"As if all the fiends from heaven that fell
Had pealed the banner-cry of hell."
That comparison leaves much for the imagination, but, speaking from experience, I will say that of all the blood-curdling sounds I ever heard, the worst is the terrific scream of a cannon ball or shell passing close over one's head; especially that kind with a cavity in the base that sucks in air. At least, they sounded that way till I got used to them. As a matter of fact, artillery in my time was not near as dangerous as musketry. It was noisy, but didn't kill often unless at close range and firing grape and canister.
As stated in the preceding sketch, sometime during the forenoon the regiment was sent to the support of a battery, and remained there for some hours. The most trying situation in battle is one where you have to lie flat on the ground, under fire more or less, and without any opportunity to return it. The constant strain on the nerves is almost intolerable. So it was with feelings of grim but heart-felt relief that we finally heard the Colonel command, "Attention, battalion!" Our turn had come at last. We sprang to our feet with alacrity, and were soon in motion, marching by the flank diagonally towards the left, from whence, for some hours, had been proceeding heavy firing. We had not gone far before I saw something which hardly had an inspiring effect. We were marching along an old, grass-grown country road, with a rail-fence on the right which enclosed a sort of woods pasture, and with a dense forest on our left, when I saw a soldier on our left, slowly making his way to the rear. He had been struck a sort of glancing shot on the left side of his face, and the skin and flesh of his cheek were hanging in shreds. His face and neck were covered with blood and he was a frightful sight. Yet he seemed to be perfectly cool and composed and wasn't "taking on" a bit. As he came opposite my company, he looked up at us and said, "Give 'em hell, boys! They've spoiled my beauty." It was manifest that he was not exaggerating.
When we were thrown into line on our new position and began firing, I was in the front rank, and my rear rank man was Philip Potter, a young Irishman, who was some years my senior. When he fired his first shot, he came very near putting me out of action. I think that the muzzle of his gun could not have been more than two or three inches from my right ear. The shock of the report almost deafened me at the time, and my neck and right cheek were peppered with powder grains, which remained there for years until finally absorbed in the system. I turned to Phil in a fury, exclaiming, "What in the hell and damnation do you mean?" Just then down went the man on my right with a sharp cry, and followed by the one on the left, both apparently severely wounded. The thought of my shocking conduct, in thus indulging in wicked profanity at such a time, flashed upon me, and I almost held my breath, expecting summary punishment on the spot. But nothing of the kind happened. And, according to history, Washington swore a good deal worse at the battle of Monmouth,—and Potter was more careful thereafter.
Poor Phil! On December 7, 1864, while fighting on the skirmish line near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and just a few paces to my left, he was mortally wounded by a gun-shot in the bowels and died in the hospital a few days later. He was a Catholic, and in his last hours was almost frantic because no priest was at hand to grant him absolution.
Right after we began firing on this line I noticed, directly in my front and not more than two hundred yards away, a large Confederate flag flapping defiantly in the breeze. The smoke was too dense to enable me to see the bearer, but the banner was distinctly visible. It looked hateful to me, and I wanted to see it come down. So I held on it, let my gun slowly fall until I thought the sights were about on a waist line, and then fired. I peered eagerly under the smoke to see the effect of my shot,—but the blamed thing was still flying. I fired three or four more shots on the same line as the first, but with no apparent results. I then concluded that the bearer was probably squatted behind a stump, or something, and that it was useless to waste ammunition on him. Diagonally to my left, perhaps two hundred and fifty yards away, the Confederate line of battle was in plain sight. It was in the open, in the edge of an old field, with woods to the rear. It afforded a splendid mark. Even the ramrods could be seen flashing in the air, as the men, while in the act of loading, drew and returned the rammers. Thereupon I began firing at the enemy on that part of the line, and the balance of the contents of my cartridge box went in that direction. It was impossible to tell if any of my shots took effect, but after the battle I went to the spot and looked over the ground. The Confederate dead lay there thick, and I wondered, as I looked at them, if I had killed any of those poor fellows. Of course I didn't know, and am glad now that I didn't. And I will say here that I do not now have any conclusive knowledge that during my entire term of service I ever killed, or even wounded, a single man. It is more than probable that some of my shots were fatal, but I don't know it, and am thankful for the ignorance. You see, after all, the common soldiers of the Confederate Armies were American boys, just like us, and conscientiously believed that they were right. Had they been soldiers of a foreign nation,—Spaniards, for instance,—I might feel differently.
When we "went in" on the above mentioned position old Capt. Reddish took his place in the ranks, and fought like a common soldier. He had picked up the musket of some dead or wounded man, and filled his pockets with cartridges and gun caps, and so was well provided with ammunition. He unbuckled his sword from the belt, and laid it in the scabbard at his feet, and proceeded to give his undivided attention to the enemy. I can now see the old man in my mind's eye, as he stood in ranks, loading and firing, his blue-gray eyes flashing, and his face lighted up with the flame of battle. Col. Fry happened to be near us at one time, and I heard old Capt. John yell at him: "Injun fightin,' Colonel! Jest like Injun fightin'!" When we finally retired, the Captain shouldered his musket and trotted off with the rest of us, oblivious of his "cheese-knife," as he called it, left it lying on the ground, and never saw it again.
There was a battery of light artillery on this line, about a quarter of a mile to our right, on a slight elevation of the ground. It was right flush up with the infantry line of battle, and oh, how those artillery men handled their guns! It seemed to me that there was the roar of a cannon from that battery about every other second. When ramming cartridge, I sometimes glanced in that direction. The men were big fellows, stripped to the waist, their white skins flashing in the sunlight, and they were working like I have seen men doing when fighting a big fire in the woods. I fairly gloated over the fire of that battery. "Give it to them, my sons of thunder!" I would say to myself; "Knock the ever-lastin' stuffin' out of 'em!" And, as I ascertained after the battle, they did do frightful execution.
In consideration of the fact that now-a-days, as you know, I refuse to even kill a chicken, some of the above expressions may sound rather strange. But the fact is, a soldier on the fighting line is possessed by the demon of destruction. He wants to kill, and the more of his adversaries he can see killed, the more intense his gratification. Gen. Grant somewhere in his Memoirs expresses the idea (only in milder language than mine) when he says:
"While a battle is raging one can see his enemy mowed down by the thousand, or the ten thousand, with great composure."
The regiment bivouacked for the night on the bluff, not far from the historic "log house." Rain set in about dark, and not wanting to lie in the water, I hunted around and found a little brush-pile evidently made by some man from a sapling he had cut down and trimmed up some time past when the leaves were on the trees. I made a sort of pillow out of my gun, cartridge box, haversack and canteen, and stretched myself out on the brush-pile, tired to death, and rather discouraged over the events of the day. The main body of Buell's men,—"the army of the Ohio,"—soon after dark began ascending the bluff at a point a little above the landing, and forming in line in the darkness a short distance beyond. I have a shadowy impression that this lasted the greater part of the night. Their regimental bands played continuously and it seemed to me that they all played the tune of "The Girl I Left Behind Me." And the rain drizzled down, while every fifteen