Drum Taps in Dixie: Memories of a Drummer Boy, 1861-1865 — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Drum Taps in Dixie: Memories of a Drummer Boy, 1861-1865
John Stuart Mill · en
I assisted to the rear another of the lads of Co. H, Henry C. Potter, a
former schoolmate at Carthage, and as bright and promising a young man as
any who went to the war. His left arm was badly shattered, necessitating
an amputation. There was not a murmur; not a regret. He was glad it was
not his right one, for with that saved he could be of some help to his
father in the store. He made me promise to stay by him during the
operation, and after it was over I assisted him into an ambulance and bade
him a last good-bye, for he did not live to see Jefferson county again.
IN INTRENCHMENTS.
After the fighting of June 3 Gen. Grant instructed the commanding officers
to have the troops intrench themselves as best they could.
In many places the lines were only forty or fifty yards apart. The ground
all about was low and marshy, which caused chills and fever.
Our regiment occupied a sort of angle so that we were exposed to bullets
from the flank as well as front. The sharpshooters got in lots of their
deadly work at Cold Harbor, and if a head was shown above the earthworks
several “minies” would go whizzing past. Just for fun the boys used to
elevate their caps on a bayonet for the “Johnnies” to shoot at.
The men on the picket line dug holes or trenches to protect themselves and
could only be relieved at night under the cover of darkness. All day long
they would lie there in the broiling sun with little food or water, and
between the lines were dead men and horses which polluted the atmosphere.
Some of the wounded from the fight of the 3d were on the field up to the
7th, completely covered by the fire of the enemy’s pickets and
sharpshooters, although the men made heroic efforts every night to bring
their comrades in.
A TRUCE.
“Let us bury our dead:
Since we may not of vantage or victory prate;
And our army, so grand in the onslaught of late,
All crippled has shrunk to its trenches instead,
For the carnage was great;
Let us bury our dead.”
“Haste and bury our dead!
No time for revolving of right and of wrong;
We must venture our souls with the rest of the throng;
And our God must be judge, as He sits over head,
Of the weak and the strong,
While we bury our dead.”
Gen. Grant made overtures to Lee the 5th for a truce, but no cessation of
hostilities took place until the evening of the 7th, the hours being from
6 to 8.
The dead were buried where they fell and, strange as it may seem, quite a
few men were found alive after lying there about four days without any
food or water except what they may have had when wounded.
The case of a man I assisted in bringing in our lines who had five wounds
on his body was a sad one, but the surgeons thought his life could be
saved.
I wish I might find words to portray to the reader something of the
impressiveness of the scene at Cold Harbor that night.