Daily Kennebec journal., 1894-03-27
An lmclDEar or ,ss

An lMclDEMS oFIe3.
!, asessla veissaa Rsle!es His Personal *
psrIsscs q o. Espa1si. nay.
Tbe JOURNAL il indebted to awell known
Augusta veteran for the following interest
10 bit Of personal reminiscence. He
lite, at wss the 18th Of December 1868.
Al d.y, near the little village Of Falmouth,
mill o'clock in. the afternoon, Sykes
refulars lay on their arms listening
"a the roar Of battle on the other side Of
the river. When 10 were finally, ordered
a cross, we went over on the pontoon
hy:dse abreast Of the city Of Ffedericks-
bu,e. On the way We met continual
dream Of wounded men, all heading for the
Falmouth side. Some were hobbling along
With muskets for crutches; toms With their
arms in slings; others with their heads
bsndaged and the blood running down their
faces, giving them very shastly appear
.uce. All, pale and weak from
the loss Of blood, were staggering and
bobbling along trying to reach place Of
,.fety. This, with the continual roar Of
battle on the other side, where We were
heading for, did NOT tend to stimulate our
courage. thought to myself, If l only
ret out Of it ~ well - some Of these fel-
lows, shall think myself lucky When
We left the bridge We went up the bank,
turned to our left, and marched down .
street near some burning buildings that had
been set on fire by the artillery. Here we
we're ordered to halt and unsling knapsacks.
We piled them together near by. The ser
geant msjor was ordered to detail . corporal
and three men to guard them. When he
came down the line to pick the men out, /
thought it was my last chance 20 I tried to
sttract his attention. l wanted to get on
that detail very badly but he passed me by.
] don't think if had had my choice, to 60
into the fight or 60 to the rear and be called
q coward, that / should have accepted
the latter; but if could have got out of it
honorably, would Certainly have taken
that chance.
1--WE were soon ordered to load our pieces.
When we were putting the cartridges into
our guns, which were old muzzle leaders, /
noticed that my hand trembled and /
spilled some Of the powder, but /
got most Of it in. was little nervous,
but did not want any one to know it. !
tried to look careless. looked along the
line to zee how the other men appeared, and
came to the conclusion that they all felt
about as badly as / did. We went on
little further down the street then turned to
the right onto street that led straight on
to the battlefield, where the bullets began
to whistle about our heads. When we got
out clear Of the buildings we filed off to the
left, halted and dressed our lines up. Cap
tain Wales, who was in command of the
regiment of which / wasa member, the
18th, with the doctor and several other
officers galloped down the line and back.
Then we were ordered to lie down. All
this time we were under struggling fire
from the enemy, but had not returned
shot. The first thing that saw when We
went ON the field was battery in front of
US. There was not man nor horse near
it. A little to the right there was about
two hundred men. There did not appear
to be any regular formation to them. They
seemed to be very much cisorganized and
were firing in every direction and working
their way back to the city. The enemy
were coming down off Mary's Heights,
suppose, to capture the battery; but one OF
our regiments charged ON them and drove
them back. They did not wait for our
men to reach them but went up the hill
faster than they came down. Some of our
boys then brought horses out of the city
and hauled the guns off. That was all the
artillery that l saw that belonged to our
eide. There were two rebel guns on the
hill that kept up quito brisk fire. They
were to our right and their shot went
.shrieking across our lines. They appeared
to be firing at some troops on our left. II
they were firing At us their shot went
high, and did not do us any harm.
The firing ceased about dark. We
got up, and tried to shake ourselves
out. The ground was cold where we had
been lying and we felt quite stiff. I began
to look about me for something to lie on to
keep me OF the ground. l found an oil
building with board shutters over the win
dows. l pulled one off and exposed .
light inside. got severely sworn at, for
it was full of men and they did not want
thei. light to be seen. for it soon went out.
kept on with my door and 1t made very
good bed. We could hear the cries of the
wounded all night far and near and see
lights going over the field. 1t was the am
bulance cart picking them up. The poor
follovs xrora su{f.r;nu toprihlv and we're