USA > New Hampshire > History of the Twelfth regiment, New Hampshire volunteers in the war of the rebellion > Part 49
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INCIDENTS OF CHANCELLORSVILLE.
Sergt. Moses Chapman, of Company I, says that he set his gun against a small tree to get out his extra cartridges, and while doing so - only a minute or two - six bullets struck the tree.
Ira Meserve, of Company F, tells the following :
When Jackson's forces scattered the Eleventh Corps, he saw a soldier, who was with the supply train, leading a packed mule that he was hurrying along as fast as he could to get out of danger, but bound to stick to his mule instead of leaving everything to save himself, as most of his comrades had done. Soon a shell or solid shot struck the man's knapsack or the mule's back-pack, or both - I never could tell which or what -and both leader and led fell - no, not dead! but all in a heap together; and all I know about the rebel shot striking the baggage instead of the bearers is that while the former seemed to be scattered, the latter were quickly seen to rally, but the man had by this time concluded to let the mule go to grass.
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
Lieut. B. M. Morrill says that a rebel prisoner taken Saturday night at Chancellorsville told him that General Jackson was for a few moments substantially a prisoner in our hands but we did not know it.
This statement is probably true. for it confirms that of Sergeant Tilton, of Company F, who was thrown out on picket that night just in front of the wood path in which Jackson is said to have taken his last ride to the front .*
Sergeant Tilton has always claimed that some rebel general, that he believes to have been General Jackson, rode out of the woods a few rods, took a quick sur- vey of the open field in front and then rode back into the woods.
Tilton lay silent and unseen in the sedge grass within a hundred feet of where the officer halted ; but it being in the dusk of the evening so that he could not distinguish with certainty, and having orders not to fire but fall back at any advance of the enemy, he dared not take the responsibility to act.
George W. Andrews, of Company E, who with his comrade, Clark V. Hines, a Brown of Company C, and another whose name is forgotten carried Colonel Potter out of the Chancellor House after it had caught fire, says :
We first carried him to a small log house near by, and had just laid him down when a shell or solid shot stove the chimney down and a brick came within six inches of the Colonel's head. " My God, boys. this is no place for us." exclaimed the Colonel; and we then carried him quite a distance to another small house, which had evidently been a negro shanty, where he remained until taken pris- oner which was very soon after.
Sergeant Piper, who took a rebel prisoner at Chancellorsville but had to let him go to save himself from being taken on the retreat, relates the following conversation with an officer, belonging to another brigade, who came up to the right of the Twelfth near the close of the battle :
He walked for a little distance along the battle-line of the regiment and exclaimed : " My God! Look at this line of death ! Whoever saw dead men on dress parade before?" He was seen by several of those who were still fight- ing on the right of the regimental line, and seemed to be as cool and self-pos- sessed as if there were not the " zip" of a bullet or the sound of a gun to be heard. Coming up to me, as I was the highest officer left in command of the company, he inquired :
". What regiment is this, and how long have you been fighting here?"
" Twelfth New Hampshire ; can't tell how long."
". Where are all your officers?"
" Dead or wounded, I guess. I haven't seen any of them lately."
" Well. hold your ground a little while longer if you can, brave men, and I will -. "
The remainder of his sentence was not distinctly understood, as he started for the rear before completing it; but the Sergeant understood its full meaning to be that he would look after them. In a few minutes he came running back, and when within hearing distance shouted : " Fall back at once! They are coming down upon you ten deep!"
ยท See page 74.
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
A Confederate captain who fought in our front, but was afterward taken prisoner, inquired about the name and number of troops that so long and stubbornly held his brigade in check ; and, after incredulously receiving the information that only one regiment was then and there opposed to them, said :
" Well, if your regiment had advanced a few rods further it would have had a breast-work of our dead to fight behind." He also said, referring to our buck- and-ball cartridges, that they never met infantry troops in battle before, who fired grape and canister !
The officers and men of the Twelfth who were taken prisoners were led back to the rebel rear, after the battle, over the same ground upon which they had fought ; and, from what they all have been heard to say, it woukl seem that the statement of the rebel officer concerning the terrible slaughter of his brigade there was not much exaggerated. Captain Lang says: "They lay in heaps," and Lieutenant Place writes : " The ground in front of us was literally strewn with the dead rebels. I saw one with the head severed from the body."
The woods caught fire where our troops fought in this battle and quite a number of the badly wounded, according to rebel reports, were burned to death.
That such was the fate of some there can be no reasonable doubt. Warren Tucker, of Company D, who was taken prisoner, says that he saw one poor fellow of our army, brought in by the rebels, so badly burned that you could pick the flesh off his arms by handfuls. And Captain Lang mentions another - pos- sibly the same one, however -- who was so badly burned that he begged for someone to shoot him to end his misery. The above is remindful of a Federal prisoner who was seen to deliberately blow his own brains out, though he was neither burned nor wounded, as the observer was aware of. He was desperately determined, perhaps, that his name should never be added to the death-roll of Andersonville or any other rebel prison.
It was long feared, though nothing confirmatory has ever been learned, that some of the Twelfth who were left wounded in the woods were burned. as the fire was reported to have spread over that part of the battle-ground. During later years there has been a growing hope that such was not the case.
SHAKESPEARE ON THE BATTLE-LINE.
It was on the blood-drenched field of Chancellorsville ; Death's carnival was at its height and the brave boys of the Twelfth were falling on the right and on the left, many to rise no more until awakened by the arch- angel's trump at the last great roll-call.
Dante's " Inferno " was being dramatized by the lurid light of burning brim- stone from the cannon's mouth, whose smoke obscured the sun, when one of the actors in this terrible tragedy, thinking to act a double part and embellish Dante
New Hampshire Volunteers.
with a line of Shakespeare, all at once dropped his gun, raised his hands in a theatrical attitude, and while a comrade near by looked to see him fall - suppos- ing that he was shot in some vital part - loudly voiced Mercutio, as follows : " Ask for me to-morrow and you shall find a grave man." Then coolly picking up his gun he went on with his main role until the close of the dreadful seene.
The above incident is strictly true, as can be proved by both actor and prompter, who are still living, viz. : F. P. Rhodes and A. W. Bacheler, of Company E. Another incident of like nature cannot probably be found in the whole history or traditions of the war, North or South.
WANTED MORE JUICE.
" For thy sake, Tobacco. I Would do anything but die."
It is a well known fact that tobacco chewers and smokers use a much greater quantity of the narcotic plant when laboring under great anxiety or unduly excited. But one would think that when excited to that intense strain of nerve that the soldier is in the midst of a hotly contested battle, there would be little want or thought of the favorite quid.
Such, however, was not the case with Sergeant Stockbridge, then private of Company B. It is not surprising that in biting off and spitting out so many cartridge ends, he should have lost his eud ; but it is strange enough to deserve mention, that he should be hungry enough for another, to stop, take the plug from his pocket, and bite it off, while the bullets were flying like hail around his head. Yet he did it, and then resumed his firing apparently as cool and careless as a man at a day's work. We do not know of anyone in the regiment stopping to light his pipe in that or any other battle, but Fra Meserve, of Company F, says he had his pipe knocked from his mouth by a minie the night before, while supporting a battery at Ilazel Grove.
No, I THANK YOU.
The following is from Corp. O. H. P. Young, of Company B :
Just after the panic of the Eleventh Corps at Chancellorsville had subsided a little, I suggested to one of my comrades that we build up a little fire and have some coffee; and while the coffee was cooking, I cut a stick and stuck it into a piece of " salt chunk " and was holding it sizzling over the fire to grease the way for a mouthful of " hard-tack " to go with it, when a piece of shell struck the stick, throwing the meat directly into my comrade's mouth, burning his lips and throwing him back on the ground, exclaiming : " What the d-} was that? I'm shot !" But soon taking in the true situation of things he says : " I guess I'll take my coffee before they feed you with that," and left for some safer spot, leaving me rolling on the ground in violent convulsions - of laughter.
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" THIS IS MILITARY,"
As the boys used to say when some apparently foolish move was made, or an unnecessary amount of "red tape " was put on.
A soldier in the ranks, so far as his actual knowledge goes, has little chance to understand or power to direct. Being almost wholly ignorant of the premises, his conclusions are often necessarily erroneous. For this reason he often complains without grounds therefor. Especially is this true of the " raw recruit" who has never received instruction from that severe but best of drill-masters, experience. Unschooled in military logistics, and never having read of Carthaginian strategy or Fabian policy he fails to see the necessity or appreciate the beauty of curved lines traced out for fifteen or twenty miles through Virginia mud, with forty or fifty pounds fastened upon his hips and shoulders, and ending, perhaps, with a midnight halt at or close by the place or point from which he started in the morning.
However a president may like "swinging around the circle " it has no pleasures for him, but seems a circumference of drunken folly with no centre of sober common sense : and I am sorry that truth compels one to say that, sometimes, he is more than half right.
It was after one of these swings or countermarches, to deceive the enemy before the battle of Chancellorsville, that a well remembered comrade of Com- pany B, who fell in that dreadful conflict a few days later, having exhausted both his strength and his patience, at last gave oral vent to his feelings in the most earnest and serious manner, as follows: " I've had enough of this confounded nonsense ; and if I could only write as well as Sam Stiles, I would show this whole thing up to the authorities at Washington, as sure as I'm alive."
Sam Stiles was, and had been for many years, a well known writing-master living in that part of the State from which the soldier enlisted.
A SHARP REMINDER.
Division hospital at Falmouth, Va., in charge of Doctor Marshall, was crowded with wounded soldiers after the battle of Chancellorsville. Here many of the brave boys died from sheer neglect. Doctor Marshall and his assistants lying and staggering around drunk, when the light was going out of the eyes of some, who would to-day be living could they then and there have had proper care and attention. It is hard to believe that noble lives were sometimes sacrificed needlessly on the field by incompetent or drunken officers ; but it is much harder to know that true and brave men as ever met their country's foes should be obliged to suffer and die from their wounds in the hospitals, where they had both reason and right to expect the best of treatment and care, from the worse than criminal neg- Ject of those whose business it was to attend to them.
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
Doctor Fowler, having properly cared for all the cases under his immediate charge, went over one day and offered his services in dressing the wounds of the many yet uncared for in the division hospital referred to. His offer being insult- ingly refused he turned around to leave, when his quick eye caught sight of a hand moving to attract his attention to one of the cots near by. Approaching he found one of the most pitiable cases of mangled and suffering humanity he had ever seen. Nothing more was needed to bring his temper, naturally quick and already started, to a white heat, and stripping off his coat and drawing his revolver he threw them into a chair, the latter on top, and with an oath that the time and occasion seemed to extenuate if not justify, bade defiance to rank or rum while he dressed the wounds of the poor fellow, who as a last hope had besought his aid. It is, perhaps, needless to say that he was not molested by anyone dur- ing the operation. At another time while assisting in the same hospital and attend- ing to one of his own men, Charles Smith, of Company D, who was lying in a very critical condition, General Sickles and staff, all unexpected, came suddenly in with quite a number of attendants bustling and clanking along behind. This was too much for the Doctor and turning upon the General, whom he recognized, he said :
" If I were in charge here, I would not allow you to come in here in this way."
" Why, sir ; what do you mean?"
"Mean? I mean you are doing more harm here in five minutes than can be undone this side of eternity. Look at that man (pointing to Smith, whose eyes were wild in the delirium of excitement ) just balancing on the dividing line of life and death and see for yourself what I mean. If I could not put a stop to it any other way I would make complaint to General Sickles himself."
The General saw his error at once, but the Doctor's last shot killed, and order- ing his followers back, he very quickly and noiselessly went through the ward.
GOOD PLUCK.
Lying in a ditch a few yards to the rear of the edge of the woods where the Twelfth fought at Chancellorsville was a young, curly-headed, and bright-faced boy, belonging to a Massachusetts regiment, who had been badly wounded in the head : while beside him lay Corporal Tilton, of Company F, severely wounded in the arm and shoulder.
The lines of rebel gray had driven our forces back and were madly pushing forward with threatening oaths of vengeance for the death of their great leader. A few yards further and the wounded soldiers, if they fortunately escaped the bayonet thrust, would be prisoners in their hands. "Now for one more shot at the gray devils," says the girl-faced but lion-hearted boy; " just see me bore a hole through that officer right in front of us," and before his comrade could remonstrate against the seeming folly of giving two lives for one, the musket was discharged and the officer fell.
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
THE GRUMBLER.
Every company in a regiment had one or more constitutional grumblers. They seemed to be made out of cross-grained material. and nothing went smooth with them at any time, unless when asleep, and then they must have had unpleasant dreams. They did nothing, even to eat their rations, without a grumbling protest of some kind, and finding fault with every- body and everything was about as natural to them as eating or sleeping.
As may be supposed, the grumbler, as a rule, belonged to the second or third rate class of soldiers ; but now and then would be found a notable exception.
One of these phenomenal exceptions belonged to Company - (we'll not give the letter, lest he recognize himself and goes to grumbling again, for he still sur- vives) and, judging him by his deeds regardless of his mutterings, he was one of the best soldiers in the regiment. The habit had become so inseparably con- nected with his military existence that he would grumble at the right as well as the wrong, at good luck as well as bad, and - well, here is a fair specimen and an amusing illustration.
When retreating from the woods at Chancellorsville, where he had been knocked senseless by a minie ball that had grazed his scalp, he was overtaken by one of his comrades, who remembers of hearing from him, almost word for word, as follows :
" This's about what I expected. Joe Hooker might have known better than come over here. But now he's got here, I don't see why in thunder he don't stay and fight, instead of backing out in this way. I can't see any sense in fighting until you're most all killed and then quit. If I'm going to fight I want to fight and have the thing through with and done with it."
The serio-comic part of this will be better appreciated by the reader to learn that while he was thus sputtering, the minies were flying thiekly around him and the blood running down over his face and clothes.
DISTANCE ACROSS THE RIVER.
" If I only had a quadrant I would prove to you that your estimation of the distance across the river to the rebel pickets is too great by nearly one half." This remark was made by General Boman to one of his staff while out on picket one day near the Rappahannock.
" But can't you get the distance without a quadrant, General?" ventures to inquire a green, insignificant looking boy of the Twelfth Regiment who had been listening to their conversation.
"No, I don't know how to; do you ?"
" Well, I was thinking it might be done, near enough at least for all practical purposes."
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
This calin and considerate answer to his somewhat scornful question at onee banished all feeling of resentment from the General's mind for being so abruptly reminded of his ignorance by one of his own soldiers, and he pleasantly requested him to put his thoughts into action, and demonstrate the correctness of his idea.
Thus encouraged, the young man said he was willing to try, if he could have a little time, and one or two men to assist him.
" All the men and time you want," replied the General, who was getting quite as much interested as amused.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, the problem had been solved, and the untutored youth - for he had never been instructed in the higher mathematics by anyone but himself - proceeded to explain to the college graduate, professional man, and army general what he never knew before, that the distance across a river, or to any point or place, within sight and not too far away, could be quite accurately ascertained without the use of either quadrant or sextant.
"A POUND OF PLUCK IS WORTH A TON OF LUCK."
The truth that General Garfield encompassed in this rhymed line is illustrated and verified in the life of almost every successful man ; but history has never furnished a more conspicuous example than the brave struggle and brilliant career of its world-renowned and lamented author. It is worthy the undying companionship of " Poor Richard's" best, and so peculiarly applicable to and characteristic of the great statesman and philosopher that many will, in after years, attribute it to him.
But not among the great and wise alone does this brave maxim have a meaning. Almost every day's experience of active life does, in a greater or less degree, demonstrate its truth and force to the low and weak, as well as the high and strong.
The march from Falmouth, Va., to Gettysburg, Pa., was enough to test not only the pluck, but the endurance of the bravest and strongest; and toward the elose of one of the longest and hardest day's marches, on the slippery tow-path, one of the boys of Company D got so wearisomely sad, that things looked to him most discouragingly blue, as evinced by his looks and emphasized by his tongue. At this, one of the smallest and youngest of his comrades, walking up to and slapping him upon the shoulder, exclaimed : " Cheer up here, and give us a smile for a tear; we shall live to tell our grandchildren of this yet." Both are now living ; one is a grandfather already, and the other will doubtless soon have the same honor, though neither is yet fifty years old.
THE CHERRY PICKER.
While the regiment was supporting a battery in the orchard near the Emmitsburg road at Gettysburg, one of the boys of Company E climbed into a cherry tree, the better to help himself to the tempting fruit thereon.
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
Though he went up nimbly like a live squirrel, he came down more like a dead possum, to the great amusement of his comrades when they found that the solid shot that brought him down had more frightened than hurt him. He was never quite able to tell whether the limb he stood on was cut off, or he knocked off the limb. His own version of the affair put into rhyme is very brief, but quite expressive :
I heard something snap, and I felt something " drap "- Make no queries ; For th' next thing I knew I had got all through Picking cherries.
INCIDENT AT GETTYSBURG.
" Deep rest and sweet, most like indeed to death's own quietness."
When exhausted nature demands a rest she is not at all particular of the time or place. Sleeping beside the dead has been the experience of many a soldier, but the following incident has a touch of pathos in it that renders it peculiarly interesting :
Albert D. Jones and Christopher C. Joy, of Company A, were both mortally wounded at Gettysburg, and died on the field, the former about midnight, and the latter at 2 o'clock in the morning.
Their comrade, Thomas E. Lawlor, as kind as he was brave, found them in the evening after the fight, and remained with them until they died. Jones suffered but little pain, and seemed resigned to his fate. After his death Lawlor gave his whole attention to Joy, who was suffering much from wounds in his breast and back, desiring frequent change of position, and requiring the constant effort of his faithful attendant to aid and comfort him. Two slow hours pass and the pains of the dying patriot cease; and so kindly gentle was the approach of death, to release him from his suffering, that Lawlor thought he was going to sleep. But scarcely do his fingers, on the pulseless wrist, tell him that it is the sleep that never ends, than he himself is soundly sleeping by the side of his dead comrade, to awake when the loud roar of cannon sounds the reveille of another day of strife and carnage to end, at last, in victory.
So, side by side, there slept the brave, The living with the dead.
DIPLOMATIC.
In addition to what has already been written,* we will give one more instance of the tact and shrewdness practiced by the " sub " recruits to rid themselves of the Union blue.
* See page 151 et seq.
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While stationed at Point Lookout, one of them, evidently of French parentage, received papers from Washington for him to be allowed to go to that city on important business connected with the French Legation. They were signed by the French consul and countersigned by the secretary of war. Captain Langley, to whom. as commander of the regiment, they were first presented, took them to General Marston, who, not doubting their genuineness, granted him leave of absence for six days. The next morning's boat up river took him on board, and from that day there was one less to answer to the roll-call in Company I. It was all a clever forgery !
WHAT HE WAS THERE FOR.
A boat had just brought down from Washington another load of " subs " for the brigade at Point Lookout, and some of the officers went down to the wharf to get the first look at them.
Among the motley crew of the odds and ends of humanity was one fellow, who was so badly wind-broken by phthisic, or some other throat or lung trouble, that he could walk but a few steps without sitting down to puff and blow a while. " What in the name of -are you out here for?" asked . Captain Langley, who passed by where the poor fellow sat, coughing and wheezing, on a stone but a few rods from the landing. "Fourteen hundred dollars." was the short but truthful reply.
DOUGHNUTS.
One of the sergeants of Company H, whose first name is Alma, was a great lover of doughnuts, and different from most of young husbands he thought his wife could make quite as good or better doughnuts than his mother. So he wrote home to her from Point Lookout for a recipe how to make them.
He received in reply a box, containing not only the desired information, but also many nicely cooked eatables, among which, of course, were a big lot of his home-made favorites. When these were gone, to the sweet relish of his own, and the delicious taste of many a comrade's, palate, he concluded to test his own skill in the fat and flour business ; and procuring the necessary materials by the aid of one of the officers giving him an order on the commissary. His effort was crowned with so much success that he soon not only supplied himself, but also many of bis comrades, who quickly purchased all that he had to spare.
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