Slowly the sun declined. He had been our friend all day, shining through the December air with an autumn glow that almost warmed the chill earth; but at his last half-hour he seemed to hang motionless in the western sky. His going down would set us free; free from the fire that was galling and decimating us; free from the fear of guns on the right, and advance from the front; free from numbness, and constraint, and irksomeness, and free from the cold, wet earth. Also it would bring us messengers from the town to call us back from the exposed position and the field of dead bodies. But he lingered and stood upon the order of his going, until it seemed as if a Joshua of the Confederates had caused him to stand still.
When at last the great disk stood, large and red, upon the horizon, every face was turned toward it, forgetting constraint, thirst, tobacco, and rebel fire, in the eagerness to see the end of a day that had brought us a new experience of a soldier’s life, and had combined the dangers of a battle-field and the discomfort of a winter’s bivouac with many new horrors of its own.
At last the lingering sun went down. December twilights are short; the Federal line sprang to its feet with almost a shout of relief. The rebel fire grew brisker as they saw such a swarm of blue coats rising from the ground, but it was too late to see the foresights on the rifles, and shots unaimed were not so terrible as the hated ground. So we contemptuously emptied our rifles at them, and before the smoke rolled away the coming darkness had blotted out the wall and the hostile line.
With our line rose also a few men from the ghastly pile of yesterday’s dead, who hobbled up on muskets used as crutches. These poor fellows had bound up their own wounds, and the coffee we had given them had cheered them into life and hope. Their cheerfulness grew into hilarity and merriment as they found themselves clear, at last, from the dead, and facing toward home, with a hope not by any means so impossible of realization as it had seemed not long before. Poor fellows! their joy was more touching than their sufferings — which, indeed, they seemed to have forgotten.
In our own brigade we found we had lost nearly
THE STONE WALL UNDER MARYE’S HEIGHTS.
From a photograph taken immediately after Sedgwick carried the position hy assault, at the second attack, May i
last, after letting us lie here till high noon, and were we now to receive the plunging fire we had looked for all the morning ? Desirable in itself as it might be to have “that cuss with a spy-glass” removed, it seemed wiser to repress Bead’s ambition. The shooting of an officer would dispel any doubts they might have of our presence, and we needed the benefit of all their doubts. Happily, they seemed to think us not worth their powder and iron.
Were we really destined to see the friendly shades of night come on and bring us release from our imprisonment ? For the first time we began to feel it probable when the groups left the guns without a shot. I grew easy enough in mind to find that sleep was possible, and I was glad to welcome it as a surer refuge from the surroundings than the scrap of newspaper. It was a little discouraging to see a sleeping officer near me awakened by a bullet, but as his only misfortune, besides a disturbed nap, seemed to be a torn cap and scratched face, he soon wooed back the startled goddess. I had enjoyed sleep for its quiet and rest, but never before for mere oblivion.
When I returned to consciousness I found the situation unchanged, except that the list of casualties had been swelled by the constant rifle-practice, which was still as pitiless and as continuous as before. . . .
visit home, with brighter sword and shoulder-straps than most of us, raised his head to look at the enemy, and a bullet at once pierced his brain. Without a word or groan his head sank again, his rosy cheek grew livid, and his blood crimsoned his folded hands. Next a leg or arm was shattered as it became exposed in shifting from the wearisomeness of our position. Presently a system of reporting the casualties became established; the names of the injured were passed from mouth to
mouth — “Captain M~-------, 17th, just killed”;
“Private ----, Co. C, 11th-----, knocked over.”
Those who were fortunate enough to have paper and pencil, and elbow-room enough to get them from pocket-depths, kept a list of the names of the killed and wounded; the occupation this gave proved a blessing, for the hours were very long and weary. I suppose ennui is hardly the word where nerves are on the rack, and danger pinions one to a single spot of earth; yet something like ennui came over us. . . . I was called back to the dull wet earth and the crouching line at Fredericksburg by a request from Sergeant Bead, who ‘ ‘ guessed he could hit that cuss with a spyglass”— pointing, as he spoke, to the batteries that threatened our right flank. Then I saw that there was commotion at that part of the Confederate works, and an officer on the parapet, with a glass was taking note of us. Had they discovered us at
ranks for water, or from any cause, before we were pinned tothe earth, came back at great peril. Indeed,
I believe not one of them reached our line again unhurt. Some were killed outright; others were mortally wounded, and died within a few steps of us; and several who tried to drag themselves away flat upon their faces were put out of their misery.
This, too, showed us plainly what we might expect, and fixed our bounds to such segments of the fields as were hidden from the enemy. This was not alike throughout the line. At one point the exposure was absolute, and stillness as absolute was the only safety. A slight barrier was afterward formed at this point by a disposal of the dead bodies infront, so that the dead actually sheltered the living.
After two or three hours of this experience we became somewhat accustomed to
the situation,— for man becomes accustomed to almost anything that savors of routine,— and learned with considerable exactness the limit in -side which we might move with safety, and the limit also of endurable constraint. It was somewhat curious to see how strong the tobacco hunger was with many — perhaps with most. Men would jump to their feet and run the length of a regiment to borrow tobacco, and in so doing run the gauntlet of a hundred shots. This was so rarely accomplished in entire safety that it won the applause of our line and hearty congratulations to any one fortunate enough to save his life and sweeten it with the savory morsel.
All this would have been ludicrous but for the actual suffering inflicted upon so many. Men were mortally hit, and there was no chance to bind up their wounds ; they were almost as far beyond our help as if they had been miles away. A little was accomplished for their relief by passing canteens from hand to hand, keeping them close to the ground out of sight, and some of the wounded were where a little manipulation could be done in safety. It was sad to hear the cries fade away to low moans, and then to silence, without a chance to help. The laugh over a successful chase for tobacco would die away only to change into a murmur of indignation at' the next cruel slaughter. A young officer, boyish and ruddy, fresh from a