it out. A rebel soldier passed with two canteens on. “What will you sell me one of those canteens for?” said I. “I’ll give you a dollar.” He laughed and was passing on. “A gold dollar,” said I. He stopped: “What, Yank! Have you got a gold dollar?” “Yes,” said I, “you go to the branch, fill the canteen with fresh water, and here’s the dollar.” If he had been a wretch, he might have taken it away and left me to die, for there was no one else near except wounded; but, after considering a few minutes, he went off to the stream, filled the canteen, brought it to me, took the dollar, and left. And that canteen, I think, saved my life; for soon the sun rose so that no more shade could be had. I tore up my handkerchief, bound my wounds, and kept them moist, kept the canteen under me and took little sips when my thirst became unbearable, and so got through the day, making the water last until evening. By and by, they began to pick up the wounded by threes and pairs, in ambulances. When, however,—I should think about 3 P.M.,—there were about five or six of us left, and I the only Yankee, a sudden rush of men through the woods and stampede of wagons down the road, with an accompaniment of “Yankees are coming!” swept every sound man away from us. Every man that had legs used them at double quick. Then the prayers of the wounded to the wagoners, as they flogged their teams past: “Oh, take me away from here, help me into a wagon; for God’s sake, don’t leave me to the Yankees!” One poor fellow, all of whose clothes had been taken off by the surgeon engaged on his wounds, raised himself, stark naked and covered with blood, against a tree, and implored every teamster in turn to stop and take him in. The effect was grisly. It struck me that, if they were really coming, some of the rebs then rushing by might take occasion to settle one Yankee “en passant”: so I got my blouse off, covered myself with dead rebel sergeant’s coat, and lay low. A section of artillery extricated itself from the wagons, and wheeled into battery; and, finding myself just in point-blank range, I succeeded by painful endeavor in getting behind a big stump.
But, alas! the excitement subsided, the wagons were stopped and ordered back, officers cursed the originators of the panic, and it was all over. But a real charge or a few shots just then would have started “secesh” with a rush, and saved the captain of Company E, Second Massachusetts Volunteers. After awhile, an ambulance came and picked up the last two of us and carried us to where the hospital flies were pitched. My driver, after making sure that nobody heard him, informed me that he had always been for the Union, and voted against “secesh”; “and when they started this war,” said he, “I swore they’d have to fight it out without me; but I was wrong there, for they’ve got me.” He drove me up to a fly under which were some dozen or twenty wounded on hospital cots. At first, they said there was no room; but then somebody discovered that his neighbor was dead, and suggested that the Yankee might take his place. So they moved the dead man out under the eaves inside the guys, and gave me the cot. The surgeon examined and bound up my foot, relieving me with the assurance that it would probably stay on, though I should be always lame. The bullet came out of my leg very easily, for, oddly enough, it hadn’t pierced my drawers, but had carried them deep into the leg in a sort of bag. A thunder-storm now burst upon us, and with the first gust down came our house, over living and dead. After a long staggering and flapping, they got her set again. The rain thundered on the canvas and cascaded in sheets over the dead man under the eaves, but he was beyond even water cure. The scene was dismal: in the intervals of rain, they took to burying legs and arms upon the hill, and it would not have made a bad slide for a stereoscope, on the whole. But, as night fell, I took my supper with some relish,—a piece of hard-tack and ham, given me by a rebel private on the field,—and with the help of the dead rebel’s blanket of last night, which I had sense enough to bag when they picked me up, I slept once more.
In the morning, they sent me in an ambulance or “avalanche,” as they call it, to head-quarters. Thought at first I was going before Felix or Stonewall himself; turned out to be General Hill. He came and looked into the ambulance. “What regiment?” “Second Massachusetts.” “Let’s see, Gordon’s old regiment?” “Yes.” “Best regiment in Banks’ army; cut all to pieces, though: I’ve been over the ground,” and exit. He ordered me sent to Orange Court House; countermanded, and they dumped me out by a blacksmith’s shop. A surgeon came along and ordered me sent to Rapidan Station, on the box seat of an “avalanche”; and an awful “avalanche” it was,—four men with legs and arms off inside. It was eight miles over rocks and through rivers, and generally such a drive of damnation as never entered into the heart of man to conceive. Luckily, I kept my strength; but why the inside passengers didn’t die before we got half way is the marvel. “The lamentable chorus, the cry of agony, the endless groan,” as we bounced and jolted over corduroy road and river bed, was an ill thing to hear. We arrived at the railroad about dusk, just as I was calculating about how much longer I could stand it without fainting, and they put us out on the grass among those already arrived. The train came along after dark, and, finding that I must shift for myself or be left in the field, I made my painful way on hands and knees, among horses’ feet and under the awful “avalanche,” to the platform, where, after a while, they picked me up and put me aboard; turned seat back, put my foot up, and slept.