Karl Bacon (27 page)

The fighting in the western woods raged for another hour or two. Panicked troops from other brigades and divisions flooded out of the woods and leaped over the works, happy to have survived their latest sojourn in the thickets. “They’re coming,” they cried. “Get ready. They’re right behind us. Longstreet’s Corps, and lots of them.”

But Longstreet’s horde did not come screaming from the woods. In fact, the fighting nearly ceased altogether, and an uneasy hush fell over the Union line along the Brock Road. Colonel Carroll reassembled his brigade and ordered all of the regimental commanders to send their men to the rear for rest and refitting. We marched a few hundred yards down the Plank Road in the direction of Chancellorsville to pass a peaceful afternoon, while the men still in place along the Brock Road set to work improving their fortifications.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon that I first smelled the smoke, the not-at-all unpleasant scent of burning leaves and forest timber. I peered down the road toward the breastworks. Wisps of light gray smoke curled above the trees and drifted over the Federal line on a gentle, westerly breeze.

“Look there,” I said, jumping to my feet. “The forest is on fire. Maybe it’s only the underbrush, but there’s a lot of dry timber.”

Minute by minute the smoke increased, first in several steady plumes that roiled above the trees, then in a dense, heavy cloud that enshrouded that entire portion of the Wilderness. All stood and craned their necks to see what was happening. A low wall of flame, roughly parallel to the Brock Road, fanned and driven by the breeze, marched inexorably out of the tree line toward the stout works our men had so diligently built. The flames came to the base of the breastworks and rejoiced at the dry timbers they found to consume. Within a few minutes a long section of the barricade was engulfed, and our troops had no choice but to retreat in the face of such an assault.

“Look at those sly devils!” Jim Adams shouted. “They’re jumping through the flames.” Rebel infantry had used the fire as a screen, and as soon as the flames had captured our works, the Rebels secured the advantage. Hundreds of screaming, smoking figures vaulted over the barricade through the flames and set
about shooting and bayoneting as many of our astonished men as they could. The shock of this unexpected attack sent our men reeling. The enemy had achieved a breakthrough; the Army of the Potomac was in great hazard of being split in two.

“On your feet, men. Load and prime! Fix bayonets!” Colonel Carroll himself screamed the order. “To the breach, men! We’ve got to close it. No rest for any man as long as any of those fiends remain alive within our works! Forward! Double-double-quick!”

We raced full tilt down the road toward the enemy and turned sharply to the left when we neared the crossroad. A thousand or more Rebels had packed themselves into a space about two hundred yards wide, with thousands of angry Federals both to the right and to the left. Heavy guns opened up on them at point-blank range. The yells of the Rebels died in their throats as they realized the full gravity of their situation. Colonel Carroll directed us across the opening in the Federal line, thus closing off our foe’s only avenue of advance. It took only a few minutes to dress our lines.

Then the big guns fell silent.

“Fire!” screamed Colonel Carroll. Hundreds fell to the lead of our musket balls.

“Charge!” our leader screamed again. It was a brief but desperate and bloody fight. We ran forward, bayonets at the ready. Some threw down their weapons and started to raise their hands. We ran right through them, knocking them down with the butts of our rifles. Other Rebels who still had fight in them were run through with steel; some were bayoneted several times at once. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jim thrusting and parrying with both the bayonet and the Bowie as he slashed his way through any that stood before him.

A few survivors stumbled backward toward the barricade. A sergeant in gray planted a foot upon one of the timbers as if to clamber over it, but his foot slipped as he did so. With a
great heave the sergeant threw his rifle over the works into the woods beyond. Then he tried to climb the works again. I lunged forward. My bayonet pierced him through between the shoulder blades, pinning him to the still hot and smoking timber. The man screamed in agony. I smelled the pungent odor of burning flesh. I twisted and pulled my rifle, trying to dislodge my bayonet, but I had driven it fast into the timber. I pulled again and again, each time causing the man further anguish, but it was no use. I could do nothing for the man but watch him scream and die.

Our third and final battle of the day was over in less than fifteen minutes. It was indeed a great victory, but I felt in no way the victor. Later in the evening, after darkness had fallen, we were sent to occupy a portion of the works along the Brock Road while those troops marched away to the south. Coffee and supper were fixed; then we lay our blankets out upon the ground.

I had fought well that day, very well. So had the others in the company. The colonel himself had commended us. We had given to the enemy as good as they had given to us. It was in every way what I had most desired: a fair fight, face-to-face, man-to-man. And yet I began to weep. I turned over and lay flat upon my stomach, using the crook of my arm as a pillow. I had killed several more men that day. Indeed, I had felt no malice toward any of them, nor any anger—I had just killed them. It was war. I was under orders. It’s what I was supposed to do. But the tears came all the more readily as I thought about my latest victim. It had all been so effortless charging into that line of Rebels. Somehow, I knew exactly what to do, every blow of the rifle butt, every thrust of the bayonet, with no conscious thought, as if it was the most natural of acts. And this, I believe, I found most terrifying of all.

Lord God above, please hear this one prayer. Please take my life before I take another.

He brought me up also out of an horrible pit,
out of the miry clay.
PSALM 40:2

T
HE TWO ARMIES TRUDGED SEVERAL MILES DOWN THE
B
ROCK
Road to the southeast near Spotsylvania Courthouse, only to grind together again like two giant millstones with the men in blue and gray providing the grist for the mill. Tuesday afternoon, May 10
^th
, the men of Carroll’s brigade were called upon to assault a line of breastworks atop Laurel Hill. Colonel Ellis ordered Captain Simpson to scout the Rebel line.

“What do you think, Sergeant?” Captain Simpson called from his place behind a large red cedar about twenty feet to my left.

Similarly positioned, I surveyed the ground beyond the edge of the grove. “It looks like Mine Run all over again, except the slope is steeper and the distance is shorter, and there’s abatis along the entire length.”

“But can we succeed, Sergeant? Can we take the position as ordered?”

Always speak truth to officers,
Sergeant Needham had counseled,
because your lives are in their hands.
“No, sir, we cannot. If we press it, sir, it will be another Fredericksburg.”

“My thoughts exactly, Sergeant.”

Captain Simpson’s report made no difference and the assault began at four o’clock. It was much as I had predicted, and in some ways even worse. Rebel guns opened on the cedar grove as soon as the brigade entered it. Incendiary shells set fire to the carpet beneath our feet. Here and there one of the sap-filled trees burst into flames like a giant torch. I had seen the cedar grove as the last refuge before the terrors of the open land beyond, but it quickly became another source of peril. Hot flames licked at our feet, acrid smoke filled our lungs, and the cedar trees themselves seemed to have turned against us as their sharp branches tore at our clothing and stabbed at our skin, drawing first blood in this battle.

“Fourteenth! Double-quick!” Colonel Ellis ordered as we neared the tree line.

“Let’s go, men,” I cried. “Don’t tarry even for a moment. There’s nothing to fire at, so just stay low and don’t stop.” Through a storm of shots and bullet, the men of Carroll’s brigade ducked and weaved farther and farther up the slope, all the way up to the row of abatis that guarded the approach to the Rebels’ works. Hundreds more of our men were added to the ranks of the slain and grievously wounded who yet remained on that field from earlier assaults. Advancing beyond the abatis was impossible, and there we stayed, under heavy fire all the while, firing up at the enemy’s fortifications until all of our ammunition was expended. Then it was every man for himself, as we bobbed and weaved and tumbled back down the slope to the shelter of the smoldering cedar grove.

I turned to gaze back up the hill. The carpet of dead and wounded was fuller now as far as I could see to the right and to the left. Fires started by the shelling spread quickly across dry, grassy fields. Here and there hideous screams arose as flames
engulfed those unable to escape them. I turned away, eyes stinging from smoke and tears.

As calm as Jim Adams was in battle, he was just the opposite as we sat about our fire that night, waiting for the coffee to boil. “Nothing’s changed, Michael, nothing at all.”

“What do you mean?” asked Otto.

“Grant’s in charge now and we’re losing more men than ever. Battalions and whole regiments are being added to make up for our losses. This afternoon’s charge was the same idiocy we’ve seen too much of.”

“True,” I said. “It was useless and nothing was gained. Only a week ago I had high hopes for Grant and this new campaign, but I heard he was watching us today. Our lives are meaningless. I’ve given up all hope of surviving this war. I’ve escaped too many times. And Grant won’t stop. There will be no retreats, no withdrawals for rest and healing. We’ll be back at it soon, maybe tomorrow, or maybe Thursday or Friday.”

I was proven correct. The brigade marched again in the dank and foggy blackness of Wednesday night. No man could say with any surety if he was marching north or south, east or west, toward the foe or away from him. It took all of our efforts, both mentally and physically, to follow the narrow road through the woods, treading in the footprints of the man in front, hoping that somewhere up ahead someone knew where we were going.

A faint glow penetrated the darkness; a watchman tended a signal fire at an intersection, posted there to steer the troops onto a lane that turned off to the right. An hour more brought us to what seemed to be a clearing around a farmstead. I could sense rather than see the presence of many men, perhaps thousands, gathered in the fields that surrounded the farmhouse.

“We’re assembling for a dawn assault,” Colonel Ellis said in
a hushed voice. “The enemy line in this sector bulges outward in the shape of a mule shoe.” Beside me, Otto muttered a low curse at the mere mention of the hated animal. “The entire Second Corps will attack the apex of the mule shoe works at dawn, and by God, we’ll have them. They won’t see us coming until it’s too late, and not a shot will be fired until we’re in their works. There will be three lines of assault with General Barlow’s division first, then General Birney’s division, and this division third. We’ll drive in after the others to support them and hold their gains. It will be a tough and bloody fight, but this war could very well end today if every man of this corps does his duty.”

Rain began to fall, lightly at first and then more heavily. The waiting thousands could do nothing but continue to stand and wait for the signal to advance, churning the ground under their stamping feet to mud. “Keep your powder dry,” was passed up and down through the ranks several times, and “Don’t load your muskets until we’re about to move out.”

The deep darkness brightened just a little, then a little more. Dawn was approaching, but it would not be one of those glorious, sun-streaked auroras that inspired the pens of many a bard. No, it would be a perfectly dismal day for killing and dying with low, gloomy clouds, heavy rains, and persistent fog.

No order was heard, but certainly one was given. Shadowy ranks of men to the front started forward into the trees at the edge of the farmland; the forms of individual men were indistinguishable given the gloom and distance.

“Third Brigade, march.” The order was repeated in hoarse whispers down the line by regimental and company officers. We stepped off to follow the thousands who had marched a few minutes earlier. The only sounds were the tramp of thousands of feet upon the muddy earth, the muffled clanking that invariably accompanies even a small body of troops on the march, and the heavy patter of raindrops that continued to fall.

We were still moving through a thick stand of trees when the firing started. First there were only a few shots here and there, then hundreds, then a roar. The first line had surely reached the mule shoe and the fight was on. Several minutes later we marched out of the woods and onto the broad strip of cleared land that led up to the Rebel line.

Barlow’s men had indeed surprised the enemy. With a rush and a yell they had vaulted onto and over the works. Startled from sleep, many Confederates tried to fire their weapons only to find their powder damp and useless while our boys poured hot lead into them. Rebels by the hundred fell before Barlow’s charging troops; thousands more threw down their weapons and surrendered on the spot.

Birney’s division jumped over the works and added their weight to the melee, forcing those Confederates still unwilling to yield backward yard by yard. Prisoners streamed back toward our line, and there was nothing to do except round them up and send them under guard back to the farmhouse we had just left.

The Second Corps continued to drive the Rebels, a hundred yards, then two hundred, then a quarter mile or more. It was magnificent. Perhaps the war
would
be won on this fine and dreary day. Orders were passed along for the brigades of Gibbon’s division to spread out and occupy the reverse side of the works the Rebels had just abandoned. “Dig in and secure the line — just in case,” Colonel Ellis told us.

“Dig, boys, dig!” I screamed. “Dig as though your very lives depend on it, because they do. Dig deep and dig hard! Make this side of the works every bit as stout as the other. If Barlow’s and Birney’s boys get turned around, they’ll be needing a place to hide.”

And they did get turned around. Thousands of fresh Confederates poured into the breach and checked the Federal advance. The fighting became hot and furious and our boys were
gradually beaten back. Not more than an hour after pouring over the works in hot pursuit of the fleeing Rebels, Barlow’s and Birney’s men began vaulting and tumbling back over those same works, but now those breastworks protected us as much as they did the enemy and a deadly stalemate developed along that part of the battle line.

Crouched low on our side, we could see nothing of an enemy who lay crouched equally low only several feet away. If one of our men suddenly discovered a wellspring of courage lacking in the rest of us, he would rise up and fire his musket over the top of the barricade, but it was a risky undertaking, and he was more than likely to return to crouching with the rest, albeit now bleeding or even dying. On our side of the works, fresh troops trained loaded and cocked muskets at the top of the barricade.

“Show yourself, Johnnie!” we dared the Rebels.

“How ‘bout showin’ yourself, Yank?” the Johnnies taunted in return.

Many on both sides dared, perhaps thinking they could move faster than a bullet, but they were dead wrong. Men fell where they were struck, collapsing into the muddy trenches, and there was nothing for the living to do but crouch atop their departed brothers and fight on.

A trick the Rebels used was to stick their rifles over the top of the barricade while holding onto just the butt and the trigger so they could fire down at us. “Grab the barrel,” I told my men. “Grab it, push it back at him and give it a quick yank.” Several Rebel muskets were stolen in this way, yet they kept employing this tactic until one of the Rebs thrust his weapon over the works in Otto’s vicinity. Otto gave the man’s musket such a tremendous tug that the startled Reb came flopping over the works and into our trench directly beside Otto.

This bloody stalemate dragged on for the rest of the day. A few hundred yards out of sight to the right, an even more desperate
struggle developed. Along a portion of the western side of the mule shoe breastworks, Union troops from the Fifth and Sixth Corps were locked in a bitter struggle with Confederates keen on throwing the invading Yankees out of the works they had so recently occupied. Each side threw more and more men into the fight and the numbers of dead and wounded mounted all day long. There were several times when the men in our sector on both sides simply sat awestruck at the din of the fighting, the constant roar of musketry and artillery, screams and shouts, and indistinguishable clamor. The fighting lasted far into the night, finally lapsing into restless silence at about three o’clock Friday morning.

With the first gray streaks of dawn, our officers started to rouse the men. “It’s too quiet over there,” Captain Simpson said, gesturing toward the Rebel side of the works. “We need to find out what they’re up to, Sergeant.”

“I think they’re gone, sir. I heard some voices and a bit of commotion about an hour ago.”

“We need to know for sure, Sergeant. Take a squad and find out if they have indeed withdrawn.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

I rounded up the remaining men from our dwindling Company C. I found Otto and five or six others, but Jim Adams was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he had been wounded and had gone to the rear for treatment. Perhaps like countless others he had become separated during the confusion of battle and the light of day would help him find his way back. No matter; it was a simple mission.

“No heroes now,” I told the squad. “Just spread out about twenty yards apart. Creep up to the works and peer over. We
only need to know if the Rebs are still there. Sing out if you see any.”

It was just as I expected; the Rebels had left. Not a living soul could be seen on their side of the earthworks, but as I was turning rearward to report to Captain Simpson, something very strange caught my eye. About fifty yards to my right, at a point in the line where our works were nearly indistinguishable from those of the enemy, two men stood locked together in an embrace of death atop the works. The Confederate had raised his rifle high to thrust the bayonet downward into the chest of the Union man, while the Federal had struck lower, driving what appeared to be a large knife into his opponent just below the man’s ribs.

I knew without further inspection who the dead Federal was, but I crept closer to the pair all the same. Each man leaned slightly into the other; frozen hands still clasped weapons. The head of the dead Rebel lay against his left shoulder; his face cast downward and away from me. The Federal faced his opponent directly, eyes open and fixed, his frozen, gaping face a vivid testimony to the surprise of his enemy’s thrust, yet the man was familiar just the same. Had not Jim been with us last night? When had this happened? He must have remained alert, while others had slept, and spotted the Johnnie trying to sneak across to do us harm. Neither had cried out to raise the alarm; a silent struggle in the night had ended each man’s war.

Colonel Carroll rode up and down the line, ordering the brigade to form two lines of battle. “We must find out where the enemy has gone, if they have withdrawn in retreat or if they have fallen back to another line of works. We’ll advance until we discover their present location, but we will not give them battle.”

The colonel led the brigade southward through the interior
of the war-ravaged mule shoe. I wished not to look at the devastation, for I knew what I had already seen would remain with me for whatever days remained of my life. But it was impossible to shut my eyes to the heaps of dead men and animals. It was impossible to shut my ears to the groans of those who yet lived. It was impossible to seal my nose and mouth against the rising stench that enveloped the place.