Observe, therefore, that the plains of Winchester are admirably adapted for the rapid and intelligent manœuvring of large masses of troops. Artillery, infantry, cavalry,—every arm of the service may move in any direction with perfect facility. And I need not tell an old soldier that such a field gives overwhelming advantage to a greatly superior force. When a general, as his troops advance to the attack, can see just where the enemy are, and how far they extend,—can see their reserves hurrying forward, and knows that when they are all hotly engaged he can push heavy masses of fresh troops around both flanks, and attack in the rear men who are already outnumbered in front, what can save the weaker army from annihilation? And yet, on the nineteenth of this month, Early’s little army of ten thousand troops withstood, in front of Winchester, in the open field, without breastworks, from dawn till late in the afternoon, the assaults of forty thousand of the enemy. [Note.—This is an error on the part of the captain, but I retain his statement of the numbers engaged, just as he gives them, simply to show what was the universal belief of our soldiers at the time,—that they were outnumbered four to one. The true figures show that Early had fifteen thousand, Sheridan forty-five thousand men,—or only three to one. J. B. W.][[1]] How a solitary man of us escaped I shall never be able to understand.
Possibly you have not seen in the papers that on the seventeenth Early sent our division down the valley to Martinsburg (twenty-two miles) to make a reconnoissance. We did a little skirmishing there, and on the next day encamped, on our return, at a place called Bunker’s Hill,—named, I presume, in honor of the Bunker’s Hill on which Boston, with a magnanimity unparalleled in history, has erected an imposing monument to commemorate the gallant storming of Breed’s Hill by the British. Here we lay down to rest. I will not say to sleep; for never, since the beginning of the war, had I felt so profoundly anxious. Picture to yourself our situation.
There we were, twelve miles down the valley, twenty-five hundred men; while, near Berryville, over against our main body of about eight thousand men at Winchester, lay an army forty thousand strong. Suppose Sheridan should attack in our absence? True, Early had marched over to Berryville, a few days before, and offered him battle in vain. But suppose he did attack? Could he not in an hour’s time (for forty thousand against eight is rather too much) drive Early’s force pell-mell across the pike, and, with his immense force of cavalry, capture the last man he had? And then we would have nothing to do but march up the valley, like a covey of partridges, into a net.
Such were the thoughts which flashed across my mind, with painful intensity, at dawn next morning. Weary with anxious thinking, I had fallen to sleep at last. The boom of a cannon swept down from Winchester. We are lost, was my first thought. Our army will be annihilated. Sheridan will set out on his march to the rear of Richmond to-morrow morning.
I rose without a word, as did others around me, and completed my toilet by buckling on my sword and pistols. There, on my blanket, lay Edmund, sleeping the sweet, deep sleep of boyhood. I could hardly make up my mind to arouse him. “Get up,” said I, touching his shoulder; “they are fighting at Winchester.” “They are!” cried he, leaping to his feet. The gaudium certaminis was in his eyes. The boy is every inch a soldier.
We hurried up the turnpike without thinking of breakfast, the roar of the battle growing louder as we advanced. Edmund chattered the whole way, asking me, again and again, whether I thought it would be all over before we got there. He had not yet been in a battle, and was full of eager courage. I told him I thought he would have a chance at them, though I actually thought that all would be over before we reached the ground. And what do you suppose we learned as we neared the field? That Ramseur, with his twelve hundred men covering our front with hardly more than a skirmish line, had held in check the heavy masses of the enemy all this time! They had been attacked at dawn; we had marched twelve miles; and there they were still, Ramseur and his heroic little band of North Carolinians. And I single out the North Carolinians by name, not so much because of their courage, as of their modesty.
Well, we were beaten that day, and badly beaten. That we were not annihilated is what I cannot comprehend. And why we are allowed to rest here and recuperate, with a vastly superior army, flushed with victory, in our front, is equally difficult to understand. Why were we not attacked at dawn next day? Yet, that he has not done so does not surprise me, after what I saw of his generalship at the close of the late battle. Put yourself beside me, and see what I saw on the afternoon of September 19th.
We are standing on an open hill, just in rear of where our troops have fought so stubbornly the livelong day. Where is our army? It no longer exists. It has been hammered to pieces. Here and there you see a man slowly retiring, and loading his rifle as he falls back. Every now and then he turns and fires. One here, and one there,—this is all the army we have.
Now look over there, at that field, to the left of the position lately held by us. Those are the enemy’s skirmishers, advancing from a wood. Their long line stretches far away, and is lost to view behind that rise in the hill. At whom are they firing? Heaven knows, for there is no enemy in their front. And now the dense masses of their infantry appear, in rear of the skirmishers, and glide slowly across the hill, like the shadow of a black cloud. Come, Edmund, cheer up, and have a crack at them. (The boy is standing apart, his powder-begrimed face streaked with decorous tears.) Set your sight at six hundred yards. Come here, and let me give you a rest on my hip. Yes, the man with the flag. Ah, you have made a stir among them. The line moves on, but one man lies stretched upon the field, with two others kneeling beside him. There is the making of a sharpshooter in the boy!
And what ponderous form is this that comes towards us, limping and disconsolate? ’Tis our friend Jack. He, I need hardly tell you, ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ But he lost heart when his powerful charger fell beneath him, disembowelled by a cannon-ball. Poor Bucephalus! He had carried him through twenty battles as though he were a feather; and where was he to find another horse that could carry him at all! (Edmund tells a good story of Jack. He says that while he stood lamenting the death of his valiant steed, one of our advancing brigades, first staggering under the heavy fire, then halting, were beginning to give way. “Boys,” cried Jack (he will have his joke), “boys, follow me! If they can’t hit me, they can’t hit anybody!” Edmund says that some of the soldiers laughed; and that as they followed the burly captain he heard one of them say to his neighbor, “Mind now; if they do hit him, I claim his breeches as a winter-quarters tent.”)