The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 85

The day of the 19th was spent by both armies in adjusting lines and constructing breastworks. These fortifications were made by digging huge ditches and on the top of their banks fastening heavy logs. In front of these, abatis were made by filling the trees and cutting their limbs in such a way that the sharp spikes projected toward the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the advancing foe.

While placing his guns in position General Sedgwick was killed by a sharpshooter's bullet--a commander of high character and fearless courage and loved by every man in his army.

On the morning of the 10th Hanc.o.c.k attempted to turn Lee's rear by crossing the Po. The movement failed and he was recalled with heavy losses under Early's a.s.sault as he recrossed the river.

Warren led his division in a determined charge on the Confederate front and they were mowed down in hundreds by Longstreet's men behind their entrenchments. They reached the abatis and one man leaped on the breastworks before they fell back in b.l.o.o.d.y confusion. General Rice was mortally wounded in this charge.

On the left of Warren, Colonel Emory Upton charged and broke through the Confederate lines capturing twelve hundred prisoners, but was driven back at last with the loss of a thousand of his men. Grant made him a Brigadier General on the field.

The first day at Spottsylvania ended with a loss of four thousand Union men. Lee's losses were less than half that number.

The 11th they paused for breath, and Grant sent his famous dispatch to Was.h.i.+ngton:

"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

On the morning of the 12th Hanc.o.c.k was ordered to charge at daylight.

Lee's lines were spread out in the shape of an enormous letter V.

Hanc.o.c.k's task was to capture the angle which formed the key to this position.

In pitch darkness under pouring rain his four divisions under Birney, Mott, Barlow and Gibbon slipped through the mud and crept into position within a few hundred yards of the Confederate breastworks.

As the first streaks of dawn pierced the murky clouds, without a shot, the solid, silent lines of blue rushed this angle and leaped into the entrenchments before the astounded men in grey knew what had happened.

So swift was the blow, so surprising, so overwhelming in numbers, the angle was captured practically without a struggle and the three thousand men within it were forced to surrender with every cannon, their muskets, colors and two Generals. It was the most brilliant single achievement of "Hanc.o.c.k the Superb."

Pressing on, Hanc.o.c.k's men advanced against the second series of trenches a half mile beyond. Here the fight really began.

Into their faces poured a terrific volley of musketry and General John B. Gordon led his men in a desperate charge to drive the invaders back.

Lee, seeing the dangerous situation, rode to the front with the evident intention of joining in this charge.

Again the cry rang from the hearts of the men who loved him:

"Lee to the rear!"

They refused to move until he was led out of range of the fire. Gordon's men charged and drove the Federal hosts back until at last they stood against the entrenchments they had captured. Reinforcements now poured in from both sides and the fighting became indescribable in its mad desperation. Thousands of men in blue and men in grey fought face to face and hand to hand. Muskets blazed in one another's eyes and blew heads off. The dead were piled in rows four and five deep, blue and grey locked in each other's arms. The trenches were filled with the dead and cleared of bodies again and again to make room for the living until they in turn were thrown out.

Ned Vaughan saw a grey color-bearer's arm shot away at the shoulder, the quivering flesh smeared with mud, stained with powder and filled with the shreds of his grey sleeve--and yet, without blenching, he grasped his colors with the other hand and swept on into the jaws of this flaming h.e.l.l at the head of his men. The rain of musketry fire against the trees came to Ned's ears in low undertone like the rattle of myriads of hail stones on the roof of a house.

A grey soldier was fighting a duel to the death with a magnificently dressed officer in blue, bare bayonet against bare sword. The soldier, with a sudden plunge, ran his opponent through. With a shudder, Ned looked to see if it were John.

A company of men in blue were caught and cut off by a grey wave and were trying to surrender. Their officers with drawn revolvers refused to let them.

"Shoot your officers!" a grey man shouted. In a moment every Commander dropped and the men were marched to the rear.

Hour after hour the flames of h.e.l.l swirled in an endless whirlwind around this "b.l.o.o.d.y Angle." Battle line after battle line rushed in never to return. Ned saw an oak tree two feet in diameter gnawed down by musket b.a.l.l.s. It fell with a crash, killing and wounding a number of men.

Color-bearers waved their flags in each other's faces, clinched and fought like demons. Two soldiers, their ammunition spent, choked each other to death on top of the entrenchment and rolled down its banks among the torn and mangled bodies that filled the ditch.

In the edge of this red whirlwind Ned Vaughan saw a grim man in grey standing beside a tree using two guns. His wounded comrade loaded one while he took deliberate aim and fired the other. With each crack of his musket a man in blue was falling.

In the centre of this ma.s.s of struggling maniacs the men were fighting with gun swabs, handspikes, clubbed muskets, stones and fists.

The night brought no rest, no pause to succor the wounded or bury the dead. Through the black murk of the darkness they fought on and on until at last the men who were living sank in their tracks at three o'clock before day and neither line had given from this "b.l.o.o.d.y Angle."

The rain ceased to fall, the clouds lifted and the waning moon came out.

Ned Vaughan pa.s.sing over the outer field saw a long line of men lying in regular ranks in an odd position. He turned to the Commander.

"Why don't you move that line of battle now to make it conform to your own?"

"They're all dead men," was the quiet answer. "They are Georgia soldiers."

John Vaughan, on the other side, crossing an open s.p.a.ce, came on a blue battle line asleep rank on rank, skirmishers in front and battle line behind, all asleep on their arms. There was no one near to answer a question. They were all dead.

The blue and grey men were talking to one another now.

"Well, Johnnie," a Yankee called through the shadows, "I can't admit that you're inspired of G.o.d, but after to-day I must say that you are possessed of the devil."

"Same to you, Yank! Your papers say we're all demoralized anyhow--so to-morrow you oughtn't have no trouble finis.h.i.+n' us!"

"Ah, shut up now, Johnnie, and go to sleep!"

"All right, good-night, Yank, hope ye'll rest well. We'll give ye h.e.l.l at daylight!"

For five days Grant swung his blue lines in circles of blood trying in vain to break Lee's ranks and gave it up. He had lost at Spottsylvania eighteen thousand more men. The stolid, silent man of iron nerves was terribly moved by the frightful losses his gallant army had sustained.

He watched with anguish the endless lines of wagons bearing his stricken men from the field. Lee's forces had been handled with such consummate and terrible skill, his crus.h.i.+ng numbers had made little impression.

Grant was facing a new force in the world. The ordinary methods of war which he had used with success in the West went here for nothing. The devotion of Lee's men was a mania. Small as his army was the bulldog fighter saw with amazement that it was practically unconquerable in a square, hand-to-hand struggle.

Once more he was forced to maneuver for advantage in position. He ordered a new flank movement by the North Anna River.

He had opened his fight with Lee on the 5th, and in two weeks he had lost thirty-six thousand men, without gaining an inch in the execution of his original plan of thrusting himself between the Confederate leader and his Capital. Lee's army was apparently as terrible a fighting machine as on the day they had met.

A truce now followed to bury the dead and care for the wounded. So sure had Grant been of crus.h.i.+ng his opponent he had refused to agree to this during the struggle.

They found them piled six layers deep in the trenches, blue and grey, blue and grey. Black wings were spread over the top with red beaks tearing at eyes and lips while deep down below, yet groaned and moved the living wounded.

G.o.d of Love and Pity, draw the veil over the scene! No pen can tell its story--no heart endure to hear it.

The stop was brief. Already the cavalry were skirmis.h.i.+ng for the next position.

Again the keen eye of Lee had divined his enemy's purpose. By a shorter road his men had reached the North Anna before Grant. When the Union leader arrived on the scene he found the position of his advance division dangerous and quickly withdrew with the loss of two thousand men.

Once more he determined to turn Lee's flank and hurled his army toward Cold Harbor. This time he reached his chosen ground before his opponent and on the 31st, Sheridan's cavalry took possession of the place. The two armies had rushed for this point in waving parallel lines, flas.h.i.+ng at each other death-dealing volleys as they touched.

Both armies immediately began to entrench in their chosen positions.

Lee, familiar with his ground, had chosen his position with consummate skill. On June the 1st, the preliminary attack was made at six o'clock in the afternoon. It was short and b.l.o.o.d.y. The Northern division under Smith and Wright charged and lost two thousand two hundred men in an hour.