The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-03
RATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS.
Some Chastity RccolIectiOnS of the
FieId-Whnt the Dead Indicated.


can give you none" was Grants famous
reply TO Lee when, under a flag of truce,
a cessation of hostilities was requested
| long enough to bury the dead. Thus one
great and awful feature of the battle of
the Wilderness was the unburied dead,
4 that lay for days and weeks all over the
bieodstained field. one of the most horrible
and CHASTITY sights ever exposed to hui
man vision, Probably no battlefield of
the civil war afforded such an opportuni-
| " for inspection as this.
Ordinarily after a fight, burying parties
were detailed and the long, deep trench,
q common grave, was dug, and the dead
were at least covered, but not so here.
| Grant could not stop, and the long stretch
| of country, overrur with Mosbys guer-
| illas, that interviewed between the Pappa-
| hammock river and the nearest union lines,
| prevented aid from that direction in bury
ing the thousands that were slain in the
Wilderness and in the fight at Spottsylva-
mia court house
| / sat on my horse looking over the por-
| ton of the field where the fierce and
| deadly fighting of May 4 and 5, 1864, oc-
CURED. 1t was four or five days after
the fight, about the 9Th or 10th of May
| A small detachment of our regiment had
| been sent as an escort to a train of am
| balances to gather in the wounded, who
were being temporarily cared for in barns
and farm houses near the battlefield, and
l thus had an opportunity TO view this
historic scene. During the thirty-three
years since, it has been an open question
whether 10 be glad or sorry that / visited
| this battlefield. 1t could not be more
viyidly impressed upon me had I seen it
yesterday. 1t has been a nightmare and
do al
have l prayed that visions of those up
turned faces, blackened and distorted of
| the staring glazed eyeballs, of the stiffen-
ed. outstretched hands, seemingly still
grasping for support, those rigid forms
wrapped in blue and gray, that had
fought their last battle and now lay side
by side in that great charnel field, might.
be botted forever from my recollection.
Then, again, l have been glad that l
knew so well how that battle field appear
ed, and how barbarous brutal and in
human it made war seem; glad that l
knew how 10000 dead horses looked, who
had faced and met death amid the wild
frenzied scenes of one of the greatest bat
ties in the history of the world
One of the most striking features to us
that day, and the one most thoroughly fix
ed in our memories, was that all over
that battlefield, or at least that part we
visited there lay three boys in blue to one
in gray 1t will be remembered that all
through the Wilderness fight the confeder-
ates were protected by a system of earth
works and hastily constructed fortifca-
lions, and abatises, while the union troops
were compelled to fight largely in the
open. and assaii the confederates in their
strongholds. From these it was utterly
impossible to dislodge the enemy except
by the mastery series of flank movements;
so successfully planned by Gen. Grant.
We saw in one place where the men in
line of battle had taken off their KNAPP
sacks and laid them in a long row, evil
IDENTIFY to be prepared to make a charge
upon one of these earthworks of the con-
federates some little distance in front.
These knapsacks remained almost undis-
turbed, while the men lay, some in heaps,
some here and there in front of the forti-
ficatons they had charged upon. At this
point the union dead lay thickest. 1 be
lieve l could have dismounted and walked
a distance as great as two ordinary city
blocks and never once have stepped upon
the ground-walking on dead bodies all
the way Indeed, had I undertaken the
CHASTITY journey, 1 would have been COM
PEELED in some places to climb over heaps
of the dead.
There was a slight growth of underbrush
at this point with a few trees remaining.
made a careful examination and could
not see a limb or a twig or bush, but
was marked by a bullet, and some of
them in several places. The wonder
seemed not that there were so many dead,
but that any lived. Officers and privates
all made a common cause here and rank
was forever obliterated, for among the
dead we noticed the shining shoulder
straps of commissioned officers mingled
with the ordinary blue uniform of the
common soldier The trees were torn and
shattered, the fearful work of shot ana
shell being shown on every side. Muskets,
canteens, haversacks, knapsacks-in fact, 4
nearly all that makes up the accoutre,
ments of the soldier-were scattered in all
directions. Near the road, evidently
smashed by a solid shot, was the broken
caisson of an artillery wagon, while the
gun lay in the ditch with a dead soldier
lying face downward across it.
None of us felt like performing any act
of ghoulish vandalism though, as 1 saw
letter extending from the pocket. of a
dead confederate soldier, 1 dismounted
and, some of the boys gathering around
we looked ii over. 1t was worn and part
ly illegibe but we made out that it was
from the town of Hamlet, in the state
of North Carolina. 1t was in a ladys
handwriting, and the portion that we were
able to read was follows:
my Dear jack We hope that you an
soon return and help us with the tobacco
crop; but if not we do hope and pray to
God that our dear Jack will not be harmed
by those terrible yankees.
AS we looked at the letter and then at
the upturned face of poor Jack, turning
black from exposure to the sun, and then
thought of that poor wife, or mother or
sister who was waiting and watching for
the return of the dead and mangled SOL
der az our feet and of the other ten
thousand homes from which dear ones
had gone out who were now among that
host of dead around us, we began to
comprehend something of the brutal, bar
barous nature of war. And, personally, l
would have had a keener comprehension
still had | known then what l learned a
few days later, that on that very battle
field, and not far from the spot where
poor Jack lay, my own brother had been
killed few days before. He was on the
skirmshng line, early In the morning of
May 4, at the very beginning of the fight.
He was struck in the thigh with MIME
bullet, carried to the rear, his leg hastily
amputated, and he died few days later
in a hospital.
We had ample time to inspect the field
while our ambulances were visiting the
houses, barns, and huts to which the
wounded had been carried, or to which
they had been able 10 walk or crawl. In