Charles A. Fuller

“ No doubt he was a brave man and believed he could repel any attack that might be made on him, but where the great issues of a battle are at stake, a commander has no business to take needless chances, and, when he can, he should put his men under cover as effectually as may be, so that he can accomplish his purpose with as little loss of limb and life as possible. If, as soon as the Eleventh Corps was located they had gone to work cutting the timber to the front and intrenching, as Hancock’s men did, Jackson would have met a bloody repulse, and Chancellorsville would have been our victory. ”

“ Every now and then along the supporting line a man was knocked out. It was at this time that Ralph Haskell, a Hamilton boy, and another lying beside him had their brains knocked out by these shell fragments. They were but a few feet from me and I saw the whole bloody business.
About this time a remarkable freak was perpetrated on the body of Capt. Broady. He was standing, when in an instant he was thrown to the ground with great force, and he lay there quivering as if life were the same as extinct. Col. Barlow saw him fall and ordered his body taken to the rear. ”

“ As soon as our empty muskets could be loaded the men would take a quick aim at a flash in the woods and let drive. The enemy did the same. In no battle that I was in, did the bullets sing about my head as they did here. No doubt this came from the aim drawn on the flash of my musket. This steady, rapid firing continued till it ceased from the woods, and we concluded that we were victors.
Barlow then directed that the sound men take to the rear those alive, but wounded so that they could not help themselves. ”

“ I was not with the regiment, being in charge of the camp guard.
On the afternoon of May 31st, heavy cannonading was heard on our left, across the Chickahomeny river. For a week, or more, the men had been constantly under arms, so to speak. Three day’s rations were kept in the haversacks; arms and ammunition were frequently inspected; orders were given warning the men to be in their places and prepared to move at a moment’s notice; so, when the first sound of battle was heard, the men, almost of their own accord, formed on the color line, equipped for a march, where ever it might be to. ”

“ A. P Hill came up with a few regiments he had managed to rally, but the enemy was continually pressing nearer and nearer! Louder and louder their shouts and the watchword, “On to Richmond!” could be heard. Cavalry officers sprang from their saddles and rushed into the ranks of the infantry regiments now deprived of their proper officers. Gen. Hill seized the standard of the 4th North Carolina regiment, which he had formerly commanded and shouted to the soldiers, “If you will not follow me, I will perish alone!” ”

“ The office of the War Power is to maintain order and right at home, and defend the flag from foreign aggression. It is [Pg 108] not the first and main business of the soldier to kill anyone; he is put in motion only after peacable means for righteousness have failed. Then he comes forward and says to the obstructor and the enemy of right: “Desist, surrender, give way!” and it is only after refusal and a show of hostile force that the soldier shoots his gun, and when he shoots he prefers to wound, disable and capture, rather than to kill. ”

“ On my way home after Gettysburg, I spent one night in the Citizens’ hospital in Philadelphia. My cot was next to a Pennsylvanian’s, who had lost a leg at Chancellorsville. When he learned I was of Barlow’s regiment, he told me that about the finest sight he ever saw on the battlefield was seeing Barlow lead his command into action at Antietam. He was where he had a full view of the display. The regiments were in line of battle, and he, with sabre in hand, was ahead of the line. Such is the plain fact, as all who were there can testify. ”

“ I do not say this, I think, unadvisedly, nor from a mistaken sense of the quality of the rank and file of the regiment, but rather from the character of the commanding officers of the regiment while under Barlow and Miles. Each of them officers whose equal it was hard to find. They were men of dauntless courage and rare military judgment, who Led their men into battle, and under them if a soldier wanted to slink, as a rule, he deemed it safer to face the enemy than to let either one of them suspect he was slinking. ”

“ The Sixty-first was not the only skeleton New York regiment in the field. This regiment always had enough officers to have commanded in battle five hundred men, and, by experience in battle, they had come to know how to handle them. It would have been an immense saving to have filled up and made these weak regiments strong by sending to them from rendezvous camps recruits by the fifties. The new men would have rapidly taken up and learned their duties in the field from contact with the men who had learned what they knew from actual service. ”

“ A member of our regiment, who had been much of the time detailed, and had acted as hostler for some of the field officers, but was now with his company, came up to Colonel Barlow with a woe-begone countenance and told him that he was sick and not able to be in the ranks, and said that the doctor thought he ought to be permitted to go to the rear. No doubt Barlow had noted the use this man had been put to, and, where he believed a soldier was managing to escape danger and find a soft place, he always endeavored to make it as unpleasant for that man as possible. ”

“ Our division general, Richardson, wanted to change the location of some of us, and became very impatient at the slow movements of the men. He roared out: “Make haste, men! make haste! every minute is an hour!” and the men hustled at a livelier gait.
Richardson steadily grew in the esteem of his men. The story had got noised about that while we lay in camp just before Fair Oaks, a loafer about his headquarters addressed insulting language to a woman who was employed in doing certain domestic work and who followed up the army. The general heard the vile talk of the fellow from his tent. ”

“ Those who are ready with reasons for faults and failures in the affairs of mankind, may now lay it to Providence the selection of McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac, on the ground that a brave and competent general would have defeated the rebels too soon, and reconstruction would not have been as thorough as it was in the end, owing to the more complete exhaustion of the Confederates. ”

“ A good part of our way was over a road through the woods. No artillery or wagon trains were in the way, and we shoved along at a good pace. Most of the canteens were empty before the last battle, and now the men were suffering for water nearly as much as it was possible for them to. I do not know of any of our troops following us, and it is my belief that we were the last of the Army of the Potomac to go over this road, as we were, the following December to cross the pontoon bridge at Fredericksburg. ”

“ From our position on the brow of the hill, it was open ground for a distance and gently sloped off to the woods. Time after time the enemy formed for the purpose of making a charge on us, but no sooner did they appear than this immense line of artillery opened fire, which no troops in the world could withstand. In aid of the artillery fire, the infantry posted so as to have a chance, poured in volley after volley. Col. Barlow practiced here that which I never saw before or after in battle—volley firing by ranks. ”

“ All this shows the havoc of battle, but the sight that appals is the human dead. Dead, dying, and wounded in various ways. The spectator must callous his heart, or, if fairly human, he will be overwhelmed. ”

“ But this soon ceased and the battlefield, as a whole, was quiet, and I began to hope that the battle was over. But our colonel was of another mind. He had reported for orders to Gen. Robinson of Kearney’s division. The twilight was deepening and the stars were out, when the order came, “Get up men, Steady Now, Forward, March!” Every man sprang to his feet. Quickly we were over the fence with bayonets at a charge, and when we were well in the field the regiment made a half right wheel towards a piece of woods on the other side. ”

“ From an early date in the War the patriotic citizens of Philadelphia did this to every regiment that passed through the city. New York and Philadelphia differ in many ways. In 1861, and during the following years of the War, there was an antipodal difference between these cities in their regard for and treatment of the Union Soldiers. In Philadelphia the troops were, in going out, you might almost say, banqueted, and when the wounded began to come back from the front great hospitals were run by the voluntary services of the best women in the city. ”

“ I have never heard anyone accuse New Yorkers of making any systematic effort to cheer the boys on as they went out, or care for them as they came back wrecked by disease or torn by the missiles of the enemy. The city of New York is entirely too practical to be diverted by patriotic sentiment, if, as a municipality, it has any.
About 8 a. m., Sunday, we left the city of Brotherly Love and reached Washington at 9 p. m. The regiment was marched into a large building capable of housing a thousand men, called the “Soldiers’ Rest,” located at the terminus of the Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Monday, Nov. ”

“ We stepped out on a rapid march and made very few halts till we were within sight of the heights of Centerville. Then the column was halted, and the weary men lay down in the road where they were halted, and went to sleep.
Early in the morning we were aroused and met an endless [Pg 52] stream of men hurrying to the rear. These were of Pope’s army who the day before had fought the battle of Second Bull Run. It has always been a mystery to me why old Sumner and his second corps were not in the fight. ”

“ In battle the tendency is almost universal for the men to work out of a good line into clumps. The men of natural daring will rather crowd to the front, and those cast in more timid or retiring molds will almost automatically edge back and slip in behind. Hence the necessity of not alone commissioned officers in the rear to keep the men out in two ranks, but sergeants as well. I think I have stated that there were less than one hundred men present with the regiment. For the less than ninety muskets in the ranks we had a number of commissioned officers. ”

“ It took a number of days for the large hospital tents to be put up. All of the sound part of the army that could be spared followed up the enemy. Of course, it took a large number of soldiers detailed for the purpose, to partially care for the thousands of wounded from each army. The surgeons were continuously engaged upon new cases that had received no attention. Those of us that had been treated knew this, and we found no fault at what otherwise would have been terrible neglect. I think it was six days after my amputation before a doctor could be found to look at my stump. ”

“ I think this is the foundation for the many fairy stories to the effect that an amputated leg or arm buried gave the owner of it great pain, as if something pressed on it, or it was cramped in its box, and when it was opened up there was found a stone between the fingers, or the cover jammed upon the foot, and that when the cause of discomfort was removed then the stump of the arm or leg was easy. As in the various phases of faith cure, the imagination has a powerful effect. ”

“ The road we took on this march was not the one by which we went up, on our way to the Richmond we did not see until about three years after. The country does not vary much from prairie level. The soil is light, with no stone in it to speak of. In a dry time, with considerable travel it powders up so that in going through it the dust rises in almost solid columns. A good part of the Potomac army, horse, artillery, foot and baggage trains, had preceded us. ”

“ As soon as the sun was up the men stirred themselves, made coffee and ate such food as they had in their haversacks—hard bread, and boiled salt pork, or beef. At such times the soldier’s menu is not elaborate, and he is satisfied if there is enough of it to prevent the pangs of hunger.
We were occupying an open field with other troops of our corps, without protection from the broiling sun. The intense [Pg 39] heat was not as bad as a battle, but some of our men were used up by it. ”

“ We saw that a part of our army at least was massed here. Later on we came to know that it was Malvern Hill, where a great battle was soon to be fought. I am glad we did not know it before it came. In our ignorance, we assumed that now the fighting was over for a time, and we would be given a chance to recuperate after the strain of the past week. As soon as arms were stacked details for water gathered the dry canteens and went in search of the much needed fluid. Those who could, stretched out on Mother Earth for another nap. ”

“ We pushed out beyond the old fortified line held by the enemy the winter before, and there the Second corps was deployed in line of battle. This morning there was a steady rain that drenched us. When night came there were no blankets, and it was cold and the ground soaked. The men lay down together as closely as they could pack themselves, but it was an uncomfortable night. Under such hardships men become impatient and reckless, and prefer a fight to the discomfort. ”

“ At the time we called this the battle of Charles City Cross Roads. I think the accepted name at present is Glendale. This position had been during the day desperately attacked by the Confederates and heroically defended by the Federals. If the enemy had succeeded in their purpose they would have cut off a large section of our army and captured property of great value. In my account of the fight written at the time to my people I said, “Barlow got us together in line and found that a good deal more than half of the men were gone, and pretty much all of the officers. ”