D. A. Dickert

“ Now the battle was on in earnest. The roar of Kershaw's guns mingled with those of the enemy. Longstreet had met his old antagonist of Round Top, Hancock, the Northern hero, of Gettysburg. The roar of the small arms, mingled with the thunder of the cannon that Longstreet had brought forward, echoed and re-echoed up and down the little valley, but never to die away, for new troops were being put rapidly in action to the right and left of us. Men rolled and writhed in their last death struggle; wounded men groped their way to the rear, being blinded by the stifling smoke. ”

“ While your cherished hopes ended in a dream, still your aspirations have been of the loftiest, and your acts will be copied by generations yet unborn, as a fitting pattern for all brave men. You have fought in all the great battles of the East, from the trenches of Petersburg to the rugged heights of Round Top. Your blood mingled with that of your comrades of the West, from Chickamauga to the storming of Fort London. You combatted the march of Sherman from the Saltkahatchie to the close, and stacked your arms more as conquering heroes than beaten foes. ”

“ The South, proud and haughty, looked with disdain upon the courage of the North; considered the people cowardly, and not being familiar with firearms would be poor soldiers; that the rank and file of the North, being of a foreign, or a mixture of foreign blood, would not remain loyal to the Union, as the leaders thought, and would not fight. While the North looked upon the South as a set of aristocratic blusterers, their affluence and wealth having made them effeminate; a nation of weaklings, who could not stand the fatigues and hardships of a campaign. ”

“ His love and sympathy for his fellow-soldier is proverbial in the army. In the lull, of battle, or on its eve, men with bold hearts and strong nerves look each other in the face with grim reliance. With set teeth and nerve's strung to extreme tension, the thoughts of the soldier often wander to his distant home. The panorama of his whole life passes before him in vivid colors. His first thoughts are of the great beyond—all soldiers, whatever their beliefs or dogmas, think of this. It is natural, it is right, it is just to himself. ”

“ On the morning of April 29th the soldiers were aroused from their slumbers by the beating of the long roll. What an ominous sound is the long roll to the soldier wrapped in his blanket and enjoying the sweets of sleep. It is like a fire bell at night. It denotes battle. It tells the soldier the enemy is moving; it means haste and active preparation. A battle is imminent. The soldiers thus roused, as if from their long sleep since Fredericksburg, feel in a touchous mood. The frightful scenes of Fredericksburg and Mayree's Hill rise up before them as a spectre. ”

“ On the march or the suffering in camp, they were the peers of the noblest, and when facing death or experiencing its pangs they knew no superiors. Such being the feelings and sentiments of those born in the humbler stations of life, what must have been the goal of those already fortune's favorites, with a high or aristocratic birth, wealth, education, and a long line of illustrious ancestors, all to stimulate them to deeds of prowess and unparalleled heroism? Such were the men to make the name of South Carolina glorious, and that of "Kershaw" immortal. ”

“ On the march, when homes were to be passed, or along the sidewalks in cities, the ladies set the bread to baking and would stand for hours in the doorway or at some convenient window to cut and hand out slice after slice to the hungry soldiers as long as a loaf was left or a soldier found.
With such a people to contend, with such heroes to face in the field, was it any wonder that the North began to despair of ever conquering the South? There was but one way by which the Northern leaders saw possible to defeat such a nation of "hereditary madmen in war." ”

“ Where the Olympus was the haunts, the wooing places of the gods of the ancient Greeks, the Appalachian was the reveling grounds for the muses of song and story of the North and South alike. And while the glories of the virtues of Greece and Rome, the birthplace of republicanism and liberty, may have slept for centuries, or died out entirely, that spirit of national liberty and personal freedom was transplanted to the shores of the New World, and nowhere was the spirit of freedom more cherished and fostered than in the bright and sunny lands of the South. ”

“ Men peered through the darkness in the direction of Sumter, as looking for some invisible object. At half past four Captain James, from Fort Johnston, pulled his lanyard; the great mortar belched forth, a bright flash, and the shell went curving over in a kind of semi-circle, the lit fuse trailing behind, showing a glimmering light, like the wings of a fire fly, bursting over the silent old Sumter. This was the signal gun that unchained the great bull-dogs of war around the whole circle of forts. ”

“ Out in a large old field, every day thousands of soldiers and civilians, with a sprinkling of the fair ladies of the surrounding country, would congregate to witness the excitement of the race course. Here horses from Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and North and South Carolina tried each others mettle. They were not the thoroughbreds of the course, but cavalry horses, artillery horses, horses of Generals, Colonels, and the staff—horses of all breeds and kinds, all sizes and description—stood at the head of the track and champed their bits with eagerness, impatient to get away. ”

“ As a tactician and disciplinarian, Colonel Stackhouse could not be called an exemplar soldier, as viewed in the light of the regular army; but as an officer of volunteers he had those elements in him to cause men to take on [286] that same unflinching courage, indominable spirit, and bold daring that actuated him in danger and battle. He had not that sternness of command nor niceties nor notion of superiority that made machines of men, but he had that peculiar faculty of endowing his soldiers with confidence and a willingness to follow where he led. ”

“ The roar from the cannon-crowned battlements shook the very earth. Above and below us seemed to vibrate as from the effects of a mighty upheaval, while the shot and shell came whizzing and shrieking overhead, looking like a shower of falling meteors. For more than an hour did this seething volcano vomit iron like hail upon the city and the men in the rifle pits, the shells and shot from the siege guns [181] tearing through the houses and plunging along the streets, and ricocheting to the hills above. Not a house nor room nor chimney escaped destruction. ”

“ The latter follow close upon the line of battle and give such temporary relief to the bleeding soldiers as will enable them to reach the field hospital. The yellow flag does not always protect the surgeons and their assistants, as shells scream and burst overhead as the tide of battle rolls backward and forward. Not a moment of rest or sleep do these faithful servants of the army get until every wound is dressed and the hundred of arms and legs amputated, with that skill and caution for which the army surgeons are so proverbially noted. ”

“ Down this open and exposed stretch of road, up over the plateau, then wheel to the right, they make a rush through the gauntlet that separates them from the fort in which stood the Washington Artillery. Over the dead and dying the horses leap and plunge, dragging the cannon and ammunition chests—they enter the fort at a gallop. Swinging into line, their brass pieces are now belching forth grape and canister into the ranks of the advancing columns. ”

“ The flickering torch of freedom, borne by those sturdy sons of the old world to the new, nowhere took such strong and rapid growth as did that planted by the Huguenots on the soil of South Carolina. Is it any wonder, then, that a people with such high ideals, such lofty spirits, such love of freedom, would tamely submit to a Union where such ideals and spirits were so lightly [15] considered as by those who were now in charge of the government—where our women and children were to be at the mercies of a brutal race, with all of their passions aroused for rapine and bloodshed ”

“ The soldiers who had done such deeds of daring as to win everlasting renown at Gaines' Mill and Cold Harbor, did not fail their fearless commander at Frazier's Farm. When the signal for battle was given, they leaped to the front, like dogs unleashed, and sprang upon their old enemies, Porter, McCall, Heintzelman, Hooker, and Kearny. Here again the steady fire and discipline of the Federals had to yield to the impetuosity and valor of Southern troops. Hill and Longstreet swept the field, capturing several hundred prisoners, a whole battery of artillery, horses, and men. ”

“ On some, where once went carnage and death hand in hand, we now see blooming fields of growing grain, broad acres of briar and brush, while others, a magnificent "city of the dead." Under the shadow of the Round Top at Gettysburg, where the earth trembled beneath the shock of six hundred belching cannon, where trampling legions spread themselves along the base, over crest and through the gorges of the mountain, are now costly parks, with towering monuments—records of the wonderful deeds of the dead giants, friend and foe. ”

“ In fact, more so, for they had watched with bated breath the march of the vandals across the Savannah—the smoke of the burning homesteads, the wreck and ruin of their sister State—left little hope of leniency or mercy at the hands of the enemy, while all their strength and dependence in the way of manhood were either in the trenches with Lee or with the reserves along the borders of the State. Companies were formed everywhere of boys and old men to help beat back the mighty annaconda that was now menacing with its coils our common country. ”

“ They knew they were left to be lost, and could have easily laid down their arms and surrendered, thus saving their lives; but this would have endangered Lee's army, so they fought and died like men. The roar of their howitzers and the rattle of their musketry were like the blasts of the horn of Roland when calling Charlemagne to his aid along the mountain pass of Roncesvalles, but, unlike the latter, we could not answer our comrades' call, and had only to leave them alone to "die in their glory." ”

“ The women of the South, from the old and bending grandmothers, who sat in the corner, with their needles flying steady and fast, to the aristocratic and pampered daughter of wealth, toiled early and toiled late with hands and bodies that never before knew or felt the effects of work—all this that the soldier in the trenches might be clothed and fed—not alone for members of their families, but for the soldiers all, especially those who were strangers among us—those who had left their homes beyond the Potomac and the Tennessee. ”

“ The foliage of the trees and the declivity of the ground having hidden them thus far from view. From out of the streets and from behind walls and houses men poured, as if by some magical process or super-human agency, and formed lines of battle behind a little rise in the ground, near the canal. But in a few moments they emerged from their second place of protection and bore down upon the stone wall, behind which stood Cobb's Georgians and a Regiment of North Carolinians. When midway between the canal and stone fence, they met an obstruction—a plank fence—but this did not delay them long. ”

“ On the hill beyond the enemy was placing batteries, the infantry in squads and singly blazing away as rapidly as they could load and fire, the grape and cannister falling and rattling upon the ground like walnuts thrown from a basket. The whole vast plain in front and rear was dotted with men running for life's sake, while over and among this struggling mass the bullets fell like hail. How any escaped was a wonder to the men themselves. ”

“ But now the awful silence and quietude that pervades the field after battle—where lay the dreamless sleepers of friend and foe, victor and vanquished, the blue and the gray, with none to sing their requiems—nothing heard save the plaintive notes of the night bird or the faint murmurs of grief of the comrades who are placing the sleepers in their shallow beds! But what is death to the soldier? ”

“ Never before in our experience had the brigade been led in deliberate battle by its commander on horseback, and it was perhaps Colonel Keitt's want of experience that induced him to take this fatal step. Across a large old field the brigade swept towards a densely timbered piece of oakland, studded with undergrowth, crowding and swaying in irregular lines, the enemy's skirmishers pounding away at us as we advanced. Colonel Keitt was a fine target for the sharpshooters, and fell before the troops reached the timber, a martyr to the inexorable laws of the army rank. ”