June 19, 1864
It having been represented to General Meade that there were
some wounded and a good many dead between the lines, he determined to send a
flag to get a short armistice, as at Cool Arbor. I was again selected, as the
man having good clothes, to undertake the mission. This time I determined
to have a bugler, and so I did, and very spruce he was, with a German-silver
key-bugle. Likewise was there a tall sergeant, in Sunday best, with General
Seth Williams's new damask tablecloth, on an appropriate staff! Thus equipped,
and furnished with a large letter, I rode forth. . . . We crossed the rail near Colonel
Avery's, rode into the woods and immediately came on the picket reserves of
cavalry, where we got a man to guide us to the extreme left of the infantry
picket line. We floundered through a little swampy run, brushed through some
brush, and came on a little clearing, at the other side of which was a gentleman,
with a cocked musket, eyeing us suspiciously, but who withdrew on seeing our
color. There we came on what is always a pretty sight, a picket line in a wood.
The men are dotted along, ten or fifteen feet apart, with stronger parties on
the roads; and you see them indistinctly, as they stand, half-hidden among
trees and bushes. I found there Captain Thatcher in command of the picket line.
There was some delay here, in sending word to the division commander, and to a
battery that was firing. As soon as they were notified, Captain T. and myself,
with the flag about five paces ahead, and the bugler behind, walked along the
wood-road. Thatcher is a brisk, black-eyed little man, and kept peeping about,
through the dense pines, and saying: “We are getting somewhere pretty near them.
Wave your flag, Sergeant!” As for myself, I looked with some confidence for a
salutation of two or three bullets; but made no observation, as being
superfluous under the circumstances. Presently the flag-bearer, who, you may be
sure, kept an extremely bright look-out, said: “There's one of 'em!” and
immediately waved the emblem of peace in a truly conscientious manner. I looked
and saw the main road, and, in an open field beyond, stood a single grey-back,
looking dubiously at us, with his rifle ready for any emergency. I told the
bugler to blow a parley, which he did in very good style, while I advanced to
call to the solitary sentry; but the effect of the bugle was most marvellous —
quite as when “he whistled shrill and he was answered from the hill.” In an
instant, a line of some seventy-five men rose, as if out of the ground. It was
their pickets, who had been concealed in little holes, dug in the slope of the
gentle hill. One of them laid down his musket and came forward, when I asked
for an officer; whereat, he touched his hat (probably awestruck by my cotton
gloves) and returned to fetch one. Then came a red-faced captain, who received
my despatch, and a bundle of letters from Rebel prisoners, and promised a
speedy answer. So the flag was stuck up on a fence and we waited. In a few
minutes the commander of the pickets hastened out to do me honor — Major Crow,
of Alabama, a remarkably bright, nice-looking man. We exchanged compliments and
newspapers, and he entertained me with an amusing account, how he had gone on a
“leave” to north Alabama, and how our cavalry suddenly rushed into the town,
whereupon he ascended briskly into the belfry of the court-house, through the
slats of which he beheld a large number of his friends gobbled up and marched
off, while he himself nearly froze to death with the extreme cold! By this time
we had the variety of a visitor on horseback, Colonel Ring, a handsome man, who
was curious about the negro troops and said, with an honesty unmistakable, that
he would not be a bit afraid to fight them, one against two. They, however,
said nothing at all unpleasant or rude. The next comer was apparently a Staff
officer, a young man of rather a sour countenance, with a large pair of spurs.
He brought a message that we should immediately retire from the lines, and
hostilities would then recommence, till the answer was ready, when they would
put a white flag on their rifle-pit. This amused me, for I had already seen all
that could be seen and knew just where their position was just at that point! I
returned whence I came, and waited at a wretched, deserted house. ... At seven
in the evening I got the reply and carried it in. The sum of it was: “Have the
honor to acknowledge your favor. As to your proposition — Ah, don't see it!”l
And so there was no armistice. Our poor wounded fellows, I believe, we got off
that night, all of them, or all but a very few. And thus ended my second
diplomatic mission. Since then, General Williams has caused a regular white
flag to be made, ready for use in future.
_______________
1 “It was signed by Beauregard, and was a specimen
of his mean Creole blood. ‘He did not know there had been any fight of consequence
and should therefore refuse. After any engagement of real moment, he should be
glad to extend the courtesies of war!’ He lied; for he knew full well that
there had been heavy fighting and that we at least had lost some thousands. But
he wished to show his dirty spite. Lee does not do such things.” — Lyman's Journal.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 170-3
No comments:
Post a Comment