War from the Inside. Frederick L. Hitchcock

just beyond the city. We had arranged for our night's "lodging" and were preparing supper, when one of the native farmers came into camp and asked to see the colonel. Colonel Oakford and Lieutenant-Colonel Wilcox were temporarily absent, and he was turned over to Major Albright, to whom he complained that "you 'uns" had stolen his last pig and he wanted pay for it. The major, who was a lawyer, began to cross-question him as to how he knew it was our men who had stolen it; there were at least fifty other regiments besides ours on the ground. But he would not be denied.

       COLONEL CHARLES ALBRIGHT (see image enlarged)

      He said they told him they was "a hundred and thirty-two uns," and he also saw those figures on their caps. The major asked how long ago they took it. He replied that they got it only a little while ago, and offered to go and find it if the major would allow him. But the latter was confident he was mistaken in his men—that some of the old "vets" had got his pig. His chief argument was that our men were greenhorns and knew nothing about marauding; that some of the "vets" had doubtless made away with his pig and had laid it on our men. So persuasive was the major that the man finally went off satisfied that he had made a mistake in his men. The man was only well out of camp when one of our men appeared at the major's quarters with a piece of fresh pork for his supper, with the compliments of Company——. Now, the orders against marauding were very severe, and to have been caught would have involved heavy punishment. But the chief point of the incident, and which made it a huge joke on the major, lay in the fact that the latter who was a thoroughly conscientious man, had successfully fought off a charge against his men, whom he really believed to be innocent, only to find that during the very time he was persuading his man of their innocence, the scamps were almost within sound of his voice, actually butchering and dressing the pig. How they managed to capture and kill that pig, without a single squeal escaping, is one of the marvels of the service. Certainly vets could have done no better. The man was gone, the mischief was done, the meat was spoiling, and we were very hungry. With rather cheerful sadness, it must be confessed, we became particeps criminis, and made a supper on the pork.

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      DRAWING NEAR THE ENEMY—BATTLE OF SOUTH MOUNTAIN—PRELIMINARY SKIRMISHES

      Sunday, September 15, we broke camp at daylight and marched out on the Hagerstown "pike." Our division had the field this day. We crossed the ridge in rear of Frederick City and thence down into and up a most beautiful valley. We made only about seven miles, though we actually marched over twelve. We were in the presence of the enemy and were manœuvred so as to keep concealed. We heard heavy cannonading all day, and part of the time could see our batteries, towards which we were marching.

      Towards night we heard the first musketry firing. It proved to be the closing of the short but sanguinary battle of South Mountain. General Reno, commanding the Ninth Corps, whose glistening bayonets we had seen across the valley ahead of us, had overtaken the rebel rear guard in South Mountain pass and a severe action had ensued. General Reno himself was killed. His body was brought back next morning in an ambulance on its way to Washington. We reached the battle-ground about midnight, whither we had been hurried as supports. The batteries on both sides were still at work, but musketry firing had ceased. It had been a beautiful though very warm day, and the night was brilliantly moonlight, one of those exceptionally bright nights which almost equalled daylight. And this had been Sunday—the Lord's day! How dreadful the work for the Lord's day!

      Here I saw the first dead soldier. Two of our artillerymen had been killed while serving their gun. Both were terribly mangled. They had been laid aside, while others stepped into their places. There they still lay, horrible evidence of the "hell of war." Subsequently I saw thousands of the killed on both sides, which made scarcely more impression on me than so many logs, but this first vision of the awful work of war still remains. Even at this writing, forty years later, memory reproduces that horrible scene as clearly as on that beautiful Sabbath evening.

      It was past midnight when we bivouacked for the little rest we were to have before resuming the "chase." Being now in the immediate "presence of the enemy," we rested on "our arms," that is, every soldier lay down with his gun at his side, and knapsack and accoutrements ready to be "slung" immediately on the sounding of the "call." We officers did not unsaddle our horses, but dismounted and snatched an hour's sleep just as we were. Bright and early next morning we were on our way again. It was a most beautiful morning.

      We soon passed the field where the musketry did its work the night before, and there were more than a hundred dead rebels scattered over the field, as the result of it. Two or three were sitting upright, or nearly so, against stumps. They had evidently been mortally wounded, and died while waiting for help. All were dressed in coarse butternut-colored stuffs, very ugly in appearance, but admirably well calculated to conceal them from our troops.

      We rapidly passed over the mountain (South Mountain) and down into the village of Boonsborough. There was abundant evidence of the rebel skedaddle down the mountain ahead of our troops in the way of blankets, knapsacks, and other impedimenta, evidently dropped or thrown away in the flight. We passed several squads of rebel prisoners who had been captured by our cavalry and were being marched to the rear under guard. They were good-looking boys, apparently scarcely more than boys, and were poorly dressed and poorly supplied.

      Some freely expressed themselves as glad they had been captured, as they were sick of the fighting.

      My own experiences this day were a taste of "the front," that is, the excitement attending a momentarily expected "brush" with the enemy. Part of the time my heart was in my mouth, and my hair seemed to stand straight up. One can have little idea of this feeling until it has been experienced. Any effort to describe it will be inadequate. Personal fear? Yes, that unquestionably is at the bottom of it, and I take no stock in the man who says he has no fear. We had been without food until late in the afternoon for reasons heretofore explained. Towards night one of my friends in Company K gave me a cup of coffee and a "hardtack."

      Just before reaching Boonsborough, a pretty village nestling at the foot of the South Mountain, our cavalry had a sharp skirmish with the rebel rear-guard, in which Captain Kelley, of the Illinois cavalry, was killed, I was told. At Boonsborough we found the field hospitals with the rebel wounded from the fight of the day previous. Their wounded men said their loss was over four hundred killed, among them two brigadiers-general, one colonel, and several officers of lesser rank. A rebel flag of truce came into our lines here to get the bodies of these dead officers and to arrange for burying their dead and caring for their wounded. The houses of Boonsborough had been mostly vacated by the people on the approach of the rebel army and the fighting, and the latter had promptly occupied as many of them as they needed for their wounded. Imagine these poor villagers returning from their flight to find their homes literally packed with wounded rebel soldiers and their attendants. Whatever humble food supplies they may have had, all had been appropriated, for war spares nothing. Some of the frightened people of the village were returning as we passed through, and were sadly lamenting the destruction of almost everything that could be destroyed on and about their homes by this besom of destruction—war. Food, stock, fences, bed and bedding, etc., all gone or destroyed. Some of the houses had been perforated by the shells—probably our own shells, aimed at the enemy. One man told me a shell had entered his house and landed on the bed in the front room, but had not exploded. Had it exploded, he would have had a bigger story to tell.

      The rebels, we learned, had been gone but a few hours, and we were kept in pursuit. We marched out the Shepherdstown road a few miles, reaching and passing through another village—Keedysville. We were continuously approaching heavy cannonading. Indeed, we had been marching for the past three days within hearing of, and drawing closer to, the artillery barking of the two armies. Old vets said this meant a big fight within the next few hours. If so, I thought I shall better know how to diagnose similar symptoms in the future.

      A mile beyond Keedysville we