Chapter 2

As the men were rising to go, the rebels fired, but so hastily and with such poor aim that their fire did not prove nearly so destructive as I had feared. Probably most of their guns were empty, although I did not think so just then. The range was so close that it seemed bullets had never before hissed with such a diabolical venom, and every one that passed made a noise seemingly loud enough to tear one in two. I had forgotten my overcoat, but had run only a rod or two when I thought of it and stopped and looked back with the intention of returning to get it; but the rebels then appeared to be as close to the coat as I was and very reluctantly, for it was a new one, I let them have it. After running a few rods farther I again looked back. They were standing on the low embankment we had left, loading and firing at will, but just as I looked some of their officers waved their swords and sprang forward. The fire slackened as they started in hot pursuit to get to the breastworks with us.

Our men were all running with their guns in their hands, which was good evidence that there was no panic among them. While knapsacks or blanket rolls were frequently thrown away, I did not see a single man drop his gun unless hit. The cry of some of our wounded who went down in that wild race, knowing they would have to lie there exposed to all the fire of our own line, had a pathetic note of despair in it, I had never heard before. A rebel account has stated that the next morning they found some of the dead with their thumbs chewed to a pulp. They had fallen with disabling wounds and the agony of their helpless exposure to the murderous fire from our breastworks, which swept the bare ground, where they were lying, had been so great that they had stuck their thumbs in their mouths and bit on them to keep from bleating like calves. Many of the bodies thus exposed were hit so frequently that they were literally riddled with bullet holes.

Our men were nearly all directed towards the pike as if with the intention of entering the breastworks through the gap there. I reasoned, however, that the hottest fire would be directed where the crowd was densest, and I veered off in an effort to get away from there. While running rapidly with body bent over and head down, after the involuntary manner of men retreating under fire, I came into collision with a man running in a similar attitude, but headed towards the gap. The shock was so great that it knocked him down and pretty well knocked the wind out of me. Just as we met, a rebel shell exploded close over our heads and as his body was rolling over on the ground, I caught a glimpse of his upturned face and, in its horrified look, read his belief that it was the shell that had hit him. The idea was so comical that I laughed, but my laugh was of very brief duration when I found myself so much disabled that I was rapidly falling behind. With panting lungs and trembling legs I toiled along, straining every nerve to reach the breastwork, but when it was yet only a few steps away, even with life itself at stake, I could go no farther, and thought my time had come. My brave mother, the daughter of a soldier of 1812 and the granddaughter of a Revolutionary soldier had said, when I had appealed to the pride in her military ancestry so successfully that she had consented to my enlistment, "Well, if you must go, don't get shot in the back." I thought of her and of that saying and faced about to take it in front. While I was slowly turning, my eyes swept the plain in the direction of the pike. There were comparatively few of our men in my immediate vicinity, but over towards the pike the ground was thickly covered with them, extending from the breastworks nearly a hundred yards along the pike, and in some places so densely massed as to interfere with each other's movements. The fleetest footed had already crossed the breastwork and all those outside were so thoroughly winded that none of them could go any faster than a slow, labored trot. The rear was brought up by a ragged fringe of tired stragglers who were walking doggedly along, apparently with as much unconcern as if no rebels were in sight. The rebel ranks were almost as badly demoralized by pursuit as ours by retreat. Their foremost men had already overtaken our rearmost stragglers and were grabbing hold of them to detain them.

Suddenly my attention was riveted so intently on the nearest rebel to myself that in watching him I became oblivious to all other surroundings, for I thought I was looking at the man who would shoot me. He was coming directly towards me, on a dog trot, less than fifty yards away, and was in the act of withdrawing the ramrod from the barrel of his gun. When this action was completed, while holding the gun and ramrod together in one hand, he stopped to prime and then, much to my relief, aimed and fired at a little squad of our men close on my right. I heard the bullet strike and an exclamation from the man who was hit. The rebel then started to trot forward again, at the same time reaching back with one hand to draw a fresh cartridge. By this time having rested a little, I looked back over my shoulder towards the breastwork. I noticed that there was a ditch on the outside and the sight of this ditch brought renewed hope. With the fervent prayer, into which was poured all the intense longing for more life, natural to my vigorous young manhood, "O, God, give me strength to reach that ditch," I turned and staggered forward. I fell headlong into the ditch just as our line there opened fire. The roar of their guns was sweeter than music and I chuckled with satisfaction as I thought, "Now, Rebs, your turn has come and you must take your medicine." I lay as I fell, panting for breath, until I had caught a little fresh wind and then began to crawl around to take a peep and see how the rebels were getting along.

When my body was lengthwise of the ditch I happened to raise my head and was astounded by the sight of the rebels coming into the ditch between me and the pike, the nearest of them only a few yards away. They were so tired that they seemed scarcely able to put one foot before the other and many of them stopped at the ditch utterly unable to go a step farther until they had rested. It was only the strongest among them who were still capable of the exertion of climbing over the breastwork. If the men behind that work had stood fast, not one of those tired rebels would ever have crossed that parapet alive. Transfixed with amazement, I watched them until the thought flashed into my mind that in an instant some of their comrades would come in on top of me and I would be pinned down with a bayonet. The thought of a bayonet thrust was so terrifying, that it spurred me into a last effort, and with the mental ejaculation, "I never will die in that way," I sprang on top of the breastwork. Crouching there an instant with both hands resting on the headlog, I gave one startled look over my shoulder. The impression received was that if I fell backward they would catch me on their bayonets. Then followed a brief period of oblivion for which I can not account.

With returning consciousness I found myself lying in the ditch on the inside of the breastwork, trampled under the feet of the men, and with no knowledge whatever of how I got there. It is possible that I was taken for a rebel when I sprang up so suddenly on top of the breastwork and that I was knocked there by a blow from one of our own men. I was lying across the body of a wounded man who had been hit by a bullet which, entering at his cheek, had passed out the back of his head. He was unconscious, but still breathing. The breast of my coat was smeared with the blood from his wound. The press was so great that I could not get on my feet, but in a desperate effort to avoid being trampled to death managed in some way to crawl out between the legs of the men to the bank of the ditch, where I lay utterly helpless with burning lungs still panting for breath. My first thought was of the rebels I had seen crossing the breastwork, and I looked toward the pike. I had crossed our line close to a cotton-gin that stood just inside our works and the building obstructed my view except directly along the ditch and for a short distance in rear of it.

Our men were all gone from the ditch to within a few feet of where I was lying. A little beyond the other end of the building stood two cannon pointing towards me with a group of rebels at the breech of each one of them trying to discharge it. They were two of our own guns that had been captured before they had been fired by our gunners and were still loaded with the double charges of canister intended for the rebels. Fortunately the gunners had withdrawn the primers from the vents and had taken them along when they ran away and the rebels were having difficulty in firing the guns. As I looked they were priming them with powder from their musket cartridges, and no doubt intended to fire a musket into this priming. Just then I was too feeble to make any effort to roll my body over behind the cover of the building, but shut my eyes and set my jaws to await the outcome where I was lying. After waiting for some time and not hearing the cannon, I opened my eyes to see what was the matter. The rebels were all gone and the ditch was filled with our men as far as I could see. If the rebels had succeeded in firing those two cannon they would have widened the breach in our line so much farther to our left that it might have proved fatal, since the two brigades holding our line, from the vicinity of the cotton-gin to the river, had each but a single regiment of reserves. The men in the ditch at my side, when I first saw the cannon, were so busily engaged in keeping out the rebels who filled the ditch on the other side of the parapet, that I do not believe they ever saw the two cannon posted to rake the ditch. Their conduct was most gallant.

For a brief period the rebels held possession of the inside of our breastworks along the entire front of Strickland's brigade on the west side, and of Reilly's brigade down to the cotton-gin on the east side of the pike; and the ground in their possession was the key to Cox's entire position. This break in our line was identical in extent with the front covered by the great body of Wagner's men in falling back, and it was occasioned by the panic and confusion created by Wagner's men in crossing the breastworks. Cox's men, along this part of our line, seem to have lost their nerve at the sight of the rebel army coming and on account of their own helpless condition. They could not fire a single shot while Wagner's men were between themselves and the rebels. The first rebels crossed the breastworks side by side with the last of Wagner's men.

At some point a break started and then it spread rapidly until it reached the men who were too busily occupied in firing on the rebels to become affected by the panic. Opdycke's brigade was directly in the rear of where this break occurred. At the sound of the firing in front, Opdycke had deployed his brigade astride the pike, ready for instant action, and as soon as he saw that a stampede was coming from the breastworks, without waiting for any order, he instantly led his brigade forward. His brigade restored the break in our line, charging straight through the rout, after a desperate hand-to-hand encounter in which Opdycke himself, first firing all the shots in his revolver and then breaking it over the head of a rebel, snatched up a musket and fought with that for a club. It is true that hundreds of brave men from the four broken brigades of Conrad, Lane, Reilly, and Strickland, who were falling back, when they met Opdycke's advancing line, saw that the position would not be given up without a desperate struggle and faced about and fought as gallantly as any of Opdycke's men in recovering and afterwards in holding our line; but if Opdycke's brigade had not been where it was, the day undoubtedly would have closed with the utter rout and ruin of our four divisions of infantry south of the river. When General Cox met Opdycke on the field immediately after the break was restored, he took him by the hand and fervently exclaimed, "Opdycke, that charge saved the day."

The front line of Strickland's brigade extended along the foot of the garden of Mr. Carter, the owner of the plantation on which the battle was fought. The reserve line was posted behind the fence at the other end of the garden, close to the Carter residence, where the ground was a little higher, and sixty-five yards in rear of the main line. This reserve line, with the fence for a basis, had constructed a rude barricade as a protection against bullets which might come over the front line. When Opdycke's demi-brigade, charging on the west side of the pike, came to this barricade, it halted there, probably mistaking it for our main line. The rebels in the garden fell back behind the cover of Strickland's breastwork and during the remainder of the battle, on this part of the field, the opposing lines maintained these relative positions. Every attempt, made by either side to cross the garden, met with a bloody repulse. The body of one dead rebel was lying between the barricade and the Carter house and this body no doubt indicated the high water mark reached by Hood's assault. It is only fair to the gallant rebels, who penetrated our line, to state that Opdycke's charge was made too promptly to give them any time to recover their wind, and that therefore in the hand-to-hand struggle, they were laboring under the great disadvantage of the physical fatigue already described.

Returning to my personal experiences: when I had rested enough to be able to sit up, I found at my feet a can of coffee standing on the smouldering embers of a small camp fire, and beside it a tin plate filled with hard tack and fried bacon. Some soldier was evidently ready to eat his supper, when he was hastily called into line by the opening of the battle in front. I first took a delicious drink out of the coffee can and then helped myself to a liberal portion of the hard tack and bacon, and while sitting there eating and drinking, incidentally watched the progress of the fighting. By the time I had finished I was so fully rested and refreshed that thereafter I was able to shout encouragement to the men fighting in my vicinity as loud as any other company commander.

Along that part of the line only the breastwork separated the combatants. On our side we had five or six ranks deep, composed of the original line, the reserves, and Conrad's men, all mixed up together without any regard to their separate organizations. The front rank did nothing but fire. The empty guns were passed back to those in rear who reloaded them. The rear rank was kneeling with guns at a ready. If a rebel raised his head above the breastwork, down it would instantly go with one or more bullets through it, fired by these rear rank men.

In this close fighting the advantage was all on our side, for our front rank men, standing up close against the perpendicular face of the breastwork on our side, could poke the muzzle of a gun over the headlog and by elevating the breech could send a plunging shot among the rebels who filled the outside ditch and expose for an instant only the hand and a part of the arm that discharged the gun. But on account of the convex face of the work on their side the rebels could not reach us with their fire without exposing themselves above the breastwork. They kept up the vain struggle until long after dark, but finally elevated their hats on the ends of their muskets above the breastwork, as a signal to us, and called over that if we would stop shooting they would surrender. When our firing ceased, many of them came over and surrendered, but many more took advantage of the darkness and of the confusion created by their comrades in getting over the breastwork to slip back to their own lines. Soon after the firing had ceased the Sixty-fourth Ohio reformed its broken ranks a few steps in rear of the breastwork and just east of the cotton-gin. I did not learn all the facts that night, but when they came out later, it transpired that every man in my company, save one, who had escaped the casualties of the battle, fell into line. A thousand-dollar substitute had fled to the town where he hid in a cellar. He went to sleep there and awoke the next morning inside the rebel lines. He was sent south to a prison and when returning north after the close of the war lost his life in the explosion of the Steamer Sultana.

I had lost my overcoat, but had never let go the grip on my sword. Some of my men had dropped their knapsacks or blanket rolls, but every one of them had his gun and cartridge box. They were all in high spirits over their own escape and over the part they had played in the final repulse of the rebels, and were talking and laughing over their various adventures in the greatest good humor. The condition of my company was typical of the condition of all the other companies in the regiment as I saw, while passing along the line inquiring into the fate of brother officers and other friends. I also learned in a conversation the next day with Major Coulter, who had been my old captain, and who was acting that night as assistant adjutant-general of the brigade, that every other regiment of the brigade had reformed in rear of the breastwork in the same way as the Sixty-fourth Ohio, and that the brigade as an organization, had marched from the vicinity of the cotton-gin when the order to retreat was executed that night.

I never heard from any source any intimation contrary to the truth as I have stated it until I read in 1882, with the most indignant surprise, in Cox's book on this campaign, then recently published, his statement that the brigades of Lane and Conrad rallied at the river but were not again carried into action. When Cox made that statement he was more concerned in patching up that fatal gap in the battle line of his own command without any outside assistance, than he was in ascertaining the truth, and he took that way to dispose of two entire brigades. In his first official report, for he made two reports, Cox went to the other extreme for he then stated that on the approach of the enemy the two brigades in front had retired in a leisurely manner inside his line. "Leisurely" is so good in that connection that it always brings a smile whenever I recall the "leisurely" manner in which Conrad's brigade made its way back to Cox's line. Moreover in a letter to General Wagner, written two days after the battle, and inclosing a copy of a letter to General Thomas, urging the promotion of Colonel Opdycke, Cox took occasion to express the opinion he then held, based on his personal observation, of the conduct of Wagner's entire division:

I desire also to express my admiration of the gallantry of your whole command. Indeed an excess of bravery kept the two brigades a little too long in front, so that the troops at the main line could not get to firing upon the advancing enemy till they were uncomfortably near.

Soon after the regiment had reformed one of the drafted men of my company was brought in from the ditch outside mortally wounded. No doubt he had reached the ditch in too exhausted a condition to climb over the breastwork and had lain out among the rebels where he had been repeatedly hit by our own fire. The pain of his wounds had made him crazy, for he would not talk, but kept crawling about on all fours moaning in agony. There were a few men missing from the company of whom their comrades could give no account. Moved by the fate of the drafted man, I crossed the breastwork to search outside, if perchance I might find one or more of the missing ones lying there wounded and bring them aid. I went to a gun of the Sixth Ohio battery, posted a short distance east of the cotton-gin, to get over; and as I stepped up into the embrasure, the sight that met my eyes was most horrible even in the dim starlight. The mangled bodies of the dead rebels were piled up as high as the mouth of the embrasure, and the gunners said that repeatedly when the lanyard was pulled the embrasure was filled with men, crowding forward to get in, who were literally blown from the mouth of the cannon. Only one rebel got past the muzzle of that gun and one of the gunners snatched up a pick leaning against the breastwork and killed him with that. Captain Baldwin of this battery has stated that as he stood by one of his guns, watching the effect of its fire, he could hear the smashing of the bones when the missiles tore their way through the dense ranks of the approaching rebels.

While I was cautiously making my way around one side of that heap of mangled humanity, a wounded man lying at the bottom, with head and shoulders protruding, begged me for the love of Christ to pull the dead bodies off him. The ditch was piled promiscuously with the dead and badly wounded and heads, arms, and legs were sticking out in almost every conceivable manner. The ground near the ditch was so thickly covered with bodies that I had to pick my steps carefully to avoid treading on some of them. The air was filled with the moans of the wounded; and the pleadings for water and for help of some of those who saw me were heartrending. While walking along towards the pike to get in the pathway in which my company had come back, I passed two rebel flags lying on the ground close together. It did not occur to me that I would be entitled to any credit for picking up the flags under such circumstances, but I thought that if I did not find what I was looking for I would return that way and take the flags in with me. I had passed on a few steps when I heard a man behind me exclaim, "Look out, there!" Thinking he meant me, I turned hastily and saw him pitch the two flags over the breastwork. I presume that the men inside the work who got possession of the flags were afterwards sent to Washington with them and possibly may have received medals for their capture. I felt so uneasy while outside, lest the rebels should make some movement that would start our line to firing again that I kept close to the breastwork, and as it was soon manifest that the chance in the darkness of finding a friend, where the bodies were so many, was too remote to justify the risk I was taking, I returned within our line.

From what I saw while outside I have always believed that General Hood never stated his losses fully. Those losses were in some respects without precedent in either army on any other battle-field of the war. He had five generals killed, six wounded and one captured on our breastworks, and the slaughter of field and company officers, as well as of the rank and file, was correspondingly frightful. It was officially reported of Quarles's brigade that the ranking officer in the entire brigade at the close of the battle was a captain. Of the nine divisions of infantry composing Hood's army, seven divisions got up in time to take part in the assault and at least six of these seven divisions were as badly wrecked as was Pickett's division in its famous charge at Gettysburg.