Maryland Heights, September 26, 1862.
In my last letter, I wrote that we had orders to march the
next morning. Our whole corps was routed out before daylight; our division,
under command of General Gordon, marched to Maryland Heights, our brigade
occupying our old last year's camping ground. Green's division crossed the
Potomac and now occupies London Heights, the other side of the Shenandoah.
Sumner's corps is encamped on Bolivar Heights. I think at last we are going to
have a little rest; I can't tell. Everything seems about as it did last year up
here; we have as splendid views and fine sunsets as ever. We have been very
busy making up our pay rolls for the last two days. They are now a month behind
time; there is any quantity of other papers which have been accumulating for
the last six weeks, which will keep us hard at work for a week at least.
One of the men of my company killed at Sharpsburgh, the
other day, lived in Brookline, and had been out here only about six weeks; his
name was Thomas Dillon, and he was a good, faithful fellow. He was buried by
two men in my company who volunteered to do it. A letter came for him two days
after his death, which I think, under the circumstances, was one of the most
affecting things I ever read, and yet it is only one instance among thousands.
I do not know of anything that has brought the horrors of the war more plainly
before me than this letter. I have written to the father of Dillon, telling him
of his son's death.
You remember, don't you, of my speaking of a young boy named
Stephens, who was killed at Winchester; his brother was wounded at Cedar
Mountain, and has since died; they were their poor father's and mother's only
sons; it is one of the hardest cases I have known.
I have talked with a number of the rebel prisoners. You have
no idea what innocent, inoffensive men most of them seem to be; a great many
are mere boys; there are some old men, too, with humped backs. Scarcely any of
them seem to have any idea of what they are fighting for, and they were almost
all forced into the army. I talked with one -poor little fellow from Georgia
who had received a severe wound; he could not have been more than sixteen years
old. He said that all he wanted was to get into one of the hospitals at the
North; that he had been abused and knocked around ever since he had been in the
army, and that the first kind treatment he had received and the first kind
words he had heard were from our men. He expected to be bayoneted as soon as we
came up. The more I see of battle fields convinces me that instances of cruelty
to the wounded are extremely rare, and that they are treated, almost
universally, with kindness by the men of both sides. When we crossed the field,
we drove the rebels from where their wounded were lying everywhere; but our men
took the greatest pains not to touch them or hurt them in any way, although
sometimes it was almost impossible to avoid it. And when we halted, the men
gave almost every drop from their canteens to the poor rebels. The idea that a
soldier could ever bring himself to bayoneting a wounded man, strikes me now as
almost absurd; it may have been done during this war, but I don't believe it.
Our wounded at Cedar Mountain were treated with the greatest
kindness by the rebels; they gave them plenty of water and built shelters to
protect them from the sun in many cases. This making out the Southerners to be
a lot of cut throats is perfect nonsense; their leaders give a great many harsh
orders, but the soldiers are not responsible for them.
I wonder if R. knows that his class-mate and friend, Breck
Parkman, was killed at the battle of Sharpsburgh, the other day. He was on some
general's staff and was probably killed by the fire of our brigade. Charley
Horton saw a rebel surgeon who told him of it.
I believe that we are in quite a permanent camp now. It must
be so, I think, for the whole army has endured a hard campaign of six months
and must have rest; neither men nor horses can hold out forever. Then we have
our recruits to make soldiers of, and the new regiments need any amount of
drill. But there is another thing also true, that we have only got two months
more in which any work can be done before we go into winter quarters.
The best news that we have heard lately is that Harry
Russell is at liberty and exchanged; we hope soon to have him back here with
us. There is no one I feel more pity for than Major Savage; we heard that he
had lost a leg and would probably lose one arm; I don't believe he can live
through it. He is one of the finest men I ever knew; nothing coarse or rough
about him. He had a very delicate constitution, but was so plucky that he would
do his work when a great many in his situation would have been on the sick
list. He was one of my intimate friends, and had been particularly so during
the last few months before Cedar Mountain.
Captain Quincy is at last heard from, it seems, badly
wounded and a prisoner at Staunton. I doubt whether he or Major Savage ever
will rejoin the regiment again to do duty with it; if that is the case, Captain
Cogswell will become Lieutenant-Colonel, and Mudge will be Major. I shall be
third Captain and shall have the colors. No one in our regiment can complain
that he has not had promotion enough to satisfy him during the last few months.
You will be pleased, I think, to know that a few of us have now got a
first-rate “mess” in working order. It consists of Bob Shaw, Lieutenants Oakey,
John Fox, Tom Fox, Abbott and myself. We have a really good cook, who can make
good coffee, cook eggs in any way very nicely, and also make pies and puddings;
to roast and broil or stew is child's play to him, and although our cooking
materials are of the most limited description, we have not, since we have been
this side of the Potomac, had a poor meal.
We found it, in our last campaign, to be an unmistakable
fact, that a horse couldn't stand as much marching as a man; it got to be a
common remark among the men on our march from Culpepper here, as we passed the
dead or dying animals which had been abandoned, “There, we've killed one more
horse; bring on some fresh ones, we're good for a few more yet.”
SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written
During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 90
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