Brave Deeds of Union Soldiers

by Samuel Scoville

This he did and a regular surgeon completed an operation which he said had, under the circumstances, been most efficiently performed. Corporal James always said that the medal of honor which the government gave him was worth far more than the arm which he gave the government.

In the days of David there came a great famine. Year after year the crops failed and the people starved. At last the priests and soothsayers told David that this doom had fallen upon the nation because of a broken oath. Many centuries before Joshua, one of the great generals of the world, was fighting his way into the Promised Land. He was contending with huge black giant tribes like the Anakim, and against blue-eyed Amorite mountaineers with their war-chariots of iron, whose five kings he was to utterly destroy on that great day when he said in the sight of the host of Israel, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon and thou Moon in the valley of Ajalon," and the sun stood still and the moon stayed until the people had revenged themselves upon their enemies. He had captured the fortified city of Jericho and had razed it to the ground and laid that terrible curse which was afterward fulfilled on the man who should again lay the foundation and rebuild the city. He had destroyed the city of Ai, little but inhabited by fierce fighters who had hurled back even the numberless hordes of Israel. The terror and the dread of the invaders had spread through the length and breadth of the land. On the slopes of Mount Hermon lived the Hivites. They were not great in war, but like the men of Tyre they asked to be let alone to carry on the trade and commerce in which they were so expert. Not far away from Ai was their chief city of Gibeon and the elders of that city planned to obtain from Joshua safety by stratagem. They sent embassadors whose skin bottles were old and rent and bound up and whose shoes were worn through and clouted and whose garments were old and worn and their provision dry and mouldy. These came to Joshua pretending to be embassadors from a far country who desired to make a league with them. Not knowing that their city was in the very path of his march, Joshua and the princes of the congregation made peace with them. Later on they found that they had been deceived, but the word of the nation had been passed and the sworn peace could not be broken. So it happened from that day that the Gibeonites became hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and lived in peace with the Israelites under their sworn protection. The centuries passed and at last Saul, the first king of Israel, began his reign. In spite of the oath of his forefathers, he slew the Gibeonites and sought to root them out of the land. It was this broken oath that had brought upon the nation the years of famine and suffering. Under the advice of their priests David sent for the remnants of the Gibeonites and asked them what atonement could be made for the cruel and treacherous deed of King Saul who had long been dead, but whose sin lived on after him. The Gibeonites said that they would have no silver or gold of Saul or of his house, but demanded that seven men of the race of Saul be delivered unto them. It was done and they hung these seven prisoners as a vengeance on the bloody house of Saul. Two of them were the sons of Rizpah whom she bore unto Saul, the king. When they were hanged, she took sackcloth and spread it on the rocks and guarded those bodies night and day and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon them by day or the beasts of the field by night. Sleeplessly she guarded all that was left of her sons until the news of her faithfulness was brought to David, who gave back to her the bodies for burial and for the last rites of sepulchre and sanctuary which mean so much to all believers.

In the Civil War at Cold Harbor, Virginia, Sergeant LeRoy Williams of the 8th New York Artillery, like Rizpah, saved the body of his dead colonel and brought it back at the risk of his own life for honored burial. During that terrible battle in one of the charges of his regiment, his colonel was shot down close to the enemy's lines. When the shattered remnants of the regiment rallied again after they had been driven back by the entrenched Confederates, it was found that the colonel was missing. Williams had a profound admiration and affection for his colonel. When he found he was missing, he took an oath before the men that were left that he would find him and bring him in dead or alive. All the rest of that weary afternoon he crept back and forth over the battle-field exposed to the fire of the enemy's sharp-shooters. Again and again his life was saved almost by a miracle, so close did the well-directed bullets strike. Finally just at twilight close to the enemy's lines he found his colonel. He lay as he had fallen, facing the entrenchments which he had fought so hard to win, with a bullet through his heart. Within a few feet of where he lay the Confederate pickets were stationed who watched the field and fired at the least suspicious movement. Just as Williams identified the body, he saw one of the sentries approaching in the dusk and had just time to throw himself down with outstretched arms beside the dead officer when the guard was upon him. Something in his attitude aroused the man's suspicions and he prodded Williams in the back with his bayonet. Fortunately the sharp steel struck him glancingly and only inflicted a shallow wound and Williams had the presence of mind and the fortitude to lie perfectly quiet without a motion or a sound to indicate that he lived. The sentry passed on convinced that only dead men lay before him. Williams waited until it became perfectly dark and started to drag in the dead body of his officer. Inch by inch he crept away from the enemy's lines in the darkness until he was far enough away so that his movements could not be seen. All that weary night he dragged and carried the rescued body of the dead officer until just at dawn he brought it within the Union lines to receive the honors of a military funeral.

Space fails to tell of the many brave deeds which gleam through the blood of many a hard-fought field and shine against the blackness of many a dark defeat. There was David L. Smith, a sergeant in Battery E of the 1st New York Light Artillery, who, when a shell struck an ammunition chest in his battery, exploding a number of cartridges and setting fire to the packing tow, instead of running away from the exploding cartridges which threatened every minute to set fire to the fuses of some of the great shells, had the coolness and the courage to bring a bucket of water and put out the flames as quietly as if he were banking a camp-fire for the night.

There was Isaac Redlon, a private in the 27th Maine Infantry, who shortly before the battle of Chickamauga was put under arrest for a gross breach of discipline. Isaac saw a chance to wipe out the disgrace which he had incurred. Instead of staying at the rear with the wounded and other men under arrest, he managed to get hold of a rifle and fought through the two terrible days of that disastrous battle. So bravely did he fight, so cool was he under fire and so quick to carry out and to anticipate every order that was given, that when the battle was at last over, his captain decided that not only had Redlon wiped out the memory of his former misdoing, but that he had earned the medal which was afterward awarded to him.

Another man whose bravery wiped out his mistakes was Colonel Louis P. DiCesnola of the 4th New York Cavalry. On June 17, 1863, he was under arrest when the battle was joined at Aldie, Virginia. It was the bitterest day that the colonel had ever known when in the guard-house he watched his regiment go into action without him. He felt that he had ruined his whole career and that his life through his folly and hot-headedness was a complete failure. There was granted to him, however, as there is to all of us, the opportunity to make amends. While he was still moodily watching the progress of the battle, suddenly he saw the men, whom he had so often led, waver. Then stragglers began to slip back through the lines and suddenly the whole regiment was in full retreat. Colonel DiCesnola did not hesitate a moment.

"Open that door," he said to the guard. "I'll show those fellows how to fight and I'll come back when it's all over."

Without a word the sentry unlocked the door and the colonel rushed out just in time to meet the first rank of the flying men. Almost the first man that he met was the officer who had taken his place, riding the colonel's own horse. DiCesnola gripped the animal by the bridle.

"Get off that horse," he shouted, "and let some one ride him who knows which way to go. He's not used to retreating," and before his bewildered successor could answer, he was hurled out of the saddle and Colonel DiCesnola was on the back of his own horse.

"About face, charge!" he thundered to his men. Most of them recognized his voice and the familiar figure that so often led them and without hesitating a moment, wheeled about and followed him toward the front. Every few yards his troop was increased by men who were ashamed to ride to the rear when they saw him charging to the front unarmed but waving his hat and cheering them on. Before the Confederates could realize what had happened they were fairly hurled off their feet by the tremendous rush of hurtling men and horses. Of all the attacks which are hard to withstand, the charge of a body of men who have rallied and are trying to wipe out the shame of their retreat is most to be feared. It was so here. Although the Confederates fought hard nothing could hold back the rush of this cavalry regiment. They were led by their own colonel who though unarmed stayed in the forefront of the battle. As they finally broke through the Confederate line, a burly cavalryman slashed at him with his sabre. Colonel DiCesnola stooped low to avoid the cut, but the point of the sabre caught him on the right shoulder and ripped deep into his chest while almost at the same moment he received a pistol shot in his left arm which broke it. Unable to hold the reins, he slipped forward and would have fallen to the ground, but was held in his saddle by his first assailant who forced his horse up close beside the colonel's and dashed back through the Confederate lines carrying DiCesnola and his magnificent horse. There the colonel was made prisoner, but was carefully nursed and by the time that he had recovered his strength, was exchanged and rejoined his old regiment. He reported to his general as still under arrest.