The next day (Saturday, May 2), was comparatively quiet, although far to the right could be heard the deep, yet muffled sound of artillery firing, telling that Hooker was engaged. We made demonstrations all along our front, but did no real fighting. During the night, the firing on the right became very heavy,—and I was called into line at about 2 a. m., to go through ere another chance to sleep was afforded me, the most exciting experiences of my life. We were marched to the front, and posted in a ravine. With the first streaks of dawn came sounds of musketry firing on our right. It was the Light Division in the streets of Fredericksburg. Marching by the left flank we emerge from the ravine and take a position on the left, the second, and third and light divisions of our corps extending to the right. As we leave the ravine the enemy opens a heavy fire upon our devoted regiment, the hills on our front and right being aflame with the flashes of the “red artillery.” We advance rapidly, our general leading; our batteries gallop to the rising ground, and open on the enemy’s guns posted near the railroad embankment and which are doing the most execution. Our guns are splendidly served, and soon the rebel battery in front and its infantry supports are seen making quick time for the fortifications in the woods at the base of the hill. Now the guns on the hills redouble their fire, and the din is terrible. Men are falling at every step, and so fierce is the concentric artillery fire of the Confederates that our batteries have to be withdrawn. Not so the infantry. It is our part to keep the rebel force in front employed while the divisions on our right storm Marye’s Heights. So we keep steadily on until a ravine is reached running at right angles with the one we have left, and leading nearly up to the rebel entrenchments. The air is full of screaming shot and whistling shell, and as we near the entrance to the ravine, which is filled with a thick undergrowth of trees and bushes, our boys are ready to insist that at least five hundred rebel cannon have the range and are peppering us accordingly. Through the hell of fire we go, marching by the left flank and closing up our ranks with each breach, and into the ravine from which the enemy’s sharpshooters are seen to scamper like so many rats, as much to escape the range of their own cannon as that of our musketry, for we had not as yet fired a shot.—Here, by hugging the steep sides, we were partially sheltered and within half rifle practice of the foe posted behind their breastworks at the base of the hill. A brisk fusilade was kept up, and although we were unsupported and “in the air” we kept the Johnnies so busy that they did not attempt a sortie. By this time, also, the batteries on Marye’s Heights, which had enfiladed us, had as much as they could do nearer home, for Howe and Newton had begun their advance. It being deemed useless to attempt to do more than keep the enemy in our front employed, our regiment was withdrawn from the ravine and the Parrotts were again opened on the position, which we had, supposed was to be stormed.—“The war which for a space did fail,” now opens furiously on our right, and we watch the advance of the light division with interest, although our regiment is still exposed to a galling fire from riflemen behind the railroad embankment.—The spectacle was a thrilling one. The 6th corps batteries were playing upon the heights, with might and main, and up the steep ascent our brave boys were climbing with all speed. Our hearts were in our throats as we watched. Could the heights be stormed? Could Sedgwick with 10,000 men do what Burnside failed to do with ten times that number? Our Colonel, who has been watching the conflict through his field-glass, electrifies us at last by exclaiming, “The heights are ours, boys!” “Our flag is there!” Such a cheer as went up must have astonished our friends just opposite. A rebel brigade, which had left the entrenchments near our front and was making all speed to succor its friends, suddenly halted, then taking in the situation turned about and ran back again, its pace being accelerated by shots from cannon just taken. The victory was ours thus far, but at what a cost! It was a brief triumph, alas! for disaster had overtaken Hooker, and he was a beaten general at that moment. We knew it not, however. Contrariwise it was announced that Hooker had been even more successful, and that Lee’s routed army was in rapid retreat on Richmond. Joy filled our hearts, even though we mourned the death of many brave comrades whose last roll call on earth had been answered that morning. Hence, when orders came for our brigade to fall in and take the lead in the pursuit on our side, they were obeyed with alacrity, and up and over the battle-stained heights we marched, munching our hardtack as we went, and out upon the Chancellorsville pike, driving the enemy before us like chaff before the wind. Two miles out, a battery opened upon us, but we took little notice, pushing our skirmish line rapidly forward. It was a fatal discharge, however, to an officer on Brooks’ staff, who fell from his horse, nearly decapitated by a shell.—One of our batteries is hurried to the front and a single discharge causes the enemy to retire on the double quick. We reach Salem church, nearly exhausted by our rapid marching, hoping for rest. But the worst is yet to come. Our skirmish line is held at bay. It cannot advance, and our brigade is formed for a charge—my own regiment, through the negligence of some one, going into the fight in heavy marching order, with knapsacks strung, and blankets strapped. Meeting a heavy fire of musketry at the edge of a piece of woods, the brigade halts. But Gen. Brooks, who has orders to effect a junction with Hooker, and deeming the enemy in front to be the same we have been driving, orders another advance. Into the woods we go to be met by a terrific fire. We charge and drive the foe from his breastworks, but can go no further. Heavily reinforced he advances with yells. There is a continuous roll of musketry. The Pennsylvania regiments on our right and left give ground. We are outflanked and enfiladed. Then comes the order to fall back. It must be done quickly if we would not be entirely cut off from the second line. Burdened as many of our men are by their knapsacks, and fatigued by the march, they can not run. Such is my condition. Although with only a blanket to carry, I am quite used up physically. The double-quick is beyond my powers, and with every disposition in the world to run I cannot to save my life. Suddenly, one leg refuses to move, and I fall. A call to my men is unheard, or if heard, unheeded. I try to regain my feet, but cannot. My leg seems paralyzed. Am I hit? wounded? A brother officer sees me; hears my call for assistance; and proffers aid; helps me to my feet, and I stagger along for a few paces. Meantime, we have been left far in the rear and are between two fires. The air is laden with missiles. It is madness to proceed, and so we both hug the ground. Doubtless our lives are saved by this device, but, although we had not the faintest idea then that such was the case, it involved our capture and imprisonment. “The combat deepens.” The din is awful. Line after line of Lee’s veterans surges forward; they intermingle; halt, yell, fire; then rush on like a mob. It is not until they have fairly run over us that we realize our position—that capture is inevitable. Two lines pass us unnoticed, when a squad of skirmishers who have hung on our flank come up and demand our surrender. There is no alternative, and that brand-new blade goes into the hands of a rebel sergeant whose straight, black hair runs up through a rent in his hat like a plume. We are taken to the rear amid a rain of shot from our batteries, three men helping me along and two keeping close guard over my companion. They seemed in a hurry to get out of range, and glad of the opportunity our capture afforded them of retiring with eclat from the strife. Soon we came upon Gen. Wilcox and staff nicely ensconced in a position not accessible to Yankee bullets. He questioned us, but not getting satisfactory replies, sent us still further to the rear (after his Adjutant-General had purchased my sword of the hatless sergeant), where we were placed under guard near a field hospital. Here I found, upon examination, that I was not injured, but that my inability to walk without help was due to fatigue and a slight abrasion on the hip, occasioned probably by a spent ball. We were courteously treated by our guards but could get no food, Stoneman’s raid having sadly interfered with the rebel commissariat. Next day we were taken to Spottsylvania court-house where we met nearly half of the 11th corps and learned for the first time the disaster that had befallen “Fighting Joe” Hooker. Of the kindness of one of my captors, Billy Peyton of Memphis, Tenn., but a member of the 9th Alabama, and his peculiarities, I should like to speak, but this sketch has grown on my hands, and I am compelled to omit an account of my first visit to Richmond, introduction to Major Turner, and incarceration in Libby. Should this sketch please the readers of this Magazine, I may essay another describing my prison life, and how near I came to being annihilated by a fierce Virginia home guard officer who commanded the escort which conducted the detachment of prisoners, of which I made one, to the flag of truce boat on the James, going by the way of Petersburgh.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN HOPKINTON—No. 2.
BY C. C. LORD.
RELIGIOUS.
At first, worship, both private and public, was conducted in the primative homes of the settlers of the township. On the erection of military posts, or forts, such edifices became natural, social centres, and worship was conducted in one or more of them. Rev. James Scales, first minister of the town, was ordained in Putney’s Fort, in 1757. During the ministry of Mr. Scales, public worship was sometimes conducted at the Parsonage. The erection of a church determined a permanent place of public religious services.
The first meeting-house in Hopkinton represented a much larger territorial expanse of population than any church now extant. Denominational controversies had not divided the ranks of the worshipers, nor had local patrons of the one church demanded special privileges of their own. The distance to church was long in many cases, and the conveyances often only the locomotory means of nature.
In olden times in this vicinity, though people had the instinct of personal adornment the same as now, they often lacked the means of gratifying it. Extra articles of dress were so rare that people frequently walked to church in their daily accustomed garb, or trod the Sunday path with a most scrupulous care for their extra wardrobe. Women sometimes carried the skirts of their Sunday dresses on their arms till they arrived near or at the church door, when they let them fall. The Sunday shoes were often carried in the hand till the journey to meeting was nearly ended, when they were put on for entrance to the sanctuary. Present readers can comprehend the necessity of such care, when they reflect that in the olden time the price of a week’s work of a woman was only equivalent to a yard of cloth, or a pair of shoes.
Church services in the former days were long, and savored of dogmatic theology. The principal prayer was much longer than the present average sermon, and the discourse proportionally extended. Such prolonged services were conducted in winter, at first, without the favor of any artificial warmth. In contemplating the situation of the worshipers in those old wintry days, the bleakness of the characteristic meeting-house of the times is to be taken into account. In the old Baptist church was an open aperture in an upper wall, where the crows have been known to perch while worship was in progress. The advent of foot-stoves gave much relief to the chilly congregations of earlier times, and the introduction of the general heater put an end to the extremer experiences of the wintry Sunday.
The representative minister of the olden time was a person of eminent scholarly culture and gentlemanly bearing. A thorough scholar and rhetorician, his discourses were framed with strict regard to the logical sequences of his subject. The numerical divisions of his theme often carried him among units of the second order; firstly, secondly, and thirdly were only preliminary to thirteenthly, fourteenthly, and fifteenthly; the grand category of predications was terminated by a “conclusion.” In his loftier intellectual schemes, he sometimes elaborated whole volumes of disquisitional matter. Rev. Ethan Smith, third minister in the town, was the author of several profound theological treatises. There was a dignity and austerity of manner pertaining to the characteristic primative clergyman that made him a pattern of personified seriousness. His grave demeanor on his parochial rounds, when he spoke directly upon the obligations of personal religion, made his presence in the household a suggestion of profound respect and awe. He impressed his personality upon the receptive social element of his parish. The deacons became only minor pastors, and the whole congregation of believers expressed in subdued form the character of the shepherd of the flock.[[1]]
[1]. The austere influence of religion upon society in the olden time was attested by the legal strictures upon traveling, idling, etc., on Sunday, of which conduct the tything-men were to take cognizance. Tything-men were chosen in this town as late as 1843, when Charles Barton, Samuel Frazier and Daniel Chase were selected. The law requiring such choice had even then become virtually a dead letter.