General Gregg came up to our gun. With strong emotion he shook hands with each of us; he then took off his hat, and said, “Boys, Texas will never forget Virginia for this! Your heroic stand saved the line, and enabled my brigade to rally, and redeem its honor. It is the first time it ever left a position under fire, and it was only forced out, now, by surprise, and overwhelming weight. But it could not have rallied except for you. God bless you!” This moment Bob Stiles came up at a run. He had left the guns a few moments before the attack came, and hearing our guns so busy came back.
When General Gregg told him in a very enthusiastic way what we had done, he just rushed up to each cannoneer, and hugged him with a grip, strong enough to crush in his ribs, and vowed he was going to resign his Adjutancy at once, and come back to the guns.
Pretty soon Major-General Field, commanding part of the line, came dashing up on his horse, and leaped off. He went round shaking hands with us, and saying very civil things. He was red hot! He had witnessed the whole thing from his position, on a hill near by. He said, “When he saw the Federals roll over our works, and the Texans fall back, he was at his wits’ end. He did not have a man to send us, and thought the line was hopelessly broken.” Then he saw us turn our two guns down inside the works. He said to his courier, “It isn’t possible these fellows will even attempt to keep their guns there. The enemy will be over them in two minutes.” But as our guns roared, and the enemy slowed down, he swung his hat, as the courier told us, and yelled out, “By George, they will do it!” and clapping spurs into his horse he came tearing over to find the Texans in their line, all solid again. He said to us, “Men, it was perfectly magnificent, and I have to say that your splendid stand saved the Army from disaster. If the line had been broken here I don’t know what we should have done.”
Of course all this was very nice to hear. We tried to look as if we were used to this sort of thing all the time. But, it was something for us, young chaps, to have our hands shaken nearly off, by enthusiastic admirers, in the shape of Brigadier and Major-Generals, especially as they were such heroic old veterans as Field and Gregg, and to have the breath hugged out of us by an old comrade. All this glory was only to be divided up among nine men, so there was a big share for each one. I must confess, it was very pleasant indeed to hear that men, who were judges, thought we had done a fine thing; and when in General Orders next day our little performance was mentioned to the whole army in most complimentary terms, and we knew that the folks at home would hear it, I am free to say, that we would not have “taken a penny for our thoughts.”
Contrast in Losses and the Reasons Therefor
The fight was over, just about as dusk was closing in. In this, and the fight at five o’clock, the enemy lost about six thousand men, killed and wounded. In the assaults, at ten, eleven and at three o’clock, they certainly lost between two and three thousand in killed and wounded, so this day’s work cost them about seven or eight thousand in killed and wounded, besides prisoners.
Our loss was very small. On our immediate part of the line, almost nothing. In the battery, we had one man wounded at five o’clock. In this furious close up fight with infantry, with the awful mauling our guns gave them, strange to say, we had not a man touched. The only blood shed that day, at the “4th” gun, was caused by that rail striking my hand. And our battle line was just as it was, in the morning, save for the hecatomb of dead and dying in front of it, and six hundred prisoners we held inside.
About these prisoners: Numbers of these men were drunk, and officers too. One Colonel was so drunk that he did not know he was captured, or what had happened. The explanation of this fact, I do not profess to know, but this was what the men themselves told us, “That before they charged, heavy rations of whiskey were issued, and the men made to drink it. I know that indignant denial has been made of this charge, that the Federal soldiers were made drunk to send them in, but this I do certainly know, as an eye witness, and hundreds of our men know it too, that here, on the Spottsylvania line, and at Cold Harbor, and other times in this campaign, we captured numbers of the men, assaulting our lines, who were very drunk, and said they were made to drink. And this fact is one reason for the carnage among them, and the light loss they inflicted upon us. It made their men shoot wildly, and the moment our men saw this, they could, with the cooler aim, send death into their ranks. These hundreds of men going, drunk, to face death was a horrible sight; it is a horrible thought, but it was a fact.
Why Captain Hunter Failed to Rally His Men
In the quiet time, just before that sudden rush which swept over the works, Captain Hunter, of the Texans, was frying some pieces of fat bacon in a frying pan, over a little fire just by our gun. In a flash, the enemy was over the work, and we were in the thick of battle, and confusion. The Captain glanced from his frying bacon, to see his company falling back from the works, and the enemy pouring over. The sudden sight instantly drove him wild with excitement! He utterly forgot what he was doing. With a loud yell, he swung that frying pan round and round his head,—the hot grease flying in all directions,—and rushed to his men, and tried to rally them. (Having lost the meat, he failed! With a frying pan full of meat he could have rallied the regiment!) Back he fell with the brigade, and disappeared under the hill.