Pleasant and warm; remained at the fort until about 8
o'clock a. m. waiting for General Burnside's forces to relieve us, and then
marched about two miles up the plank road and formed line of battle in a piece
of woods to the right of the road; remained here until noon when Burnside's
corps again came up and occupied our line when we pushed on to the front
passing many corralled and moving army trains, and through the outskirts of the
field hospital near the right of our army's infantry line of battle until we
struck the Orange turnpike when we turned to the right and followed it some
distance until near enough the enemy to draw the fire of its artillery when
seemingly the air was full of solid shot and exploding shells as far each side
the pike as could be seen. The road here ran in a straight line ahead of us
almost as far as the eye could reach bordered on either side with a dense
forest and underbrush which was also being shelled in places. Shortly after,
when within shelling distance, the enemy fired a solid shot straight along the
pike which tore screeching through the air just a little above the heads of the
men in column in our regiment till it struck the pike about midway the
regiment, providentially where the men had split and were marching on either side
of the road, when it viciously rebounded along the pike lengthwise the column
to the great consternation of the men all along the extended column in our own
and other regiments. This situation was most trying for every moment I dreaded
the effect of a better directed shot which would go destructively through our
long column lengthwise and do untold damage.
Soon, however, we turned to the left or southerly into the
woods and formed line of battle almost as soon as there was room after leaving
the road with the enemy close in our front with a field piece of artillery
hardly a hundred yards away through the brush which kept each from seeing the
other. Before Captain H. R. Steele had hardly finished dressing his company
after forming line a shell from this gun exploded in the ranks of Company K,
killing a private and wounding others. The shell had burst actually inside the
man completely disemboweling and throwing him high in the air in a rapidly
whirling motion above our heads with arms and legs extended until his body fell
heavily to the ground with a sickening thud.
I was in the line of file closers hardly two paces away and
just behind the man killed. We were covered with blood, fine pieces of flesh,
entrails, etc., which makes me cringe and shudder whenever I think of it. The
concussion badly stunned me. I was whirled about in the air like a feather,
thrown to the ground on my hands and knees — or at least was in that position
with my head from the enemy when I became fully conscious — face cut with
flying gravel or something else, eyes, mouth and ears filled with dirt, and was
feeling nauseated from the shakeup. Most of the others affected went to the
hospital, and I wanted to but didn't give up. I feared being accused of trying
to get out of a fight.
The Division Commander and staff were about three hundred
yards more or less, behind us in direct line with this gun that was shelling
us. Another shell from it which went screeching close over us — for we
immediately after the first shot lay flat on the ground — disemboweled Captain
G. B. Damon's horse of the Tenth Vermont on the Division staff, on which he was
mounted, and killed two others. This party could be seen from where I was in
line plainly. I was surprised at the quickness with which Company K got into line
again after being so disrupted by the exploding shell in its ranks.
SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections
and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 42-5
