Frederick L. Hitchcock

“ We were on the march about six o'clock and moved, as I thought, rather leisurely for upwards of two miles, crossing Antietam creek, which our men waded nearly waist deep, emerging, of course, soaked through, our first experience of this kind. It was a hot morning and, therefore, the only ill effects of this wading was the discomfort to the men of marching with soaked feet. It was now quite evident that a great battle was in progress. A deafening pandemonium of cannonading, with shrieking and bursting shells, filled the air beyond us, towards which we were marching. ”

“ This occurred just ten days later, at the battle of Antietam, the greatest battle of the war thus far, where for four bloody hours we held our section of the brigade line as stanch as a rock. Here we earned our footing. Henceforth we belonged to them. There was never another syllable of guying, but in its place the fullest meed of such praise and comradeship as is born only of brave and chivalrous men. ”

“ It made my blood leap as I realized that I was looking down upon the grandest army, all things considered, of any age or time. Its mission was to save to liberty and freedom the life of the best government the world ever saw. In its ranks was the best blood of a free people. In intelligence it was far superior to any other army that ever existed. Scholars of all professions, tradesmen and farmers, were there, fighting side by side, animated by the same patriotic impulse. I said to myself, it is impossible that that army should be beaten. ”

“ Now place yourself on the right of this army paraded for review and look down the long lines. Try to count the standards as the favoring wind lifts their sacred folds and caressingly shows you their battle scars. You will need to look very closely, lest those miniature penants, far away, whose staffs appear no larger than parlor matches protruding above lines of men, whose forms in the distance have long since merged into a mere bluish gray line, escape your eye. ”

“ If it had been hard to leave our comrades of the Army of the Potomac, it was harder to sever the close comradeship of our own regiment, a relationship formed and cemented amidst the scenes that try men's souls, a comradeship born of fellowship in privation, danger, and suffering. ”

“ Towards morning a quartette of men overtook us carrying a man on their shoulders. As they drew near us one of the forward pair stumbled and fell, and down came the body into the mud with a swash. If the body was not dead, the fall killed it, for it neither moved nor uttered a sound. With a fearful objurgation they went on and left it, and we did not have life enough left in us to make any investigation. It was like the case of a man on the verge of drowning seeing others perishing without the ability to help. ”

“ He was young, lithely built, of sandy complexion, and wore a comparatively new uniform of Confederate gray, on which was embroidered the insignia of the "5th Ga., [B] C. S. A." He said, "You have killed all my brave boys; they are there in the road." And they were, I saw them next day lying four deep in places as they fell, a most awful picture of battle carnage. This lull was of very short duration, and like the lull of a storm presaged a renewal of the firing with greater fury, for a fresh line of rebel troops had been brought up. ”

“ It seemed as though the whole army was being stampeded. We soon had a vast throng of these fugitives dammed up in our front, a terrible menace to the integrity of our own line as well as of all in our rear. We were powerless to do anything should the enemy break through, and were in great danger of being ourselves swept away and disintegrated by this frantic mob. ”

“ An interesting feature of our first two days' march was the clearing out of knapsacks to reduce the load. Naturally each man was loaded with extras of various sorts, knicknacks of all varieties, but mostly supposed necessaries of camp life, put in by loving hands at home, a salve for this, a medicine for that, a keepsake from one and another, some the dearest of earth's treasures, each insignificant in itself, yet all taking room and adding weight to over-burdened shoulders. ”

“ I do not remember ever to have been more beside myself with anger. It was with difficulty that I contained myself until their ceremony was over, when I rode up to the colonel, in the presence of all his officers, and in a voice which must have betrayed my emotion, demanded to know why he was parading our colors. His reply was, "Those are the colors of a d——d runaway regiment which my men picked up on the battle-field of Fredericksburg." My hair and whiskers were somewhat hot in color those days, and I have not kept a record of my language to that colonel for the next few minutes. ”

“ To be no longer the arbiter of your own time and movements, but to have it rubbed into you at every turn that you are a very small part of an immense machine, whose business is to march and fight; that your every movement is under the control of your superior officers; that, in fact, you have no will of your own that can be exercised; that your individuality is for the time sunk, is a trial to an American freeman which patriotism alone can overcome. ”

“ On September 11 we were approaching Frederick City. Our cavalry had a skirmish with the rebel cavalry, showing that we were nearing their army. And right here I ought to say that what an individual officer or soldier—unless perhaps a general officer—knows of events transpiring around him in the army is very little. Even the movements he sees, he is seldom able to understand, his vision is so limited. He knows what his own regiment and possibly his own brigade does, but seldom more than that. ”

“ Every movement in the tactics it could execute on the jump, and its fire was something to keep away from. The result was that, pushed everywhere to the front because of its splendid work, it lost comparatively few men. Every man was a marksman and understood how to take all possible advantage of the situation to make his work most effective and at the same time take care of himself. This regiment, whose record was one unbroken succession of splendid achievements during its whole period of service, might never have gotten on a roll of fame founded on numbers of men lost. ”

“ During the fiercest of the firing, another remarkable incident occurred, which well illustrated the fortunes of war. I heard a man shouting, "Come over here men, you can see 'em better," and there, over the brow of the knoll, absolutely exposed, was Private George Coursen, of Company K, sitting on a boulder, loading and firing as calmly as though there wasn't a rebel in the country. I yelled to him to come back under the cover of the hill-top, but he said he could see the rebels better there, and refused to leave his vantage-ground. ”

“ Our corps and division commanders, Couch, Hancock, and French, with their staffs, were in close proximity to the troops, and all seemed to be in a condition of nervous uncertainty. What might be progressing in those black woods in front, was the question. A nearer volley of musketry would start everybody up, and we would stand arms in hand, as if expecting the unseen enemy to burst through the woods upon us. Then the firing would slacken and we would drop down again for a time. ”

“ I saw men crying like children because the surgeon had forbidden them going with the regiment. The loneliness and homesickness, or whatever you please to call it, after the regiment has gone are too much for them. They simply cannot endure it, and so they strike out and follow. They will start by easy marches, and they generally improve in health from the moment they start. Courage and nerve are both summoned for the effort, and the result is that at the end of the second or third day they rejoin the regiment and report for duty. ”

“ The sudden retirement of our lieutenant-colonel at this point placed the command of the regiment on me, and I shouted to the men to aim below that line of smoke and then gave the order, fire by battalion, and we emptied our guns as one man, reloaded, and receiving no reply to our volley, moved forward through the thick brush and undergrowth. We soon came upon the rebel line, and a dreadful sight it was. The first officer I saw was a rebel captain, an Irishman. He ejaculated, "We're all killed! We're all killed!" ”

“ We had not an ounce of strength, nor had any of the hundreds of others in our condition, to bestow on those who could not longer care for themselves. Here it was every man for himself. This night's experience was a horrible nightmare.
It was long after daylight when we crawled out of those woods and reached United States ford. Here a pontoon bridge had been thrown over, and a double column of troops and a battery of artillery were crossing at the same time. We pushed ourselves into the throng, as to which there was no semblance of order, and were soon on the other side. ”

“ It seems incredible that the wounded should have been left in those woods during these ten to twelve days since the battle. How many hundreds perished during that time for want of care nobody knows, and, more horrible still, nobody knows how many poor fellows were burned up in the portions of those woods that caught fire from the artillery. But such is war. Dare any one doubt the correctness of Uncle Billy Sherman's statement that "War is hell!"
Reaching Washington, the regiment bivouacked a single night, awaiting transportation to Harrisburg. ”

“ I have already spoken of Virginia mud. It beggars description. Your feet sink into it frequently ankle deep, and you lift them out with a sough. In some places it seemed as bottomless as a pit of quicksand. The old-established roads were measurably passable, but, as I have heretofore explained, most of the troops had to march directly across the fields, and here it proved absolutely impossible to move the wagon-trains and artillery any distance. This was the main reason why the movement had to be abandoned. I saw many wagons down over their hubs, stalled in the mire. ”

“ Soon stragglers, few in numbers, began to appear, emerging from the woods into our clearing, and then more of them, these running, and then almost at once an avalanche of panic-stricken, flying men without arms, without knapsacks, many bareheaded, swearing, cursing, a wild, frenzied mob tearing to the rear. Instantly they began to appear, General Couch, commanding our corps, took in the situation and deployed two divisions to catch and hold the fugitives. Part of the Third Corps was also deployed on our left. We were ordered to charge bayonets and permit no man to pass through our ranks. ”

“ The dead body of a regular army captain was soon brought back from the front, where Sykes's division of regulars was sharply engaged. I do not know the name of this captain, but he was a fine-looking young officer. He had been killed by a minie-ball squarely through his forehead.
We were marching out the plank-road as they brought this body in. Passing out of the clearing, the woods and undergrowth each side the road was so dense that we could not see into it a half-dozen steps. ”

“ I will go and see General Hooker." And directing me to move the troops away from the front of those guns, he started for General Hooker's head-quarters, only a short distance away. As I was passing the right of that line of batteries a voice hailed me, and I turned, and there stood one of my old Scranton friends, Captain Frank P. Amsden, in command of his battery. Said he, as he gripped my hand, "Boy, you got out of those woods just in time. Our guns are double-shotted with grape and canister; the word 'fire' was just on my lips when your colors appeared." ”

“ I got a little idea of what a panic-stricken army means. The fearful thing about it was, we knew it was terribly contagious, and that with all the uncertainties in that black wilderness from which this mob came and the pandemonium in progress all about us, it might seize our own troops and we be swept away to certain destruction in spite of all our efforts. It is said death rides on horseback with a fleeing army. Nothing can be more horrible. ”

“ I remember that we returned to our camp, over a mile distant, dismissed the men, and then several of us officers rode back to see the continuation of the pageant. When we got back the second line was only well on its way, which meant that only about half the army had passed in review. We could see from fifteen to twenty thousand men in column—that is to say, about one army corps—at a time. The quick, vigorous step, in rhythmical cadence to the music, the fife and drum, the massive swing, as though every man was actually a part of every other man ”