Kitabı oku: «The Song of the Rappahannock», sayfa 5
In the morning I saw this man. He was strikingly handsome, a most soldierly-looking fellow. He talked with me freely and pleasantly; there was something fascinating about him.
The deserters were not shot. With sentence suspended they were replaced in the ranks and told that, if they did their duty the next time their regiment was called into action, they would be pardoned.
Shortly afterward came the bloody but brilliant little battle at Franklin's Crossing. In the first boat which left the shore – the same in which our noble Captain D – was killed – was the dare-devil ex-serjeant. Before the boat reached the opposite bank he was out of it, and without waiting for any one, he rushed straight at the enemy's earthwork alone. We expected to see him drop, but he bore a charmed life; he was one of the first to enter the works, and by sheer boldness he brought off half-a-dozen prisoners and coolly marched them before him to the rear.
We never saw a military execution; but that which I remember as the saddest scene of our army life was the degradation of an officer. He had been condemned for cowardice before the enemy.
The division was drawn up in a great hollow square, and the officer in full uniform was marched under guard into the centre where all could see him. There in loud tones the finding of the court-martial and its sentence were read, after which the adjutant approached the condemned officer, tore off his shoulder-straps, took his sword from him, ran it half way into the ground and broke it before his face. The guard then closed about the disgraced and degraded man and marched him away.
I had never seen him before – he was from another brigade – but as he passed near and I could look into the deathly pale face of that young man with the heart-break of despair written on every feature, I said to myself, "This is a hundred times worse than death"; and I found myself wildly wishing that he had been shot dead in battle! When the parade was dismissed we went back to our quarters in awe-struck silence, broken only by expressions of deep compassion.
In strong contrast with this, the grandest and most impressive scene we witnessed was the review of the army by President Lincoln.
It was on a dull wintry day. We marched several miles from our camp before we came, early in the morning to the reviewing ground, which was a vast, desolate, open space, mostly level but with little hillocks here and there. Upon one of these we halted waiting for the mustering of the gathering host. For hours the dark lines of men in blue poured in from every direction until all the plain and every little hilltop was alive with them.
For six or seven months we had been members of the great army; we had shared its toils and perils, we had lived its life, we had felt the throbbing of its mighty pulse in our own blood, we had been part of its long line of battle; yet we had never as yet seen the assembly of our brethren in arms. Now the plain was growing black with them; a hundred thousand men were forming in apparently solid masses, the battle-flags of the regiments waving close together.
The scene was the more impressive because there were no idle spectators. This was no gala day for curious, gazing, merry-making crowds, and brilliant costumes, and feasting and huzzas; but solemnly, silently save for the measured tramp of battalions and the rolling of the drums a nation's strength was massing as if to weigh itself, to feel itself and ask its own soul if it were fit for the mighty work and the awful sacrifices awaiting it.
We could not know then that Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, written across the scroll of a short two years to come were holding in their fateful though glorious names the doom of death or wounds for more in number than all the thousands of us who beheld each other that day. But we felt that a heavy-laden future was swiftly coming toward us; we could almost hear the rustling of her wings in the air of the leaden sky under which, apart from the world, alone with ourselves and God, we stood a great brotherhood of consecrated service.
But now our moment has come. We take our place in the moving ranks. We marched in close column with double company front, so that each regiment took up small space. As we neared the reviewing stand the tall figure of Lincoln loomed up. He was on horseback and his severely plain, black citizen's dress set him in bold relief against the crowd of generals in full uniform grouped behind him. Distinguished men were among them; but we had no eyes save for our revered President, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the brother of every soldier, the great leader of a nation in its hour of trial. There was no time save for a marching salute; the occasion called for no cheers. Self-examination, not glorification had brought the army and its chief together; but we passed close to him so that he could look into our faces and we into his.
None of us to our dying day can forget that countenance! From its presence we marched directly onward toward our camp and as soon as "route step" was ordered and the men were free to talk they spoke thus to each other: "Did you ever see such a look on any man's face?" "He is bearing the burdens of the nation." "It is an awful load; it is killing him." "Yes, that is so; he is not long for this world!"
Concentrated in that one great, strong yet tender face, the agony of the life or death struggle of the hour was revealed as we had never seen it before. With new understanding we knew why we were soldiers.
A Little Battle
The great battles of a war like ours absorb the attention of historians; yet scattered between these grand climacterics, like local squalls or thunder-showers in the intervals of sweeping storms, there were hundreds of little, unrecorded fights which, to those who felt their fury often meant almost as much as the main tempests.
We found it so in the very last affair in which our regiment took part. Our term of service was all but ended. The men who had been detailed as clerks at headquarters, teamsters, ambulance drivers etc., had been sent back to their companies in anticipation of our speedy mustering out; everything seemed quiet along the Rappahannock; we reckoned our battles all fought and dared at last to believe that home-going for those who were left of us was actually a possibility. "Home again!" – it was all we talked of by day, it coloured our dreams by night as we slept in our pleasant camp under the summer moon.
When therefore, early on a June morning the command came to strike tents and prepare to move, a thrill of expectation went with it through the regiment. But our vision of home quickly melted as we saw the stir of preparation spreading like an advancing wave into all the regiments about us, and its last pathetic remnants were rudely blotted out by the distribution of the ominous twenty extra rounds of cartridge. We handled them gingerly, none too willingly, for they said to us, "Not home this time, boys, – battle once more first; some of you will never see home."
Late in the afternoon a short march brought our division to the hills above the fateful river; for the third time we beheld sleepy old Fredericksburg away at our right, and directly before us the familiar amphitheatre of fields shut in by distant hills. It seemed incredible that twice within six months trampling armies had here been locked in the bloody embrace of mighty battle; no more peaceful sight could be imagined than those gently rolling, grassy plains with their crown of wooded, leafy upland all bathed in the slanting rays of sweet June afternoon sunshine.
A single suspicious blot marred the landscape. Opposite where we stood, at the farther side of the river guarding our old crossing place, the yellow mound of a freshly dug earthwork loomed up; yet for all we could see it might have been a great grave, so silent, so apparently lifeless was it.
But there was no lingering for the view. Down the hill we went, out over the level ground beneath, and from every side we could see the dark lines pouring over the slopes until, with swift and silent precision the division was formed in battle array. In a few moments as if by magic the northern side of the river valley had become alive with the presence of a sternly-marshalled host.
The southern side also awoke. Out from a distant grove a Confederate regiment, the support of the as-yet-invisible picket line came forth. We could see the sheen of their rifles flashing in the sunshine as they hastened toward the earthwork.
As yet not a shot had been fired and scarce a sound was heard; even the tramp of marching feet and the rumble of artillery wheels was muffled by the soft, grassy ground. I can feel even now the queer sensation of unreality, as though it were all a gigantic pantomime, or some eerie flitting of armies of ghosts.
But appearances could not deceive us. We knew too well the Spirit of the Place; we waited its arousal with grave expectation. The feeling in our ranks was picturesquely expressed by a stuttering little fellow in our company when, as we halted for a few moments on the hills above and watched the silent river and apparently-deserted plain and hills, some one ventured the rash opinion that the enemy had decamped. The stammerer quickly replied:
"You j-just g-g-go ov-ver and s-stir up the hive, and the b-b-bees will c-come out f-fast enough!"
That river had always been a River of Death whenever we had crossed it. Were we to prove it once more? The question in our hearts was answered when the pontoon train with its long line of great boat-laden waggons issued from our ranks and, like an enormous snake began to wind its way toward the river, its head plunging downwards and disappearing in the hidden road leading to the water's edge. Pontoons at the front always meant bloody business in those Rappahannock days. The illusion, the silence before the storm, is at an end. Hark! There is a rattle of rifles from the other side. With it another clatter and roar, as from our side three batteries gallop forth, wheel near the edge of the ravine in which the river flows, unlimber, and quicker than it takes to tell, crash! crash! crash! the volleys from eighteen cannon rend the evening air. Through sudden clouds of white smoke red flashes dart like savage tongues of wild beasts, the gunners leap like demons to and fro in apparent fury, yet really with mechanical precision as they load and fire, reload and fire again. A little breeze lifts the veil of smoke, through the rift we catch a glimpse of the earthwork beyond the river; it is an inferno of bursting shells and clouds of dust. Woe to the men behind that torn and fire-scorched mound! We knew there could be but few of them at most; they had no artillery with which to answer ours, it seemed in truth like crushing mosquitoes with a sledge-hammer. Yet the crossing of a deep river in face of even a few determined opposers is always a ticklish piece of work and our commander meant to take no chances. The thunderous strokes of eighteen cannon are not too much to make the task of the engineers who must lay the bridge a safe one; whether even such ponderous defence is sufficient we are soon to see.
Our attention had been riveted upon the scene before us and we failed to notice that our colonel had been called away by a message from the commander of the brigade, but as he galloped back one look into his grave, determined face was enough. We knew what was coming before the sharp command rang out. "Attention, battalion! Forward, double quick, march!"
In battle, events arrive suddenly. You learn to expect it thus, yet like the final summons to a slowly dying man the order which sends you into the vortex of fire is apt to come with a shock of surprise. To us at that moment the surprise was the more keen because home-going instead of battle had so lately been our prospect, and least of all had we dreamed that, out of a dozen regiments we would be the first called upon for specially perilous duty. But that curious electric thrill which comes with the battle order, which merges your individual consciousness into the composite consciousness of a regiment sent us forward, and before we could fairly ask ourselves what it all meant, we were swiftly moving toward the river by the road over which the pontoons had passed. We had travelled that road before, we knew it well. At the edge of the plateau it turns sharply and descends by a dug way in the steep bank parallel with the stream to a small piece of open level ground close by the water; and when we reached the turn of the road where we could look down, a glance showed what the din of the cannonade had concealed. The earthwork was but part of the defence of the crossing. Below the line of our battery fire, out of reach of its shells, was a row of rifle-pits manned by sharpshooters who were doing deadly work. A few of the pontoon boats were on the ground close to the water, but none of them were launched; the train was in disorder, the engineers were being shot down at every attempt to handle their boats and our task was clearly before us. With another regiment from the brigade which was coming down by a different route through a little ravine, we must force the passage of the river. It began to be hot work as soon as we reached the dug way. Even now I can hear the waspish buzz of bullets, and feel the sting of the gravel sent into my face, as they rip through the ground at my feet. It was hotter still on the little flat when two regiments quickly arriving and huddled together with boats, waggons, and engineers, filled every inch of space. We could not return the enemy's fire and our closely packed crowd offered a pitifully easy mark for those sharp-shooters only a hundred yards away.
But many strong hands were now heaving at the boats, in spite of the fire and of falling men, three or four of them were quickly launched. Then there is a moment of desperate confusion, no one responds to the frantic but unfamiliar orders of officers to "Get into those boats!" when out of the crowd one man springs forth, leaps to the gunwale of one of the boats and waving his gun high in the air cries, "Come on, boys!" It is Corporal Joe. Instantly the boat is filled, pushed off from the bank, and the engineers with their big oars begin to row out into the stream. Another boat quickly follows, and soon a flotilla of seven of these great scows, deeply laden, bristling with bayonets, is making such speed as is possible for such awkward craft toward the opposite shore. The bullets now patter like hail upon the water; a few strike the boats or the men in them, but the fire slackens as we near the bank. Our opposers were too few to resist us when once we landed, and they began to scatter. Some ran from the rifle-pits toward the earthwork, others disappeared through the bushes. Before the shore was fairly reached our men sprang out into the water and waded to the land, the boats were emptied quicker than they had been filled; no one paused to fire; there was a pell-mell rush of bayonet charge up the river bank straight at the earthwork. It was a race between our men and the Vermonters, and to this day it has been a matter of friendly dispute as to which regiment first entered the enemy's works. But it was all quickly over. The cannonade, which ceased only when our charge began, had half buried and almost wholly paralysed the defenders of the little fort, only a few feeble shots met us and we took nearly eighty prisoners – all who were left alive when we entered.
There were some ghastly sights inside that yellow mound. A Confederate officer, torn by one of our shells lay dying; the captain of our company sprang to his side, raised him tenderly, gave him a drink from his canteen and tried to soothe his passing moments. But it was surprising how few of the defenders had been killed. The worst complaint of those brave men was that they thought our batteries meant to bury them alive!
We suffered far more severely. Our own regiment lost nineteen, the engineers between thirty and forty, and the Vermonters, who had come down to the river by a difficult though sheltered path, five or six: the cost of the crossing was between fifty and sixty men. I think it took not more than ten or fifteen minutes to fight our little battle, but those minutes were crowded with incidents. I have mentioned that of the dying Confederate officer. The handful of brave fellows who held that crossing so manfully, who made its conquest so dear to us, were heroes. We had naught but respect – nay, admiration – for them. It came to be always so. There was never a war fought more sternly, yet with less bitterness between those who met each other on bloody fields. Bank's Ford came only a month before Franklin's Crossing; there, too, we took a number of prisoners. I shall never forget the talk with a group of them as we sat down together. If you could have seen us you would have found it hard to believe that a few moments ago we had been firing into each other's faces. At the conclusion of our friendly chat, one of those Confederates said: —
"Well, boys, this war has got to be fought out. You must be good soldiers and do your duty, and we must do the same!"
On our side two incidents were pathetic in their tragedy.
Among the killed was a private, a plain man to whom writing was a task. A few days before we marched he had managed to send a letter to his wife telling her that we would soon be at home. That was the last she heard from him, and when a few weeks later the regiment marched into the streets of his native city, the wife stood on the sidewalk waiting to welcome her husband. Some one had to take her away and tell her that he was dead.
Another of the killed was our senior captain. Before the days of labour troubles, when master and men worked side by side, he was owner of a manufactory, a man beloved by all his fellow-citizens, and not least by the men who worked under him. He was near middle age, of peaceful tastes, without military aspirations, and enlisted only because of a strong sense of duty. He knew his example would be followed, he could multiply himself thus. Workmen and neighbours flocked about him; he had been their captain in industry, they made him their captain in war. He might have been a field officer, but he judged himself unfit. To serve his country where he could serve best was his only ambition. There were smarter officers in the regiment, but none so beloved as this noble Christian the light of whose example shone ever with bright and benignant ray.
When we went down to the river that day, Captain D – 's company led the line and filled the first boat. The enemy's fire was at its hottest when they were shoved off. Caring always for others more than for himself, he commanded his men to lie down and shelter themselves, but his perilous duty was to direct the rowers and guide the course of the fleet. He stood up to do it better. The risk was fatal; his commanding figure became the mark for many rifles, and he fell before we were half way across.
Such a death for such a man was nothing less than martyrdom, all the harder because he knew that hundreds of hearts were eagerly counting the hours that lay between him and a joyful welcome home. But our dear captain was a type. There were hundreds like him in our army who never reached home.
In the same boat with the heroic captain was a man from the other regiment who had been a deserter. His conduct in action was to determine his fate. How he managed to get into that first boat I do not know. He must have run far ahead of his own company, but when we neared shore he sprang out where the water was waist deep and, waiting for no one, charged alone up the bank. It looked like sure death; but he escaped unhurt, and I believe was the very first to enter the enemy's works. Of course he secured his pardon.
In every battle there are a few heroes of the type with which Stephen Crane has made us familiar, whose ingenuity in finding safe places is amusing, and whose antics make life a burden to officers and file-closers. When we reached the boat-landing the ground was absolutely bare; there was not a bush, or tree, or rock; the only possible shelter from the leaden hail was a spring, – a mere mud hole, perhaps three feet in diameter. By lying down and curling himself up in the mud and water a man might fit into it. If the desirability of land is the measure of its value, then that mud hole was priceless, for it was occupied every minute and each occupant was envied by other would-be tenants. As I came down the hill I saw one of these fellows who had just been routed out. A bullet had pierced his arm as he rose from his muddy bed, and he was dancing with pain, clasping his wounded arm with his unhurt hand and muttering angry curses upon the officer who had disturbed his repose. The vacant place was instantly taken by an old gray-bearded fellow from my own company. Over him stood the major, punching the man with his sword, and accentuating each prod with an appropriate remark.
"Come, Peter [a prod], get out of this [prod]; your life is not worth any more than mine!" (final prod). And Peter slowly arose. It makes me laugh now, as it did then, to see his white, scared face gazing agape at the major, the mud and water dripping in festoons from his hair, his beard, and his clothes.
When we were half way across the stream a bullet struck the oar of one of our rowers, close to his hand with sharp ping and shock. For an instant the man seemed paralysed; he stopped rowing and our boat's head swung round, threatening collision with the craft beside us. In that other boat was a red-haired captain, a fiery little Irish gamecock. Quick as thought he grasped the situation, and leaning far over the gunwale with uplifted sword, he hissed at the frightened oarsman: —
"Row, damn you, or I'll cut your head off!"
Never can I forget the appealing glance of the poor fellow at that impending sword, nor his sudden transformation from helpless inertness to desperate energy.
After the capture of the earthwork, without waiting for the laying of the bridge and the crossing of other troops, our regiment was advanced in skirmishing order far out across the plain, until as night fell our line was established in front of the ruins of the Bernard Mansion. That night on the skirmish line is one of the pleasantest memories of my army life, but its story belongs elsewhere.
The last fight of our regiment had been fought. We were proud of our victory, and though the little battle is barely noticed in military histories, it has an interest which makes it memorable to those who were there. It was the prelude of a great drama. The advance of our division of the Sixth Corps was a reconnaissance in force with the object of checking, if possible, Lee's northward movement, and in our little battle at Franklin's Crossing at the Rappahannock, the first blood of the great Gettysburg campaign was shed.
