USA > New Hampshire > History of the Twelfth regiment, New Hampshire volunteers in the war of the rebellion > Part 17
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The number of these guns, the rapidity of their fire, and the concentra- tion of their aim, all unmistakably announce that a desperate and deter- mined infantry attack is to be made upon our centre, as had been expected. The vigorous and defiant response of our artillery all along the line in- forms the rebels that the " boys in blue " are determined too, and ready to receive them.
But what means this sudden silence of our batteries, while the enemy's guns still continue to throw their iron missiles of death and destruction faster than ever, as it seems, into our lines?
Out of ammunition ? Impossible ! But one reasonable explanation can be given. It must be to allow time for the guns to cool off, and get ready for more effective service that will soon be needed. Yet the fact that some of our batteries in the centre, where the enemy's shells fell thickest, are still active, is a little difficult to understand .* But soon they, too, are silent, and there is a perceptible diminution in the cannon chorus on the rebel side. Can it be only a parting salute, intended to deceive and in- timidate General Meade, so that the Confederate commander can more safely withdraw his army from the front? Or is it to attract and draw the Union forces to one point, while General Lee is getting ready to attack them in another?
* Some of Hancock's guns continued to be served after all the rest had ceased firing.
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Something more than either, undoubtedly, for such a mighty volume of sound, and so long continued, cannot all be mere brutum fulmen; nor has heaven and earth been shaken just to produce a cloud of smoke and dust for the enemy to hide behind.
Soon the Federal guns open again, and the enemy's too; but the for- mer, gradually increasing in number and rapidity of service, plainly tell that the rebel infantry is advancing to the charge, and that the hour of imminent peril for the army and nation is at hand.
And when, a few moments later, our batteries burst into one terrific grape and canister crash, while the enemy's guns are silent, and then a roll of musketry is heard along the ridge, it is known to all that the moment of the life or death struggle has come, and the men listen with breathless fear lest they next shall hear the rebel screech instead of the welcome cheer.
" Hark ! Hear that infernal yell? "
" Yes, but it's only their charging yell, for there is no break or check to our infantry fire yet."
" But there is now ; O, if we could only see !"
" Patience, comrade, and be calm and we shall soon know-"
" That the victory is ours, thank God, for there's the sound that I've been listening for."
And long and loud the triumphant shout goes up from that blood-erim- soned but victory-crowned crest, and is soon caught up and echoed and re-echoed until the whole army knew, as well as the survivors of that heroic phalanx that had received and repelled that all-pending charge, that Lee's last desperate effort had failed and the field of Gettysburg was won.
From the foregoing, some idea may be gotten of the Union soldier's reflections and knowledge concerning the progress and result of that momentous struggle of the third day at Gettysburg, known as Pickett's grand charge, though he had no means of information except the sounds that came to his ears.
And thus ended, what has already been accorded to it by the pen of the historian, and what it will ever remain so long as the history of nations exists, one of the great and decisive battles of the world. But though taking, at once and undisputed, a place in the first class, yet its proper place or rank therein, time, reaching into the distant future, can alone decide.
The spot where General Armstead fell - the high-water mark of the great American Rebellion - was not only the pivotal point of this battle and the war, and therefore the grave of slavery and the birthplace of universal freedom on Columbia's broad and beautiful domain, but it was and is the real Itasca from which now flows and shall continue to flow for centuries to come, a stream that shall purify her cities and replenish her fields ; and make even her barren mountain tops and her desert plains fur-
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nish sustenance for millions now unborn, and her valleys and prairies to blossom as the rose.
Could the patriot heroes who yielded up their lives upon this battle- field have seen, with their last wishful look, the greatness, grandeur, and glory that their life's blood was to purchase and secure for the countless generations of coming time, they would have died, as some of them did, with a smile of satisfaction upon their countenances.
The next day was the glorious Fourth of July, and a glorious day indeed it was for the nation, with her banners floating triumphantly over the field of Gettysburg and upon the ramparts of Vicksburg.
Early in the morning Captains Thomas E. Barker and Edwin E. Bedee arrived on the field, having recovered from their wounds received at Chancellorsville, and the former immediately took command of the regi- ment.
The Twelfth, like all the rest of the army, except the cavalry, remained all day inactive on the field, for it was not known certainly until the next day that the enemy was retreating.
During the afternoon and night the rain descended in torrents, filling the burial trenches that had been dug before the rain commenced; and some of them, filled with dead bodies, but left uncovered, presented a sickening sight the next morning amid the horrors of war.
But from sounds, not less than sights, will some of the fortunate sur- vivors of that battle remember with sad hearts that field of suffering and death, even after the cannon and musket were silent, as they hunted by the moon's pale light for comrades who had fallen in the strife of the day. Cries for water, groans of agony, and prayers for mercy and relief by death, could be heard from every direction.
But when all such pitiful sounds have ceased and solemn silence reigns, one visit to a battle-field while the dead are yet unburied is enough for a lifetime.
"When all is past, it is humbling to tread O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead."
As showing the terrible realities of war, and its attending hardships and suffering that end not with the battle, the following graphic description from the pen of General Imboden, of the Confederate army, who had charge of the long train of the wounded that left the field of Gettysburg at 4 o'clock on the afternoon of the 4th of July on its retreat southward, will be found especially interesting :
Shortly after noon the very windows of heaven seemed to have been opened. Rain fell in dashing torrents, and in a little while the whole face of the earth was covered with water. The meadows became small lakes, raging streams ran across the road in every depression of the ground. The storm increased in fury every moment, canvas was no protection against it, and the poor wounded lying upon the hard, naked boards of the wagon-bodies were drenched by the cold
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rain. Horses and mules were blinded and maddened by the storm and became almost unmanageable. The roar of the winds and waters made it almost impos- sible to communicate orders ; night was rapidly approaching and there was dan- ger that in the darkness the confusion would become " worse confounded."
About 4 P. M. the head of the column was put in motion and begun the ascent of the mountain. The train was seventeen miles long when drawn out on the road. It was moving rapidly and from every wagon issued wails of agony. For four hours I galloped along, passing to the front and heard more - it was too dark to see - of the horrors of war than I had witnessed from the battle of Bull Run to that day. In the wagons were men wounded and mutilated in every conceivable way. Some had their legs shattered by a shell or Minie-ball; some were shot through their bodies ; others had arms torn to shreds ; some had received a ball in the face, or a jagged piece of shell had lacerated their heads.
Scarcely one in a hundred had received adequate surgical aid; and many had been without food for thirty-six hours.
Their ragged, dirty, and bloody clothes, all clotted and hardened with blood, were rasping the tender, inflamed lips of their gaping wounds. Very few of the wagons had even straw in them, and all were without springs. The road was rough and rocky. The jolting was enough to have killed strong, sound men. From nearly every wagon as the horses trotted along such cries and shrieks as these greeted the ears :
"O God! Why can't I die ?"
" My God ! Will no one have mercy and kill me, and end my misery?"
"Oh ! stop one minute, take me out and leave me by the roadside to die."
"I am dying ! I am dying! Oh, my poor wife and children! What will be- come of you? "
Some were praying, others were uttering the most fearful oaths and impreca- tious that despair could wring from them in their agony.
Occasionally a wagon would be passed from which only low, deep moans and groans could be heard.
No help could be given to any of the sufferers. On, on, we must move on.
The storm continued and the darkness was fearful. There was no time even to fill a canteen with water for a dying man; for, except the drivers and guards, disposed in compact bodies every half mile, all were wounded in that vast train of human misery.
No language can convey an idea of the horrors of that most horrible of all nights of our long and bloody war.
The ground where the regiment lay, or tried to that night, was almost flooded with water, and some of the men stood up or sat down on stumps or stones, while others soundly slept, stretched out at full length in mud and water beneath, and a constantly increasing supply of the latter freely bestowed upon them from the heavens above.
It would not take more than one ngiht's bivouac like this, without any part of the experience of the day before, to make some of those who seem to think that the Government is too liberal in bestowing pensions upon the Union soldiers to seriously reconsider the matter for the remain-
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der of their lives, and, dying repentant, leave all their property, in trust, for the aid and support of soldier's homes.
As soon as light enough to see, a move was made to higher ground, but the regiment still remained in the woods. The forenoon was spent by the men in trying to get warm inside and dry out, for notwithstanding it was in the hot month of July, the men had been so drenched and soaked that all were more or less chilled.
Two days more passed and no movement of the army, although on the 6th several orders were received to be ready to march at a moment's notice, but as often countermanded.
A statement was circulated on this day that our cavalry had destroyed the enemy's pontoon bridge across the Potomac at Falling Waters. It might as well have remained untouched, so far as any advantage there- from accrued to our army.
By 3 o'clock on the morning of the 7th the Third Corps was get- ting ready to move; and, half an hour later, it was on the road to Emmitsburg, where the First Brigade halted until 1. 15 P. M., and then pushed on to Mechanicstown, a distance of eighteen miles, and biv- ouacked about a mile from the town.
The Sth brought rain and sunshine with a continuation of the march southward as far as Frederick City, the march commencing at 6 o'clock in the morning, and ending at 10 o'clock at night.
The next day General Carr took command of the division, General Humphreys accepting the position of chief of staff to General Hooker.
At 5 o'clock in the morning the troops were again on the road toward Middleton, reaching there a few hours later. Here rations were issued, and, after a brief rest, the march was resumed at 10 A. M. and continued to South Mountain. Starting again at 6 P. M., another march of four miles was made over the mountain to Fox Gap. It was nearly 9 o'clock be- fore the Twelfth encamped for the night, but a short distance down from the top of the mountain.
On the 10th Gen. Henry Prince assumed command of the division, and General Carr was returned to his own brigade.
It was nearly 10 A. M. when the division again moved forward, march- ing down the west side of the mountain to Keedysville ; and halting there from I to 5 P. M., it moved to near Sharpsburg, crossing Little Antietam on a stone bridge, and bivouacking about a mile beyond at 7 o'clock in the evening.
Here rest and sleep were expected, but instead of either there came at IO P. M. an order to move again ; and, without even a resting halt, five miles more were left behind, the division finally stopping not far from Boonsborough about 3 o'clock the next morning.
The whole division here bivouacked in a large wheat field upon which the wheat had been cut and stacked up to dry.
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No small share of the wheat was utilized as beds for the weary men, and feed for the tired and hungry horses.
This was a hard and trying march : but it was chasing Lee back into Virginia, instead of following him on his raid into the North, and the courage of the troops was good and helped them along.
During the day, which was very hot, the men suffered considerably, but the four hours halt in the afternoon greatly relieved them.
During the march some of the old troops found themselves again on the battle-field of Antietam.
During a short halt made near where the battle commenced, these old veterans, as they felt themselves to be, related many incidents of that battle ; and much was said by them in relation to the merits and demerits of General Mcclellan, and the gain or loss to the country arising from his retirement from active service. There was a wide difference of opin- ion noticeable even among his old soldiers; but the majority seemed to think him too slow a coach to run on the Richmond route.
For the next four days the army made but little progress, the Third Corps remaining nearly stationary.
The reason for this will soon be apparent. It seemed as if General Meade were waiting for the rear guard of the retreating rebels to safely pioneer his advance. It was only necessary for Lee's rear guard to face about, to at once check Meade's pursuit, and the generals in command of the advance Union forces were constantly warned not to bring on a gen- eral engagement. It was the hare following the bear, so far as the two commanders were concerned.
At Falling Waters there was some growling by the bear, as he turned around and showed his teeth, and immediately, as if badly frightened, a part of Meade's army - one division at least - took the back track and marched swiftly through Tilghmanton and Fair Play, over the battle-field of Antietam again, to Sharpsburg, bivouacking about two miles beyond the town at 1.30 P. M.
This, however, was on the 15th, two days after Lee with his main army had crossed the Potomac at Williamsport without serious molesta- tion from a victorious pursuing army, reinforced by several thousand men, close upon his heels.
The reason of the previous delay of several days was now easily un- derstood by the privates as well as the generals. Lee's pontoon bridge across the Potomac at Falling Waters had been destroyed by our cavalry by direction of General French, acting without orders, and the heavy rains had rendered the river unfordable.
Escape for the defeated, retreating, discouraged, and almost exhausted rebel army now seemed impossible; and the end of the war appeared nearer than ever before since its commencement.
Here stern necessity compelled General Lee to face about and stand at bay. It was a trying and critical situation and condition of things for the
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Confederate commander - nearly out of ammunition for his guns, and quite destitute of food for his men, with a swollen torrent deep and wide before him, his bridges burned, and a powerful and exultant army close upon his rear and crowding him to the very verge -but the Federal Chief, as if too magnanimous to make an enemy's necessity his oppor- tunity, though that was the very game he was trying to play, stood accommodatingly back, and kindly and patiently waited three or four days until his unfortunate antagonist could build log rafts and improvise bridges to get his men and guns across !
Of all the blunders that the Government, its officers and generals, ever made during the whole war - and there were many - none, certainly none, can reasonably compare with this. To the careful and unbiased student of American history, it must and will stand out as the most con- spicuous and inexcusable of them all.
It is sad to contemplate how many thousands of lives might have been saved, and the incalculable amount of suffering and sorrow that might have been avoided by ending the war at Williamsport instead of Appo- mattox.
Lincoln was so greatly and painfully disappointed, that with all his kindness and forbearance, he could not withhold an official expression of his feelings, in terms implying strong dissatisfaction of Meade's lack of courage and energy in following up Lee's defeated and dispirited army, after its final repulse at Gettysburg. It was a just and deserving rebuke, and was so keenly felt by General Meade that he at once tendered his resignation, which, however, was not accepted.
Of this " marvelous escape," as it has been called by an eminent histo- rian, no one had greater cause to complain than those of the rank and file who by their long suffering and heroism had made that escape impossi- ble, if anything had been done to prevent it.
True it was, and gladly so, that Lee's hitherto victorious legions had met with a signal defeat, and the free North was no longer invaded or threatened by their presence : but the richest fruits of this great victory, that the Union Volunteers had won at such a sacrifice, were allowed to drop unplucked and rot upon the very soil that had been enriched by their own blood, and the blood of their dead and wounded comrades.
And it is in their behalf, and in justice to their memory, that this defenceless delay and neglect -little better, if not " worse than a crime"- is especially alluded to in this history. Whoever else was at fault, sure it is that he who carried the musket was not.
Among all the questions of fact and theory, or of imaginary specula- tions, as to the whys and wherefores of the great error of permitting Lee's army to cross the Potomac, no one has ever dared by tongue or pen to even insinuate that those who really had the work to do of stopping him, were not only then and there ready and willing to perform it, but were impatient to attack, and dissatisfied and indignant that they were not allowed the privilege of doing so.
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The average judgment of the rank and file of that army then, as many times before and afterward, was incomparably superior to that of its com- mander, with all his corps advisors. And if General Meade had con- sulted them, stating the whole facts of the situation as far as he knew them, instead of his major-generals, and acted accordingly, Lincoln would have had no reason to have bitterly complained of the result.
But, as before referred to, now that it was too late for special good and but little danger of doing the enemy harm, there was great haste mani- fested. The run from Falling Waters to Sharpsburg - for it was more of a race than a march - was a painful reminder of some of the forced marches toward Gettysburg a week or two before. No time was given the men for several hours to eat, drink, or rest.
With no breakfast to start on, and no halt for dinner, on, on, they push their weary way, while constantly from the head of the column comes back the order " Close up, close up," it is no wonder that some, thinking that without adequate cause they were being treated more like " dumb driven cattle" than human beings, grew savagely cross, and that the murmur of their grumbling protests grew louder despite the efforts of the officers to check it. If the game had not already escaped, there would have been some reason for the mad chase. Nature's calls for rest and food were urgent and imperative, the latter being answered at the expense of one or two sutlers, whose stock in trade was soon disposed of by involuntary distribution.
The morn was cloudy, but the day clear and hot, and the suffering great. This was followed the next day by a hard, toilsome march, of twelve or fifteen miles, over South Mountain and through Brownsville to Pleasant Valley ; and on the 17th the Third Corps crossed the Potomac at Harper's Ferry and encamped for the night on Boliver Heights.
As the troops marched past the engine-house where " Old John Brown" heroically defended himself against the combined attack of the state militia and citizens, they struck up the old refrain connected with his name ; and who that chimed in on the chorus, as all did, could help thinking it true in a broader sense than ever dreamed of that
"- his soul is marching on."
Again on the Virginia side of the river, the march was continued through Hillsborough, Wood Grove, Upperville, Piedmont, Markham, Manassas Gap, to Wapping Heights and Front Royal.
At two or three places along this route, the Twelfth bivouacked near where the regiment encamped the fall before on its march from Berlin to Falmouth. "Much of the way," writes one of the Twelfth, " was hemmed in by hills and mountains, and reminded us of our own moun- tain home."
Blackberries, large, ripe, and delicious were very plentiful, and the many fruit lunches that the boys were privileged to enjoy at every halt
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and camp along the march proved of great value to them both as a food and a medicine. Many who were suffering from stomach and bowel affections were greatly helped or entirely cured.
Concerning the engagement near Front Royal, called Wapping Heights, the following description from the diary of Captain Musgrove will be found both accurate and interesting :
Early Thursday morning, July 17th, we started again, and leaving the War- rington road, took the one leading through Manassas Gap to Front Royal. The road was up and down steep hills, over rocks, and through brooks. The road thus hard and the day hot, we were glad to halt and stack arms about four miles from Front Royal. Here the cavalry men told us that the " Rebs" were but two or three miles in advance, and soon we saw a part of the Third Brigade advance as skirmishers and very soon open fire. They continued to advance and the reserve to follow up, with the remainder of the brigade in line of battle.
We had a fine view of this advance. As expected, our turn to move forward soon came. The enemy fell slowly back for about a mile, we following, when the firing commenced to grow warmer. and the enemy opened upon us with their artillery, but fell short of reaching us and did us but little harm.
We took quite a number of prisoners as we moved onward. Two rebels, when they saw a captain fall in our lines, threw down their guns and ran and helped him to our rear, thus getting into our lines.
Darkness coming on, we lay down to rest on the ground by our arms, with equipments all on, ready to spring into line at a moment's warning. We had no permission to sleep, even in that condition, but as the order was to rest, and fatigued as we were, we soon fell asleep and did not wake up until morning, although we lay on the rocks upon the side of a hill so steep that we had to get our heels against a stone to keep from sliding down.
We expected a renewal of the fight the next day, but in the morning there were no rebels to be found, and we advanced to within a mile of Front Royal, when a single shell sent over by the enemy caused us to halt, form a line of battle again, and in this way we moved forward upon ground perfectly awful to march over. When we got to the town we halted, and a cavalry force was sent ahead, but discovered no rebels this side of the Shenandoah river. We then retraced our steps, and marched back about eight miles where we encamped for the night. Yesterday we marched about sixteen miles, halting for the night within six miles of Warrington, where our regiment did picket duty, starting again this morning about 5 o'clock.
We supposed we were to have a rest at Warrington, and draw some shoes and clothing, which we were really suffering for. My feet had been so sore for several days as to give me great pain every time I stepped. Instead of resting, we passed through the town toward Culpepper. It was hot and dusty, and we were so worn out that it seemed impossible to move any further. In this con- dition we were taking a short rest, and the bugle had just sounded for us to " fall in," when an order came for our regiment to proceed no further, as we were detached from our brigade and ordered to report to General Marston. It was said we were going to Point Lookout to guard prisoners; and if ever news was gladly received by weary soldiers, this was by us. Yet we hardly dared to
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