July 4, 1864
What shall I say of the Fourth? Our celebration could not
well amount to much; the men have to stay too close in camp to do such things. The
band came in the morning and serenaded, and there was saluting enough in the
form of cannon and mortars from our right. This siege — if you choose to call
it a siege — is a curious illustration of the customs of old soldiers. On the
right — say from the Appomattox to a point opposite the Avery house — the lines
are very close and more or less of siege operations are going on; so every
finger, or cap, or point of a gun that shows above the works, is instantly shot
at, in addition to which batteries and mortars are firing intermittently.
Nothing could be more hostile! But pass to the division a little to the left of
this, where our lines swing off from the enemy's, and you have a quite reversed
state of things. There is not a shot! Behold the picket men, no longer
crouching closely in their holes, but standing up and walking about, with the
enemy's men, in like fashion, as near to them, in some places, as the length of
the Brookline house. At one part, there was a brook between, and our pickets,
or theirs, when they want water, hold up a canteen, and then coolly walk down
to the neutral stream. All this truce is unofficial, but sacred, and is
honorably observed. Also it is a matter of the rank and file. If an officer
comes down, they get uneasy and often shout to him to go back, or they will
shoot. The other day General Crawford calmly went down, took out an opera-glass
and began staring. Very quickly a Reb was seen to write on a scrap of paper,
roll it round a pebble and throw it over to our line. Thereon was writ this
pithy bit of advice: “Tell the fellow with the spy-glass to clear out, or we
shall have to shoot him.” Near this same spot occurred a ludicrous thing, which
is true, though one would not believe it if seen in a paper. A Reb, either from
greenness or by accident, fired his musket, whereupon our people dropped in
their holes and were on the point of opening along the whole line, when the Rebs
waved their hands and cried: “Don't shoot; you'll see how we'll fix him!” Then
they took the musket from the unfortunate grey-back, put a rail on his
shoulder, and made him walk up and down for a great while in front of their
rifle-pits! If they get orders to open, they call out, “Get into your holes,
Yanks, we are ordered to fire”; and their first shots are aimed high, as a sort
of warning. Their liberties go too far sometimes, as when two deliberately
walked up to our breastwork to exchange papers; whereat General Crawford
refused to allow them to return, saying very properly that the truce was not
official, and that they had chosen to leave their own works and come over to
ours, and that now they could carry back information of our position. They
expected an attack on the 4th of July — I suppose as a grand melodramatic
stroke on Grant's part; but, instead thereof, the Maryland brigade brought up
their band to the trenches and played “Hail Columbia”; upon which, to the
surprise of everyone, a North Carolina regiment, lying opposite, rose as a man
and gave three cheers! The news is not precisely cheery from Maryland.1
With the preparations on foot, we ought to bag a large part of the Rebels; but
I have a sublime confidence that the movements of our troops will, as usual, be
a day too late. . . .
_______________
1 Early’s invasion of Maryland and, advance upon
Washington.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 181-2
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