CHAPTER XVII.

OUR FIRST DAY IN "THE WILDERNESS."

At last the long winter, with its deep snows and intense cold, was gone, and on May 4, 1864, at four o'clock in the morning, we broke camp. In what direction we should march, whether north, south, east, or west, none of us had the remotest idea; for the pickets reported the Rapidan River so well fortified by the enemy on the farther bank, that it was plainly impossible for us to break their lines at any point there. But in those days we had a general who had no such word as "impossible" in his dictionary, and under his leadership we marched that May morning straight for and straight across the Rapidan, in solid column. All day we plodded on, the road strewn with blankets and overcoats, of which the army lightened itself now that the campaign was opening; and at night we halted, and camped in a beautiful green meadow.

Not the slightest suspicion had we, as we slept quietly there that night, of the great battle, or rather series of great battles, about to open on the following day. Even on that morrow, when we took up the line of march and moved leisurely along for an hour or two, we saw so few indications of the coming struggle, that, when we suddenly came upon a battery of artillery in position for action by the side of the road, some one exclaimed:

"Why, hello, fellows! that looks like business!"

Only a few moments later, a staff-officer rode up to our regiment and delivered his orders:

"Major, you will throw forward your command as skirmishers for the brigade."

The regiment at once moved into the thick pine-woods, and was lost to sight in a moment, although we could hear the bugle clanging out its orders, "deploy to right and left," as the line forced its way through the tangled and interminable "Wilderness."

Ordered back by the major into the main line of battle, we drummer-boys found the troops massed in columns along a road, and we lay down with them among the bushes. How many men were there we could not tell. Wherever we looked, whether up or down the road, and as far as the eye could reach, were masses of men in blue. Among them was a company of Indians, dark, swarthy, stolid-looking fellows, dressed in our uniform, and serving with some Iowa regiment, under the command of one of their chiefs as captain.

But hark!

"Pop! Pop! Pop-pop-pop!" The pickets are beginning to fire, the "ball is going to open," and things will soon be getting lively.

A venturesome fellow climbs up a tall tree to see what he can see, and presently comes scrambling down, reporting nothing in sight but signal-flags flying over the tree-tops, and beyond them nothing but woods and woods for miles.

Orderlies are galloping about, and staff-officers are dashing up and down the line, or forcing their way through the tangled bushes, while out on the skirmish line is the ever-increasing rattle of the musketry,--

"Pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop!"

"Fall in, men! Forward, guide right!"

There is something grand in the promptitude with which the order is obeyed. Every man is at his post. Forcing its way as best it can through the tangled undergrowth of briers and bushes, across ravines and through swamps, our whole magnificent line advances, until, after a half-hour's steady work, we reach the skirmish line, which, hardly pressed, falls back into the advancing column of blue as it reaches a little clearing in the forest. Now we see the lines of gray in the edge of the woods on the other side of the little field; first their pickets behind clumps of bushes, then the solid column appearing behind the fence, coming on yelling like demons, and firing a volley that fills the air with smoke and cuts it with whistling lead. Sheltered behind the trees, our line reserves its fire, for it is likely that the enemy will come out on a charge, and then we'll mow them down!

With bayonets fixed, and yells that make the woods ring, here they come, boys, through the clearing, on a dead run! And now, as you love the flag that waves yonder in the breeze, up, boys, and let them have it! Out from our Enfields flashes a sheet of flame, before which the lines of gray stagger for a moment; but they recover and push on, then reel again and quail, and at length fly before the second leaden tempest, which sweeps the field clear to the opposite side.

With cheers and shouts of "Victory!" our line, now advancing swiftly from behind its covert of the trees, sweeps into and across the clearing, driving back the enemy into the woods from which they had so confidently ventured.

The little clearing over which the lines of blue are advancing is covered with dead and dying and wounded men, among whom I find Lieutenant Stannard, of my acquaintance.

"Harry, help me, quick! I'm bleeding fast. Tear off my suspender, or take my handkerchief and tie it as tight as you can draw it around my thigh, and help me off the field."

Ripping up the leg of his trousers with my knife, I soon check the flow of blood with a hard knot,--and none too soon, for the main artery has been severed. Calling a comrade to my assistance, we succeed in reaching the woods, and make our way slowly to the rear in search of the division-hospital.

Whoever wishes to know something of the terrible realities of war should visit a field-hospital during some great engagement. No doubt my young readers imagine war to be a great and glorious thing, and so, indeed, in many regards it is. It would be idle to deny that there is something stirring in the sound of martial music, something strangely uplifting and intensely fascinating in the roll of musketry and the loud thunder of artillery. Besides, the march and the battle afford opportunities for the unfolding of manly virtue, and as things go in this disjointed world, human progress seems to be almost impossible without war.

Yet still, war is a terrible, a horrible thing. If my young readers could have been with us as we helped poor Stannard off the field that first day in "the Wilderness;" if they could have seen the surgeons of the first division of our corps as we saw them, when passing by with the lieutenant on a stretcher,--they would, I think, agree with me that if war is a necessity, it is a dreadful necessity. There were the surgeons, busy at work, while dozens of poor fellows were lying all around on stretchers awaiting their turns.

"Hurry on, boys, hurry on! Don't stop here; I can't stand it!" groaned our charge.

So we pushed on with our burden, until we saw our division-colors over in a clearing among the pines, and on reaching this we came upon a scene that I can never adequately describe.

There were hundreds of the wounded already there; other hundreds, perhaps thousands, were yet to come. On all sides, within and just without the hastily erected hospital-tents, were the severely and dangerously wounded, while great numbers of slightly wounded men, with hands or feet bandaged or heads tied up, were lying about the sides of the tents or out among the bushes. The surgeons were everywhere busy,--here dressing wounds; there, alas! stooping down to tell some poor fellow, over whose countenance the pallor of death was already spreading, that there was no longer any hope for him; and down yonder, about a row of tables, each under a fly,[2] stood groups of them, ready for their dreadful and yet helpful work.

[2] A piece of canvas stretched over a pole and fastened to tent-pins by long ropes; having no walls, it admits light on all sides.

To one of these groups we carried poor Stannard, and I stood by and watched. The sponge saturated with chloroform was put to his face, rendering him unconscious while the operation of tying the severed artery was performed. On a neighboring table was a man whose leg was being taken off at the thigh, and who, chloroformed into unconsciousness, interested everybody by singing at the top of his voice, and with a clear articulation, five verses of a hymn to an old-fashioned Methodist tune, never once losing the melody nor stopping for a word. I remember seeing another poor fellow with his arm off at the shoulder, lying on the ground and resting after the operation. He appeared to be very much amused at himself, because (he said, in answer to my inquiry as to what he was laughing at) he had felt a fly on his right hand, and when he went to brush it off with his left there was no right hand there any more! I remember, too, seeing a tall prisoner brought in and laid on the table,--a magnificent specimen of physical development, erect, well built, and strong looking, and with a countenance full of frank and sturdy manliness. As the wounded prisoner was stretched out on the table, the surgeon said,--

"Well, Johnny, my man, what is the matter with you, and what can we do for you to-day?"

"Well, Doctor, your people have used me rather rough to-day. In the first place, there's something down in here," feeling about his throat, "that troubles me a good deal."

Opening his shirt-collar, the surgeon found a deep blue mark an inch or more below the "Adam's apple." On pressing the blue lump a little with the fingers, out popped a "minié" ball, which had lodged just beneath the skin.

"Lucky for you that this was a 'spent ball,' Johnny," said the surgeon, holding the bullet between his fingers.

"Give me that, Doctor--give me that ball; I want it," said Johnny, eagerly reaching out his left hand for the ball. Then he carefully examined it, and put it away into his jacket-pocket.

"And now, Doctor, there's something else, you see, the matter with me, and something more serious too, I'm afraid. You see, I can't use my right arm. The way was this: we were having a big fight out there in the woods. In the bayonet-charge I got hold of one of your flags, and was waving it, when all on a sudden I got an ugly clip in the arm here, as you see."

"Never mind, Johnny. We shall treat you just the same as our own boys, and though you are dressed in gray, you shall be cared for as faithfully as if you were dressed in blue, until you are well and strong again."

Never did I see a more delighted or grateful man than he, when, awakened from his deep chloroform sleep, he was asked whether he did not think his arm had better come off now?

"Just as you think best, Doctor."

"Look at your arm once, Johnny."

What was his glad surprise to find that the operation had been already performed, and that a neat bandage was wound about his shoulder!

The most striking illustration of the power of religion to sustain a man in distress and trial, I saw there in that field-hospital.

We had carried Stannard into a tent, and laid him on a pile of pine-boughs, where, had he only been able to keep quiet, he would have done well enough. But he was not able to keep quiet. A more restless man I never saw. Although his wound was not considered necessarily dangerous, yet he was evidently in great fear of death, and for death, I grieve to say, he was not at all prepared. He had been a wild, wayward man, and now that he thought the end was approaching, he was full of alarm. As I bent over him, trying my best, but in vain, to comfort and quiet him, my attention was called to a man on the other side of the tent, whose face I thought I knew, in spite of its unearthly pallor.

"Why, Smith," said I, "is this you? Where are you hurt?"

"Come turn me around and see," he said.

Rolling him over carefully on his side, I saw a great, cruel wound in his back.

My countenance must have expressed alarm when I asked him, as quietly as I could, whether he knew that he was very seriously wounded, and might die.

Never shall I forget the look that man gave me, as, with a strange light in his eye, he said:

"I am in God's hands; I am not afraid to die."

Two or three days after that, while we were marching on rapidly in column again, we passed an ambulance-train filled with wounded on their way to Fredericksburg. Hearing my name called by some one, I ran out of line to an ambulance, in which I found Stannard.

"Harry, for pity's sake, have you any water?"

"No, lieutenant; I'm very sorry, but there's not a drop in my canteen, and there's no time now to get any."

It was the last time I ever saw him. He was taken to Fredericksburg, submitted to a second operation, and died; and I have always believed that his death was largely owing to want of faith.

Six months, or maybe a year, later, Smith came back to us with a great white scar between his shoulders, and I doubt not he is alive and well to this day.

And there was Jimmy Lucas too. They brought him in about the middle of that same afternoon, two men bearing him on their arms. He was so pale, that I knew at a glance he was severely hurt. "A ball through the lungs," they said, and "he can't live." Jimmy was of my own company, from my own village. We had been school-fellows and playmates from childhood almost, and you may well believe it was sad work to kneel down by his side and watch his slow and labored breathing, looking at his pallid features, and thinking--ah, yes, that was the saddest of all!--of those at home. He would scarcely let me go from him a moment, and when the sun was setting, he requested every one to go out of the tent, for he wanted to speak a few words to me in private. As I bent down over him, he gave me his message for his father and mother, and a tender good by to his sweetheart, begging me not to forget a single word of it all if ever I should live to see them; and then he said:

"And, Harry, tell father and mother I thank them now for all their care and kindness in trying to bring me up well and in the fear of God. I know I have been a wayward boy sometimes, but my trust is in him who said,'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' My hope is in God, and I shall die a Christian man."

When the sun had set that evening, poor Jimmy had entered into rest. He was buried somewhere among the woods that night, and no flowers are strewn over his grave on "Decoration Day" as the years go by, for no head-board marks his resting-place among the moaning pines; but "the Lord knoweth them that are his."