Copperhead Gore: Benjamin Wood's Fort Lafayette and Civil War America

CHAPTER XXIII

[ 217 ] CHAPTER XXIII. The Federal troops, with successive charges, had now pushed the enemy from their ¤rst position, and the torn battalions were still being hurled against the batteries that swept their ranks. The excellent generalship of the Confederate leaders availed itself of the valor and impetuosity of their assailants to lure them, by consecutive advance and backward movement, into the deadly range of their well planted guns. It was then that, far to the right, a heavy column could be seen moving rapidly in the rear of the contending hosts. Was it a part of Hunter’s division that had turned the enemy’s rear? Such was the thought at ¤rst, and with the delusion triumphant cheers rang from the parched throats of the weary Federals. They were soon to be undeceived. The stars and bars ¶aunted amid those advancing ranks, and the constant yells of the Confederates proclaimed the truth. Johnston was pouring his fresh troops upon the battle¤eld. The ¤eld was lost, but still was struggled for in the face of hope. It was now late in the afternoon, and the soldiers, exhausted with their desperate exertions, fought on, doggedly, but without that ¤ery spirit which earlier in the day had urged them to the cannon’s mouth. There was a lull in the storm of carnage, the brief pause that precedes the last terri¤c fury of the tempest. The Confederates were concentrating their energies for a decisive effort. It came. From the woods that skirted the left center of their position , a squadron of horsemen came thundering down upon our columns . Right down upon Carlisle’s battery they rode, slashing the Copperhead Gore [ 218 ] cannoneers and capturing the guns. Then followed their rushing ranks of infantry, and full upon our ¶ank swooped down another troop of cavalry, dashing into the road where the baggage-train had been incautiously advanced. Our tired and broken regiments were scattered to the right and left. In vain a few devoted of¤cers spurred among them, and called on them to rally; they broke from the ranks in every quarter of the ¤eld, and rushed madly up the hillsides and into the shelter of the trees. The magni¤cent army that had hailed the rising sun with hopes of victory was soon pouring along the road in inextricable confusion and disorderly retreat. Foot-soldier and horseman, ¤eld-piece and wagon, caisson and ambulance, teamster and cannoneer, all were mingled together and rushing backward from the ¤eld they had half won, with their backs to the pursuing foe. That rout has been traced, to our shame, in history; the pen of the novelist shuns the disgraceful theme. Harold, although faint with loss of blood, which oozed from a¶esh-wound in his shoulder, was among the gallant few who strove to stem the ebbing current; struck at last by a spent ball in the temple, he fell senseless to the ground. He would have been trampled upon and crushed by the retreating column, had not a friendly hand dragged him from the road to a little mound over which spread the branches of an oak. Here he was found an hour afterward by a body of Confederate troops and lifted into an ambulance with others wounded and bleeding like himself. While the vehicle, with its melancholy freight, was being slowly trailed over the scene of the late battle, Harold partially recovered his benumbed senses. He lay there as in a dream, striving to recall himself to consciousness of his position. He felt the dull throbbing pain upon his brow and the stinging sensation in his shoulder, and knew that he was wounded, but whether dangerously or not he could not judge. He could feel the trickling of blood from the bosom of a wounded comrade at his side, and could hear the groans of another whose thigh was shattered by the fragment of a shell; but the Fort Lafayette by Benjamin Wood [ 219 ] situation brought no feeling of repugnance, for he was yet half stunned and lay as in a lethargy, wishing only to drain one draught of water and then to sleep. The monotonous rumbling of the ambulance wheels sounded distinctly upon his ear, and he could listen, with a kind of objectless curiosity, to the casual conversation of the driver, as he exchanged words here and there with others, who were returning upon the same dismal...