Special Cor. Missouri Democrat
PITTSBURG, ON BOARD THE WHITE CLOUD,
MONDAY EVENING, April 7, 1862
Let me now give you a chapter from my own experiences. And I am aware that I shall fail to give you anything like an adequate idea either of the sights I witnessed, or the impressions they produced. Language could convey no conception of the ghastly horrors of a great battle-field, much less of its sickening effect upon one unused to such spectacles. The descriptions of scenes like these, most of your readers will be happy enough never to realize.
It is a fact which I can hardily account for on principles of acoustics, that when we were forty miles from our destination, confused and vague reports came to us of the cannonading heard all day Sunday. These stories although frequently repeated, served only to amuse me at first. As we came within ten miles of Savannah, and twenty miles from Pittsburg, the dull boom of cannon became distinctly audible, and grew sharper and louder as we advanced. The effect of the sound, now repeated at slow intervals, now increasing almost into volleys, when combined with our knowledge of the vast forces probably engaged, brought to mind the tones of Waterloo, heard in the halls of Brussels. It was half the pean of victory, and half the knell of untold dead.
When we reached Savannah the most incoherent and conflicting stories were hurled at us from deck and shore. The cry was, “Hurry on with your batteries immediately; they want them.” How slowly the craft seemed to toil against the stream. Perhaps our little six pound howitzer might change the fortunes of the day. At last Pittsburg landing, with its line of smoke stacks and steep bluffs came into sight. Its sides for a mile were swarming with blue coats, artillery horses struggling up the bank, cavalry, infantry, army stores, litters bearing the wounded and dying, mingled in chaotic confusion. What could this mean? Could it be another Bull Run? When the boat landed we learned that we had been repulsed on Sunday, but hat retrieved our fortunes the next day; that the enemy were retreating, and that the battle was pretty much ended. I rushed ashore, hoping to find some place to deposit my baggage in safety, but for a half hour the attempt seemed hopeless. Meantime the quivering report of monster guns behind the bluff told plainly enough that the contest was not ended. At last I found an hospital steward who relieved me of my burden, and I got fairly under way, floundering along through the mud among the snake train of ambulances and artillery wagons. For half a mile I pressed on through the forest, which covered the entire surrounding country without finding any evidences of an engagement, except here and there the scar of an occasional shot high up on the trees. I was told that the hard fighting was a mile beyond. At last broken muskets, cartridge boxes, haversacks, a horse here and there stretched out in his blood began to appear. Before long I found a poor fellow mangled and rotting, who had doubtless fallen the day before. I picked up a letter lying upon him, but reflected that it might identify the body and replaced it. These were the first drops in the tempest of human blood. At some little distance beyond, through the encampment of the Third Ohio, the scene baffled description. Muskets by the hundreds had been thrown away and abandoned. Bodies were lying at intervals of a rod in all directions. Mangled trunks of horses were scattered about. The fighting here must have been well contested and desperate. To detail all of the hideous aspects of the dead in this field of carnage, if it were possible, would be simply revolting. I was drawn by a sort of fascination to one corpse after another. The expressions of mortal agony in the faces of many was fresh as Parhasius could have wished to paint. Some were distorted and defiant. Others were boyish, and wore almost the repose of sleep. One smooth-faced lad seemed to smile. I fancied that in the dying moment he saw his mother. God pity such mothers! Most of the hands were clenched; the glazed eye still glaring as it glared upon the enemy in the moment of death.
In a ravine further on, the corpses of the enemy lay thickest. Here there had been a cannonade of grape-shot and balls. Trees a foot in diameter had been cut in two. Nothing seemed to be unscathed. Two rebels lay disemboweled and brained by a large ball, which had apparently slain a horse beyond. Here lay a poor wretch, in the clamminess and pallor of apparent decomposition. I supposed he had died Sunday; but conceive of my horror when I saw that his chest heaved, “as in his breast the wave of life kept heaving to and fro.” A cannon shot had brained him, but life still worked in a spasm upon his features. Behind me came a strange agonizing cry; it was that of a wounded man bore by on a litter. – A Kentucky captain was exceedingly anxious that I should superintend the burial of an old friend, and recent enemy – a white-headed gentleman of the manner born, and I made him some vain pledges. He said that it would break his wife’s heart if she knew that he was rotting there. How many hearts will be broken – how many homes made desolate by the last few hours! One soldier told me that he was trying to find the body of his brother who might be dead on the field.
Such is war. I would have lingered much longer, but the night was coming on, and the landing was three miles distant and he had fearful evidence that the enemy could not be far distant. Surfeited with horrors I fell in with the returning soldiers and ambulances, “the weary to sleep and the wounded to die.”
Reports, which seem to be confirmed, are afloat that Gen. Prentiss is dying, (he is known to have been captured;) that A. S. Johnson [sic] is killed, (which lacks confirmation,) and that Gen. Beauregard has lost an arm.
LATER.
Tuesday Morning. – On the bluff to the south of the Landing I stumbled upon forty –seven bodies of the wounded who had since died. Among them was a Lieutenant Colonel and Major. Gen. Grant is known to have said that our loss will about to 10,000 wounded, and that of the enemy very much heavier. Gen. Bragg is reported killed, but this is not reliable.
LATER. To day (Tuesday) a strong reconnaissance was made, and the enemy found to be distant at least fifteen miles. An advance will doubtless be made to-morrow. The impression is general that the enemy is completely broken.
ONE DAY LATER.
Tuesday Evening. – I have spent a good portion of the day in traveling over the field of the engagement, but have seen only a small portion of the field. The hardest fighting has been upon the extreme left under Gen. Nelson. The enemy’s batteries fronting them were taken and lost, and after a desperate fighting a charge was made upon the rebels, which drive them finally from the field.
The fighting took place in the effort to drive the enemy from behind a rail fence. Here was a struggle almost hand to hand, and carried on upon both sides with the greatest obstinacy. – The loss was very severe. Bodies lay in some places almost in heaps; many of them were burned almost to cinder by the shell. To the south of our extreme left also, the carnage was very great, particularly through an open orchard. As far as I went the dead were to be seen in all directions. Most of them were secessionists, and many Tennesseans, who had been pressed into the service. Log cabins had been turned into hospitals, wherever found, and were filled with the wounded. The dead were being buried as fast as possible, but under the influence of a hot sun, the air is already impregnated with foul odors. The indications are that to-morrow a general forward movement will be made, and the enemy compelled to fight or fall back upon Corinth.
– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 19, 1862
PITTSBURG, ON BOARD THE WHITE CLOUD,
MONDAY EVENING, April 7, 1862
Let me now give you a chapter from my own experiences. And I am aware that I shall fail to give you anything like an adequate idea either of the sights I witnessed, or the impressions they produced. Language could convey no conception of the ghastly horrors of a great battle-field, much less of its sickening effect upon one unused to such spectacles. The descriptions of scenes like these, most of your readers will be happy enough never to realize.
It is a fact which I can hardily account for on principles of acoustics, that when we were forty miles from our destination, confused and vague reports came to us of the cannonading heard all day Sunday. These stories although frequently repeated, served only to amuse me at first. As we came within ten miles of Savannah, and twenty miles from Pittsburg, the dull boom of cannon became distinctly audible, and grew sharper and louder as we advanced. The effect of the sound, now repeated at slow intervals, now increasing almost into volleys, when combined with our knowledge of the vast forces probably engaged, brought to mind the tones of Waterloo, heard in the halls of Brussels. It was half the pean of victory, and half the knell of untold dead.
When we reached Savannah the most incoherent and conflicting stories were hurled at us from deck and shore. The cry was, “Hurry on with your batteries immediately; they want them.” How slowly the craft seemed to toil against the stream. Perhaps our little six pound howitzer might change the fortunes of the day. At last Pittsburg landing, with its line of smoke stacks and steep bluffs came into sight. Its sides for a mile were swarming with blue coats, artillery horses struggling up the bank, cavalry, infantry, army stores, litters bearing the wounded and dying, mingled in chaotic confusion. What could this mean? Could it be another Bull Run? When the boat landed we learned that we had been repulsed on Sunday, but hat retrieved our fortunes the next day; that the enemy were retreating, and that the battle was pretty much ended. I rushed ashore, hoping to find some place to deposit my baggage in safety, but for a half hour the attempt seemed hopeless. Meantime the quivering report of monster guns behind the bluff told plainly enough that the contest was not ended. At last I found an hospital steward who relieved me of my burden, and I got fairly under way, floundering along through the mud among the snake train of ambulances and artillery wagons. For half a mile I pressed on through the forest, which covered the entire surrounding country without finding any evidences of an engagement, except here and there the scar of an occasional shot high up on the trees. I was told that the hard fighting was a mile beyond. At last broken muskets, cartridge boxes, haversacks, a horse here and there stretched out in his blood began to appear. Before long I found a poor fellow mangled and rotting, who had doubtless fallen the day before. I picked up a letter lying upon him, but reflected that it might identify the body and replaced it. These were the first drops in the tempest of human blood. At some little distance beyond, through the encampment of the Third Ohio, the scene baffled description. Muskets by the hundreds had been thrown away and abandoned. Bodies were lying at intervals of a rod in all directions. Mangled trunks of horses were scattered about. The fighting here must have been well contested and desperate. To detail all of the hideous aspects of the dead in this field of carnage, if it were possible, would be simply revolting. I was drawn by a sort of fascination to one corpse after another. The expressions of mortal agony in the faces of many was fresh as Parhasius could have wished to paint. Some were distorted and defiant. Others were boyish, and wore almost the repose of sleep. One smooth-faced lad seemed to smile. I fancied that in the dying moment he saw his mother. God pity such mothers! Most of the hands were clenched; the glazed eye still glaring as it glared upon the enemy in the moment of death.
In a ravine further on, the corpses of the enemy lay thickest. Here there had been a cannonade of grape-shot and balls. Trees a foot in diameter had been cut in two. Nothing seemed to be unscathed. Two rebels lay disemboweled and brained by a large ball, which had apparently slain a horse beyond. Here lay a poor wretch, in the clamminess and pallor of apparent decomposition. I supposed he had died Sunday; but conceive of my horror when I saw that his chest heaved, “as in his breast the wave of life kept heaving to and fro.” A cannon shot had brained him, but life still worked in a spasm upon his features. Behind me came a strange agonizing cry; it was that of a wounded man bore by on a litter. – A Kentucky captain was exceedingly anxious that I should superintend the burial of an old friend, and recent enemy – a white-headed gentleman of the manner born, and I made him some vain pledges. He said that it would break his wife’s heart if she knew that he was rotting there. How many hearts will be broken – how many homes made desolate by the last few hours! One soldier told me that he was trying to find the body of his brother who might be dead on the field.
Such is war. I would have lingered much longer, but the night was coming on, and the landing was three miles distant and he had fearful evidence that the enemy could not be far distant. Surfeited with horrors I fell in with the returning soldiers and ambulances, “the weary to sleep and the wounded to die.”
Reports, which seem to be confirmed, are afloat that Gen. Prentiss is dying, (he is known to have been captured;) that A. S. Johnson [sic] is killed, (which lacks confirmation,) and that Gen. Beauregard has lost an arm.
LATER.
Tuesday Morning. – On the bluff to the south of the Landing I stumbled upon forty –seven bodies of the wounded who had since died. Among them was a Lieutenant Colonel and Major. Gen. Grant is known to have said that our loss will about to 10,000 wounded, and that of the enemy very much heavier. Gen. Bragg is reported killed, but this is not reliable.
LATER. To day (Tuesday) a strong reconnaissance was made, and the enemy found to be distant at least fifteen miles. An advance will doubtless be made to-morrow. The impression is general that the enemy is completely broken.
ONE DAY LATER.
Tuesday Evening. – I have spent a good portion of the day in traveling over the field of the engagement, but have seen only a small portion of the field. The hardest fighting has been upon the extreme left under Gen. Nelson. The enemy’s batteries fronting them were taken and lost, and after a desperate fighting a charge was made upon the rebels, which drive them finally from the field.
The fighting took place in the effort to drive the enemy from behind a rail fence. Here was a struggle almost hand to hand, and carried on upon both sides with the greatest obstinacy. – The loss was very severe. Bodies lay in some places almost in heaps; many of them were burned almost to cinder by the shell. To the south of our extreme left also, the carnage was very great, particularly through an open orchard. As far as I went the dead were to be seen in all directions. Most of them were secessionists, and many Tennesseans, who had been pressed into the service. Log cabins had been turned into hospitals, wherever found, and were filled with the wounded. The dead were being buried as fast as possible, but under the influence of a hot sun, the air is already impregnated with foul odors. The indications are that to-morrow a general forward movement will be made, and the enemy compelled to fight or fall back upon Corinth.
– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 19, 1862
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