The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-03-24
After the Battle.

From an account of the battle of
Spottsylvania by Harvey S. Wells, we
copy as follows: " AT such close quar-
tiers many men were struck in the
head, as the result of deliberate aim.
Although to one in the line it did not
seem as if many men were falling
about him, yet steadily all day long the
firing of the sharpshooters accomplished
its fatal work, until the ground was lit
orally strewn with the dead. The
weather was warm, the men got tired
of lying so long in positions of constraint
to their bodies; they wanted water and
chance to stretch their wearied limbs,
and so, although knowing it was almost
instant death, they would rise and run
for the rear, sure to be followed by
volley of bullets from the rebel sharp
shooters. | never during over four
years of active service in the army wit
messed so many individual acts of dar-
ing and foolhardiness on the part of
soldiers as on this day. In the COM
pany which commanded, out of thirty
one men who entered the fight nineteen
were killed and wounded, most of them
killed instantly, and half of that num-
Der shot in consequence of acts of fool
hardy daring, uncalled for in the re-
quirements of faithful duty. AT the
time 1 attributed much of this devil
may-care spirit to the whiskey in the
canteens issued to us the day before.
There was drunken artillery officer,
who rode up and down along our line
with gay uniform, mounted on a spir-
tied horse, swinging his hat and calling
on the men to charge, who seemed to
possess a charmed life, for he escaped
unframed. The man stopped and
talked with me a short time, with the
bullets flying all about him, when one
of us did not dare poke up finger for
fear of having it shot off. a cap on a
bayonet stuck up above the breast
work was sure to be perforated by rebel
bullets. When the ammunition of one
caisson had been exhausted dozen
men recklessly rushed after another
between the two lines and dragged it
back with them amid perfect hail
storm Of lead. Not less than hum
dred dead bodies lay close around that
brass piece of artillery captured from
the enemy when night drew her sable
curtain over the sanguinary work of
the day. During the night the enemy
abandoned the salient, and early the
next morning the Union troops could
60 over the scene of the previous days
carnage without fear of molestation.
Piles of dead is often used as figure
of speech, but in the works abandoned
by the rebels piles of dead literally and
without exaggeration were lying in
the compartments which l have pre-
viously mentioned Two, three and
four deep, tangled up with each other,
bodies and limbs intertwined-actu
heaps of dead, their black and bloated
faces upturned to the sky, in all manner
of positions, and decomposition already
pollutingthe atmosphere with horrible
stencil. 1t was such picture of war,
horrid war, as few people, even those
who make a business of war, are per-
mitted to witness. 1t would take the
pen of Victor Hugo to faithfully de-
scribe such a scene of death and car
mage, such hideous and appalling holo-
caust of human life. In the woods
Immediately in the rear of the rebel
line of earthworks one could see the
fearful effect of the musketry fire from
the Union line. Swinton, in his his
tory, says that all the trees within the
range of the musketry were killed, so
blighting in its effects was the fire of
leaden bullets poured into the forest in
the twenty hours the Union troops
were ordered to never cease firing. On
that morning after the battle l saw two
oak trees of vigorous growth, about
eighteen inches in diameter, that had
been actually cut in two, gnawed off
four or five feet from the ground by
bullets fired from the Union line in
front the day before. This may give
the reader some idea of the terrible
fire concentrated on the confederate
line behind their earthworks on that
never-to-be-forgotten 10Th of May, 1864
by the troops of the Army of the Poto-
mac. In the fall of 1865, when l was
still in the army, l visited Washington
on official business. AS l entered the
war department, on each side of the
main entrance, in front and under a
little projecting portico, l saw two
stumps of trees, the same that l had
witnessed on the battlefield of Spottsyl-
vania. They had been sawed off and
carried to Washington as mementos of
the bloodiest field of battle which his
tory records of the late rebellion"