Federal Troops Refuse to Be Slaughtered
When, a few days after, Grant sent to look after them they were nearly all dead. What they must have suffered before death came! But none of their own people seemed to care, and no effort was made to help them,—when they might have been saved. I wonder who will have to answer for the unnecessary waste of life and suffering in the “Army of the Potomac?” For the untold agony and death that need never have been! It was awful! We used to think it was brutal! And the Federal soldiers thought so too!
Some hours after this assault we saw the enemy massing for another. Their columns advanced a little way, and then stopped. We could see there was some “hitch,” and sent a few shells over there, just to encourage any little reluctance they might have about coming on. These lines stood still, and came no further.
We learned, afterwards, that perfectly demoralized, and disheartened by the bloody repulse of the morning, the Federal troops, when ordered by General Grant to storm our line again, mutinied in line of battle, and in the face of the enemy and refused to go forward. I witnessed that performance, but did not understand at the time, just what was going on. The grave meaning of it was, that the enemy’s soldiers had distinctly quailed before our lines and declared their utter inability to take them. And this was the verdict—at the end—of General Grant’s Army upon General Grant’s campaign! Their heads were more level than their General’s. They were tired of being slaughtered for nothing!
The moment the morning assault was over, the Federal artillery opened furiously, all along the line, and all day long, we were under a constant fire of cannon, and sharp-shooters.
Fifty yards behind our guns was a farmhouse, outbuildings, and yard full of trees. Shells aimed at us, rained into those premises all day. The house was riddled like a sieve, the trees were cut down, and the outbuildings, barn, stables, sheds, etc., were reduced to a heap of kindling wood.
A pig was in a pen, in the yard! Everything else on the place had been hit, and we watched with interest the fate of that pig. He escaped all day! Just after dark, a shell skimmed just over our gun, went screaming back into that yard, burst,—and—we heard the pig squeal. Some of the men, at once, started for the yard, and came back with the pig. Said “he was mortally wounded, and they were going to carry him to the hospital.” I fear he did not survive to get there! We disposed of his remains in the usual way.
About noon we heard that our Right Section had been ordered into position, on the lines, some distance to our right, and that John Moseley, No. 8 at 1st gun, while with his caisson, back of the lines, had been killed. A stray bullet had pierced his brain. No one was with him at the time. He was found dead, in the woods.
Dr. Carter “Apologizes for Getting Shot”
The sharp-shooters swept all the ground about us, making it dangerous for any man to expose himself an instant. Dr. Carter took some canteens, and his cup, and went round under the hill behind us, to bring some water. With filled canteens, and tin cup, filled to the brim, carried in his right hand, he recklessly came back across the field, in rear of the line. Just before he got to us, a bullet struck his right thumb, and shattered it. He did not drop the cup or spill the water! He came right on, as if nothing had happened, offered us a drink of water out of the cup, and then courteously apologized to the captain for getting shot; who accepted his apology, and sent him off to the hospital, to have his thumb amputated; which he did, and was back at his post, the first moment his wound permitted. When we condoled with him for the loss of his thumb, he said “He didn’t care anything about the thumb; he could roll cigarettes just as well with the stump, as he ever could with the whole thumb. That seemed about all the use he had for his thumb,—to roll cigarettes. He was an artist at that!