of their heaviest guns were opened upon us; shell after shell came
"singing its devilish song through the air;" but the column kept straight on,
facing the storm with unshrinking front. Presently we came to what is called a
"Virginia fence," and so known all over the North. Over this we had to climb. A
sergeant in my company while getting over fell through. Picking himself up he
turned to a comrade and said, "Do you know why I am like the President?" The
comrade apparently had no disposition for joking; but the soldier forced the
answer as he took his position: "I'll tell you," said he; "it's because I'm a
rail-splitter." We laughed, and just then, not two yards behind me, a solid shot
plowed its way through our ranks and the joking sergeant with three of his
companions were killed almost instantly. The sergeant, with his joke lying
nettlesome on his lips, was literally torn in two!
After this we entered a thick
wood, upon the other side of which we could see our line of battle. The firing
had abated considerably, the cannonading almost entirely. We were halted, and
the order "Rest" was given. A division—the Second of the Fifth Corps, I
think—which had been all day in the field, but had been relieved by the Third
Division of our corps, were going to the rear, taking many of their wounded with
them. One man, who was supported by two comrades, had had his lower jaw taken
off, and as he moved along held up in his hand the bloody bone, misshapen and
splintered, with fine teeth still remaining in it. Another, lying upon a
stretcher, had lost both feet by a solid shot. The bleeding stumps had not yet
been dressed, and the stretcher was covered with the blood of the dying hero.
Yet, for all this, amidst the roar of musketry, and with the pain his wounds
must have caused, he was singing in a clear voice, with enough of the Irish
accent to make the strain musical:
"The Star-Spangled Banner, oh
long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the
home of the brave."
While I was yet looking after the
footless soldier, a little drummer-boy attracted my attention by saying, in a
childish voice, as he held up his left arm from which the hand had been severed,
while he held his drum with the other:
"Will you do as much as that for
"Yes, my little fellow, if I
"Well, I'd do more," and he held
up his right hand; "but then I would have no hands at all to work for mother,
and father was killed at Antietam."
I should suppose, from the little
fellow's appearance, he was not over twelve or thirteen years of age; he was a
young hero, but a thorough one—a child worthy of the Republic, worthy of its
inspirations, worthy of the Future in which, maybe, he shall sit crowned with
Hardly had my notice been
withdrawn from the drummer-boy when Corporal S— turned toward me, and exclaimed,
"Look there!" I looked in the direction indicated, and beheld a sight at once so
horrible and sublime that it will ever form a living picture in my memory. A
strong, stalwart fellow, with the cheverons of a sergeant on his arm, ragged and
torn, was limping slowly toward us. The shoe on his right foot was covered with
blood, and a large rent in his pantaloons, just above the knee, from which the
blood was also trickling, solved the question of the location of his wound. He
was hatless, his hair was disordered, his face and hands were begrimed with
smoke and powder, and he looked altogether maniac-like and exhausted. But he had
his colors with him! His regiment, or the greater part of it, had been either
killed or captured; he had lost his colors once, and was afterward captured
himself. He watched his opportunity, killed the rebel who held his flag, and
escaped with it safely into our lines. Ought not the name of one so brave as he
to be chiseled in monumental marble, that the ages as they go may read it and
Night came at last—the next day
passed—and the evening of the fourth settled down upon us, bringing to some of
us a most disagreeable duty. Shortly after dark, as I was about to lie down in
my blanket for a nap, I was directed to take charge of a squad of men and repo