"The Irish Ninth in Bivouac and Battle"
by Michael H. Macnamara
CHAPTER XXVI.
Rainy Weather. -- Damp Meditations. -- The Rapidan before. -- The Rappahannock behind. -- Counter Strategy. -- Bull Run. -- The old Battle-ground. -- The Death of Kearney. -- Graves of the gallant Dead. -- The dead Sentinel. -- Heroic Mementos. -- March to Gainesville. -- Army Wagons rolling over the Dead.
RAINY weather came upon us. O the ennui of those days ! We sat within the tents, the flaps thrown back, gazing out upon the falling water, and the miniature rivers cutting their irregular way through the soft yellow soil and rushing along the drains of the camp, and forming themselves into great pools, and looking as if the tide of the might deluge was fast receding, and earth in her native modesty peeping out for sunshine's smile.
The trees seemed to droop and weep; and the little dirty brown tents looked as if heartily ashamed of their cramped, uncomfortable, and very "unjolly" appearance; the fires would struggle fitfully for a moment to warm the damp hands and dry the saturated garments of their uncomfortable guests, and then flicker down under the torrent in a mass of thick blue smoke, through which a little tongue of flame would sometimes flit to show
"That still she lived." You could hear, too, the unweary axe, with its monotonous chop, chop, from the woods, and the voice of the woodman soldier, as he plied his toil, singing merrily in the rain. This dismal weather did not long continue, however, and when the rain ceased, and the sun came out, we issued from our canvas huts, stretched our unexercised anatomy, and prepared to move. We fell back from the Rapidan, passed through Culpepper, much to the delight of its inhabitants, marched to the Rappahannock, which we crossed the same day, and moved to Warrenton Junction, where General Meade concentrated the army of the Potomac, and prepared to oppose by counter-strategy the strategic movements of Lee. In this General Meade was eminently successful. In the progress of his movements he arrived at Beverly Ford, where he expected Lee would give battle. A few days after, the battle of Bristow Station was fought, about the 14th of October, in which the Second Corps acted with splendid gallantry, having been cut off from the main army, and succeeded in repulsing the enemy. About midnight of the day of the battle of Bristow Station, the Fifth Corps came to their assistance. The Ninth endured great fatigue during that day and night, having marched from Bristow Station to Centreville, and back to Fairfax, where they encamped for the night. The next day we marched to the old Battle-ground of Bull Run, where we arrived October 20, 1863. The battle-ground is a series of low hills, intersected with narrow streams of good water, the great essential of a battle-field or camp-ground.
The fiercest part of the contest under Pope was fought in broad, open fields fenced in along the north-east side, with dense woods, at that time occupied by our cavalry, which, supported by the Pennsylvania reserves, made a most splendid charge upon the forces of the enemy, over the open field, fences, and streams, upon the rebels in position at that point, driving them to the shelter of the wood upon the south-west portion of the field.
The contest in the open field must have been very fierce, for piles of dead are accumulated upon every part of this memorable ground; and wherever one walks perfect skeletons present themselves to the eye, some still clad in uniform, and others, in a crumbled state of fallen glory, still retain vestiges of the livery in which they fought and died. They are principally the skeletons of Southern soldiers, who, in charging across the plain, fell in hundreds, under the fierce fire that flashed from the guns of our gallant men. (1863)
The field of Bull Run is the most memorable in the history of the war for the desperate valor of the combatants, and the tenacity with which, for a whole day, the ground upon which they fought was contested; for the gallant men who fell there; for the blow which for a time retarded our progress upon the Confederate capital. We rode to the spot at Chantilly, upon the west side, from which Kearney advanced to reconnoitre the enemy's position, and where he received the fatal wound which cut him off in the zenith of his glory.
The Ninth wa encamped upon one of the hills referred to, and for hundreds of yards graves ran out in every direction. Deep hollows pointed out the spot where the dead men lay sleeping in their glory. The ground had fallen in over the fleshless forms and bleaching skulls, and rough pieces of board were the unwritten obituaries of the gallant fallen, who stemmed the tide of battle up to that spot where they made their last stand, and sighed out their last breathe for their country !
A few horses were scattered among the hills, shattered by the shot and shell of the contending forces, dumb witnesses of the struggle in which they had occupied so distinguished a part.
We rode into the woods which circled the place, for the purpose of watering our horse. The moon glimmered down through the interstices of the trees, and the wind sighed gently among the branches, and off on the hills the campfires of the soldiers burned while the gallant, weary fellows profoundly slept beside them.
We dismounted and led our horse to a spring that bubbled up in the moonlight. He darted aside in affright. We looked to ascertain the cause of his fear, and beheld, in a sitting attitude, with his back to a tree, the form of a man. He was so silent and motionless that we approached, after vainly calling to him, and placed our hands upon his shoulder; they rested there heavily for a second; we shook him, and the form crumbled to dust under our touch.
It was the skeleton of a Southern cavalryman, in full dress, who had, doubtless, crawled there to assuage his thirst, and, exhausted, had leaned against the tree, with his dying eyes upon the rich, cool, crystal stream that ran murmuring at his feet, which, in his helpless, dying agony, he had been unable to reach! Alone in death he had sentinelled the duties of the good soldier, until from a stranger's touch he assimilated with the dust from which he sprung !
The country, for miles about Bull Run, is undulating in character, covered with brush, and crossed by streams in many places. A few ruined houses still are standing, riddled with ball and shell, indexes of the fierce nature of the artillery fire during that memorable fight. Cartridge boxes, bayonet scabbards, and gun stocks are strewn in every direction, fallen from the nerveless hands of wounded men, or lying complete upon the skeletons of the dead. One could scarcely contemplate the scene without feelings of sadness, mingled with pride, at the glorious valor of our people, and the reckless heroism they ever display in defence of whatever cause or principle they may espouse.
As we moved along the road to Gainesville on the afternoon of October 20, 1863, we beheld innumerable graves by the road-side -- a few hasty shovels of dirt cast upon the poor fellows on the spot where they had fearlessly fallen. Skulls and member bones of human forms, cracked under the wheels of army wagons, eliciting no other remark than "There's more of them yonder," or, "They fell thick and fast here" -- language seemingly cold and unsympathetic, but uttered in a tone which told how keenly they pitied the poor, neglected bones that once formed the good husband, the noble son, the brave brother, the gallant, impulsive, patriot soldier ! That portion of Virginia is one immense cemetery -- one vast graveyard, daily ploughed by never-ending lines of army wagons. It is vaster than Waterloo -- more grand and startling in the fierce heroism of its reminiscences.
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