And the remnant of the splendid regiment filed to the rear in the darkness; but still their cheers could be heard for quite a distance over the rattle of musketry and the sound of the guns.
"The battery! The battery! Here comes the battery!" was heard from a hundred throats, as it wildly thundered and swept from the rear, regardless of the dead and dying, who fairly littered the field. God help the dying, for the dead cared not! The iron wheels of the carriages, and feet of the horses, discriminate not between friend and foe. It will never be known how many were ground to pulp that July evening as Capt. J. R. Smead's Battery K, Fifth United States Artillery came in response to the command of the gallant Porter, who saw the danger of having his left turned. Three batteries were ordered up by Gen. Porter, viz: Capt. J. R. Smead; Capt. Stephen H. Weed, Battery I, Fifth United States Artillery; and Capt. J. Howard Carlisle, Battery E, Second United States Artillery.
"Forward, Sixty-Third! Double quick! march!" shouted Capt. O'Neil, the senior line officer, who was now in command.
"Forward! Double quick!" was repeated by each company commander, and the Sixty-Third followed the lead of the battery into the very jaws of death, many of them to meet their brothers of the Ninth, who just passed over the silent river, on the crimson tide of war![10]
Had the repeated and desperate efforts of the enemy succeeded in turning the Union left, as was feared towards nightfall, a dire disaster awaited the splendid army of McClellan. How near we came to it may be judged from the fact that all the reserves were brought into action, including the artillery under Gen. Henry J. Hunt. The instructions to Smead, Carlisle and Mead, when hurried up to defend the narrow gorge, with their artillery, through which the Confederates must force their way on to the plateau, were to fire on friend and foe, if the emergency demanded it. This is confirmed by a letter to the writer from Fitz John Porter. "These batteries were ordered up," he says, "to the narrow part of the hill, to be used in saving the rest of the army, if those in front were broken, driven in and pursued, by firing, if necessary, on friend as well as foe, so that the latter should not pass them. I went forward with you to share your fate if fortune deserted us, but I did not expect disaster, and, thank God, it did not come!"
These are the words of as brave and loyal an American as ever drew his sword for the Republic. Few men, perhaps none, in the army at that time, with our limited experience in war, could have handled his troops as Gen. Porter did at Gaine's Mill and Malvern. He desperately contested every inch of ground on the north bank of the Chickahominy, although his force was only twenty-seven thousand against sixty-five thousand of the enemy. Again at Malvern, the Rebels, maddened with successive defeats, were determined to annihilate the grand army of the Potomac with a last superhuman effort. They probably would have succeeded had a less able soldier been placed in command at that critical point. But, as will be seen from the above extract, the General never for a moment lost hope of being able to successfully repulse the enemy, for no man knew the material he had to do it with better than he.
What a pity that the services of such an able soldier should have been lost to the army and the country, a few weeks later, through the petty jealousies of small men, who wanted a scape-goat to cover up their own shortcomings. For over twenty years this grand American soldier, the soul of honor, who would at any moment sacrifice his life sooner than be guilty of an act inconsistent with his noble profession, has been permitted to live under the unjust stigma cast upon him. The day will surely come, and it is not far distant, when the American people will blush for the great wrong done Fitz John Porter. They will agree with the late general of our armies, a man whose memory will be forever held in grateful remembrance by his country (U. S. Grant), who, after careful and mature investigation of his conduct at the Second Battle of Bull Run, said deliberately, that Fitz John Porter should not be censured for the mismanagement of that ill-fated battle. In military affairs Gen. Grant was always a safe guide to follow.
After a careful review of Gen. Porter's case, Gen Grant wrote President Arthur, under date of December 22, 1881, as follows:
"At the request of Gen. Fitz John Porter, I have recently reviewed his trial, and the testimony held before the Schofield court of inquiry held in 1879.... The reading of the whole record has thoroughly convinced me that for these nineteen years I have been doing a gallant and efficient soldier a very great injustice in thought and sometimes in speech. I feel it incumbent upon me now to do whatever lies in my power to remove from him and from his family the stain upon his good name.... I am now convinced that he rendered faithful, efficient and intelligent service.... I would ask that the whole matter be laid before the attorney-general for his examination and opinion, hoping that you will be able to do this much for an officer who has suffered for nineteen years a punishment that never should be inflicted upon any but the most guilty."
It was many months before I again saw the Ninth Massachusetts; but what a contrast to its appearance on that glorious April morning, in 1862, when I was the recipient of its warm hospitality among the pines on the threshold of the advance on the rebel capital.