Charles Carleton Coffin: War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman

by William Elliot Griffis

The campaign which followed in that densely wooded part of Virginia, a few miles west of the former battle-field of Chancellorsville, had not been paralleled for hardship during the whole war. In the ten days succeeding May 4th, when the army broke camp at Culpeper and Brandy Station, there had been a march of eighteen miles, the crossing of the Rapidan with hard fighting on May 5th, and on the 6th, the great battle in the Wilderness, among the trees from which the foe could hardly be distinguished. On the 7th, there was fighting all along the line, with the night march after Spottsylvania, and on Sunday, the 8th, under the burning sun, a sharp fight by the Fifth Corps. On the 9th, another terrific battle followed, in which three corps were engaged, one of them, the Sixth, losing its noble commander, Sedgwick, with a score or two of able officers. On the 10th, in the afternoon, a pitched battle was fought all along the line, lasting until midnight, in which all the corps were engaged. On Wednesday, the 11th, skirmishing and picket firing formed the order of the day along the whole front. On Thursday, the 12th, at daybreak, the Second Corps began its attack, capturing twenty-three guns and several thousand prisoners. Sunday, the 13th, was a time of rain, hard work, hunger, and fatigue. In a word, within twelve days there had been four great pitched battles, with heavy fighting, mainly in the woods, and hard pounding on both sides, with many thousands of dead and wounded.

During the war Carleton had seen no such fighting, suffering, patience, determination. General Grant freely admitted that the fighting had been without a parallel during the war. There was little work done by the artillery. Swords and bayonets were but ornaments or emblems. Only lead had the potency of death in it. Even the cavalry dismounted, sought cover, shooting each other out of position with their carbines. Bullets, which do the killing, were the fixed forces. In war it is musketry that kills, and it was a question which side could stand murder the longest.

At the end of the Wilderness episodes, Carleton, after first answering those critics far in the rear, who, to all the noble tenacity of Grant and his army, queried "Cui bono" wrote: "I confidently expect that he [Grant] will accomplish what he has undertaken, because he is determined, has tenacity of purpose, measures his adversary at his true value, expects hard fighting, and prepares for it." It was trying almost to discouragement, to this brave, honest, patient seeker after truth, to find with what chaff and husk of imaginary news, manufactured in Washington and elsewhere, the editors of newspapers had to satisfy the hungry souls of the waiting ones at home.

In one of the engagements, when our right wing had been forced by the Confederates; when the loud rebel yells were heard so near that the teamsters of the Sixth Corps were frightened into a panic, and, cutting the traces, ran so far and wide that it was two days before they were got together again; when, to many army officers, it seemed the day had been lost,—as lost it had been, save for the stubborn valor of the Sixth Corps; when many a face blanched, Carleton looked at Grant. There was the modern Silent One, tranquil amid the waves of battle. Sitting quietly, with perfect poise, eyes on the ground, and steadily smoking, he whittled a stick, neither flesh nor spirit quailing. "He himself knew what he would do." And he did wait, and, in waiting, won. Carleton's faith in Grant, strong from the first, was now as a mountain, unshakable.[Back to Content]

CHAPTER XIV.

CAMP LIFE AND NEWS-GATHERING.

The story of the Wilderness campaign, during which were fought the greatest musketry battles in the history of the world, with their awful slaughter, has been told by hundreds of witnesses, and by Carleton himself in his books; but the life of the camp and how the great army was handled, how the news was forwarded, and how Carleton beat the government couriers and all his fellow historians of the hour, getting the true report of the awful struggle before the country, has not been told, or at least, only in part. Let us try to recall some of the incidents.

In the first place, this was the time of the year when the flies and manifold sort of vermin, flying, crawling, hopping, hungry, and ever biting, were in the full rampancy of their young vigor. It was not only spiteful enemies in human form, that sent crashing shells and piercing bullets, but every kind of nipping, boring, sucking, and stinging creatures in the air and on the earth, that our brave soldiers, and especially our wounded, had to face. Even to the swallowing of a mouthful of coffee, or the biting of a piece of hard tack, it was a battle. Flies, above, around, and everywhere, made it difficult to eat without taking in vermin also. Even upon the most careful man, the growth of parasites in the clothing or upon the person was a certainty. Within twenty-four hours the carcass of a horse, left on the field of battle, seemed to move with new and multitudinous life suddenly generated. The stench of the great battle-fields was unspeakable, and the sudden creation of incalculable hosts of insects to do nature's scavenger work was a phenomenon necessary, but to human nerves horrible. The turkey-buzzards gathered in clouds for their hideous banquet.

All this made the work of the surgeons greater, and the sufferings of the wounded more intense; yet, redeeming the awful sight of torn and mangled humanity, was the splendid discipline and order of the medical staff. Upon the first indications of a battle, the regimental wagons of each corps would be driven up to some real or supposed safe place. It was the work of but a few moments for the tables to be spread with all their terrible array of steel instruments, while close at hand would be the stores of lint, bandages, towels, basins, and all the paraphernalia which science and long experience had devised. These diminished, in some measure, the horrors of the battle for at least the wounded. It was a sublime and beautiful sight, as compared with the wars of even a century ago, when the surgeon had scarcely a recognized position in the army. In the very midst of the hell of fire and flame and noise, the relief parties, with their stretchers, would go out and return with their burdens. Soon the neighborhood of the surgeon's wagon looked like a harvest-field with the windrows of cut grain upon it. Strange as it may seem, there was often more real danger in this going and coming from rear to front, and from front to rear, than on the very battle line itself. Many a man preferred to stand in the fighting files with the excitement and glory, than to get out into the uncertain regions of wandering balls and bursting shells. The Carletons, both uncle and nephew, had often, while out collecting news, to scud from cover to cover, and amid the "zip, zip" of bullets. Dangerous as the service was, there was little reward to the eyesight, for the Confederate army, like the Japanese dragon of art, was to be seen only in bits, here and there.