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Page) To the front, Doctor;" and the brave fellow tried hard to stand
firm and speak boldly as he saluted the
"To the front! What! a man in
your condition? Why, Sir, you can't march half a mile; you haven't the strength
to carry yourself, let alone your knapsack, musket, and equipments. You must be
"But, Doctor, my division are in
the fight"—here he grasped the wheel of an ambulance to support himself—"and I
have a young brother in my company. I must go."
"But I am your surgeon, and I
forbid you. You have every symptom of typhoid fever; a little overexertion will
"Well, Doctor, if I must die, I
would rather die in the field than in an ambulance."
The Doctor saw it was useless to
debate the point, and the soldier went as he desired. On the evening of the next
day it fell to my lot to bury him where he fell, his right arm blown off at the
elbow, and his forehead pierced by a Minie ball. His name we could never learn;
we only knew that he belonged to the Third Division of the Sixth Corps, and that
mark we placed at the head of his grave.
Shortly after 5 o'clock the bugle
sounded "Fall in." At once drivers of ambulances sprang to their seats, and the
rank and file to their feet from the road-side where they had been reclining,
all alike covered with dust. But little cared they for the graces of the toilet;
the bugle called "Forward," and they stepped out gladly to their work. A march
of something less than an hour brought us to a ravine, in which we were drawn up
by brigades, about a quarter of a mile in the rear of the centre of the Federal
line of battle. Here we stacked arms and at down in our places.
Here again the brave, indomitable
temper of our boys found expression in a variety of ways. Some of the surgeons
found it almost impossible to prevent the men in the ambulances getting out and
taking their places in the ranks. Some who were in even worse condition than the
soldier already mentioned insisted, in spite of the protestations of surgeons,
officers, and comrades, that they would run no more risk in the field than in
the hospital-train; and I saw three men whom the surgeon was obliged to place in
an ambulance by force, and then put over them a guard with loaded muskets, so
determined were they to go with their comrades into the fight.
Our rest in the ravine was by no
means undisturbed. The enemy having observed our advance over the hill shot and
shell very soon began to fly about us thick and fast, battering far and near
like swiftly-driven hail. Right in the midst of the storm this exhibition of
soldierly coolness met my observation. Some twenty-five feet from the right of
our regimental line of muskets ran a little creek bordered on either side by
large trees. A fallen tree served as a bridge or crossing. One of the drivers of
the Ambulance Corps was stooping on this log washing his hands. A spent-shell
came ripping through the trees behind him and buried itself just deep enough in
the log to make it stick. He turned about and with the heel of his boot kicked
the shell into the water, saying, "Now, old screech-owl, bust if you want to."
And burst it did; but a second or two after blowing one end of the log into
splinters and completely deluging the driver, upon which, dropping himself
astride the remainder of the bridge, he surveyed himself coolly and exclaimed,
"Well, I came here to wash my hands; but hang me if I expected a shower-bath in
such an out-of-the-way place as this!"
The firing at the front
continued, and the rebel compliments in the form of shells still dropped
occasionally around us. At half past six the bugle sounded again "Fall in."
Instantly every man grasped his weapon and took his position. The Second
Division—but one division, the Third, had as yet been in the fight—moved off
first. Our appearance on the hill was the signal for a terrific fire from the
rebels; some 