The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1890-05-30

INTO HIM
Darrell Seaton enlisted in a New York
infantry regiment. He had been urged
to offer his services as surgeon, but he
declined, saying that in such a cause he
preferred to give wounds rather than to
heal them. Before going to Washington
he was elected second lieutenant, and
had his earliest military experience at
Bull Run.
He has told me that when first under
fire, in the skirmish at Blackburn's Fork,
he was excited and nervous, and would
have run away but for his pride and the
consciousness that if he should begin
running there would be no place to stop.
Every time a bullet whistled near him
he thought he must be struck; again
and again death seemed to be in
evitable. After fifteen or twenty
minutes he perceived the danger to
be much more apparent than real,
and he gradually began to grow calm.
Frightened, as he confessed himself to
have been, he declared that he was cool
ness itself compared with hundreds that
he saw about him. This encouraged and
embroidered him. When he learned, an
hour after, that not more than one hun
dred and twenty men had been lost on
both sides during the skirinish he was
amazed. He would have sworn at the
time that the casualties must have
reached three thousand at least.
He was afterward in the advance
movement on the Confederate center.
The Unionists were confident of victory,
and he was in high spirits, when suddenly
the whole right wing of the Federal army
gave way before an unexpected assault
from the enemy, and fled in the widest
confusion. He and all the officers who
retained any reason tried in vain to rally
their men. 1t was a perfect panic, and
the flying multitude, incapable of con-
troll, carried everybody and everything
along with it. he lkened it to an ava
lanche or a tidal wave. The only way
to avoid being crushed to death was to
yield to the mighty pressure. He, with
thousands of others, was borne along
several miles, and ultimately found him.
self at Centerville.
The scene at the narrow wooden bridge
over a brook on the Centerville turnpike
was extraordinary and b~ewildering. A
throng of civilians had come from Wash
ington on horseback and in carriages to
witness what they had been told was a
glorious victory. Bitter was their disap-
pointment and great their alarm when
they saw, at that point, hurrying, fright
med masses of soldiers, army wagons,
artillery inextricably involved and hope
lessly confused. The heat was excessive,
the dust choking, the panic complete.
Men were shouting, swearing, struggling
like mad, horses plunging, whinneying,
evidently scared as much as their mas
tiers. A cannon shot struck a caisson on
the bridge, shattered it and INSTRUCTED
the way. Then the dismay, disorder and
uprear increased to a terrific point. Men
surged over the broken ~caisson; others
leaped from the bridge; many rushed
through ..ha stream; artillery horses were
cut from the races and ridden bF ihelr
frantic drivers through the trembling,
screaming crowd. The wonder was that
hundreds were not killed in the chaotic
Jam. The fugitives scrambled through
and over every obstacle, and pushed their
tumultuous course toward some imagined
place Of safety as the shadows OF even
ing fell.
The defeat was evidently irreparabie.
1t was also evident that the enemy was
in no condition to pursue his
advantage, which was a great consola-
ton. Darrell's idea of war was rudeiy
changed. 1t seemed 10 him that many
of the Union troops were consummate
towards, and he did not spare his bitter
denunciations. Helearned in subsequent
battles chat what we call courage is
largely dependent IN aeeustomedness
Men who had run like sheep from indef-
mite peri on that memorable july day
aste-ward nroved themselves vaiiaE.S