Bold Sons of Erin (48 page)

It took a long while for the mists to burn away, and then the sky cleared in patches. We heard a cannonade begin off to the left, followed by the popping of distant rifle shots. The battle had been joined on other fields. In the town there was only this marching to and fro, orders cried in impatient voices, and the galloping of individual horses, carrying messengers on their backs who must rush their puzzle pieces to the generals.

Sudden as lightning, a battery opened up, much closer now, but still to the left of our vantage point. That was the provocation that brought us the battle. Union guns fired behind us, bombarding the Rebel lines from across the river, where the ranges allowed. They must have stood above the mists, with a clear view of the enemy.

The fire slackened again, allowing the heated fight downriver to swell and fill the silence.

The attack had not properly begun, yet wounded men already stumbled back through the streets or come borne along on stretchers. One bloody-faced fellow, beard all gore, tottered along with a look of flawless astonishment. He staggered past a clot of lads on the march. They revealed their rawness by stopping to look at the mess of him, until an officer rushed up and gave them the devil.

The air brightened, infiltrated by sunlight, and the veil of mist burned away.

I saw Death.

The Confederates lined the ridge behind the town. I never had seen such a splendid defensive position. At the foot of the ridge, their infantry waited behind stone walls and earthworks, protected by sunken roads and all the barriers ingenuity, spades and muscles might provide. Behind them, rising up the slope, artillery pieces occupied beds dug level, with earth piled about to protect both guns and gunners. Above those stages of soldiers and smoothbore cannon, their rifled guns frowned just below the crest, where groups of officers stood about, gawking at maps and pointing, while horsemen cantered along with reports and orders. They had been given time to prepare a reception for our boys, and they had not wasted a moment. The Rebels’ tiered positions allowed them to strike us with concentrated artillery without a risk of harm to their own infantry. The foot soldiers themselves appeared to be ranked deep enough to fire volley upon volley in rotation.

It was lunacy to attack those positions. No army in the world could have carried their lines.

But there would be an attack, and no mistaking it. Perhaps General Burnside felt he had no choice, given the clamor for blood in Congress, where political men who would never fight themselves nor risk the lives of their sons demanded war to the death, no matter the cost. And the editors of too many of our newspapers had grown ferocious in their criticism of Mr. Lincoln’s conduct of the war, refusing to see from the safety of their offices that victories cannot be gained by wishes alone. I sometimes think those newspaper fellows killed more of our men with their ink than the Confederates did with their bullets.

Perhaps Burnside hoped for a miracle. Maybe he was played-out and resigned. I cannot say. But any sergeant worth his salt might have told the general he was not engaging in battle, but simply sentencing thousands of men to death.

Our brigades stood ready. With their loot discarded and packs set upon the ground in long brown ranks, lines of men in greatcoats waited just beyond the last houses, where fences gave way to fields. Only scattered outbuildings spoiled the beauty of their formations. A few regiments, whose commanders were confident they would reach the enemy, stood with bayonets fixed, though most remained prepared to exchange volleys. Officers turned their horses over to orderlies, patting the animals once or twice, then positioned themselves near their colors.

Down the river valley, the fighting was hot. But here, before the town, only a few stray cannon shots reminded the waiting men of the morning’s purpose. But those harassing fires did damage enough. Some balls shattered a company’s front, leaving clots of dead and writhing wounded. But the lines closed up again, while medical sorts rushed forward to clear the casualties. We had grown skilled at looking after our wounded, though still unable to spare them needless wounds.

The attack began with shouted commands, then drums. A band played in the distance, ineffectual and small against the spectacle of thousands of men stepping off. The first regiments rippled forward, with officers stretching out their swords to keep the men aligned, while sergeants pressed the slow men to keep pace. Some regiments appeared quick of foot and willing, while others plodded solemnly, waiting for the Rebel guns to open up
en masse.

Even before the gunners yank their lanyards, before the crackling of rifle volleys begins, a battle is noisy. A hundred commands are shouted at once, thousands of boots tramp the earth, and the soldiers’ kit clangs and chimes and jounces. Nor had the rest of the army paused to witness the attack. In the street below our lookout, more regiments moved up, crowding into the fields to take the place of the men who had gone before them.

Some of our boys went forward that morning with shoulders bent, as if struggling against a headwind. But the breeze, chill though it was, blew at their backs. Mayhaps it was a normal response to the storm of death they expected.

Folly, twas all folly. We had built a massive army. But General Burnside had driven it into a narrow, fatal place, where our strength could not be brought to bear decisively. As so often our army had done, we would fight in bits and pieces, handing the Rebels advantages beyond those they had earned.

Even allowing for the restrictions of the terrain, our opening attack was of insufficient strength. The brigades that went forward did not even fill up the fields, but diverged as they marched, opening gaps between themselves and letting the Rebels concentrate their fires. Could Burnside see his doings from his position across the river? We sent those men to be sacrificed, not to win.

Our ranks of blue had not crossed a third of those broken fields when the Rebels opened with guns.

A combination of ball and explosive shells tore into our lads. I never saw such a sudden loss of life. Where a solid shot ripped through the ranks, it painted red streaks in the air, splashes of blood from disintegrated bodies. Men and boys flew skyward as if they were circus performers. A few did turn to flee or threw themselves to the ground. But the miracle was that the rest of the soldiers went forward, marching onward, many a line with rifles still dressed on their shoulders.

Flags fell down, then rose back up. Men closed the gaps where comrades had fallen away, contracting their lines toward a shifting center and thinning the rear ranks. In the intervals between company formations, and in the greater plots between echeloned regiments, the winter fields were pocked with corpses and wounded men—twitching, cowering, crawling. And still you heard the shouts, gone hoarser now, amid the roar of the guns. The moving lines lost their suppleness and order, just beginning to waver, as men misjudged the pace of unseen comrades. All staring straight ahead they went, into death, with the fixity that is a human utmost. Rare was the officer who bothered to dress his company’s ranks any longer.

Regiments broke into an aggrieved trot, impatient to close with the enemy and end their helplessness.

Twas a spectacle, I give you that. But one to shame a Christian.

Halfway across the field, there was a ditch, cut at a diagonal to the town, with a stream or a race running through it. The first men clambered into the depression. It broke the last traces of order in the regiments that entered it, even those that had shown well under the guns.

In most spots along the line of the attack—or attacks, I should say, for the effort had fragmented badly—the Rebel infantry held their fire until our men passed the ditch and tried to re-form in the meadow. When the Johnnies opened up at last, entire ranks dropped in place. Feathers of gore preened from their skulls, blood fanned from legs and backs. Their greatcoats kept most of the corpses neater than you will see them in a summer battle, but the mess would be grisly enough for those in the grip of it.

Regiments buckled, but smaller groups pressed on. As far as they could. Under the orders of their surviving officers, some of those still alive and whole got back into ranks to level their own volleys at the Rebels. But the Confederates were protected by their defenses, while our men stood in the open. And bravery does not count against a bullet.

The attack began to dissolve. Nearing the Confederate lines, an uneven swale dipped into the earth, a depression so mild the eye did not mark it until you saw our boys lose height as they entered it. Twas as far as any man got in that first attack.

Man by man, then company after shattered company, our lads went to ground and stayed there. Clinging to the faint protection the dip in the earth provided. Other soldiers milled about back in the ditch, while the weakest of will skulked off the field, despite the threat of punishment for cowardice. The wounded crawled where they could.

Perhaps the Rebels had been angered by the misbehavior of our troops in Fredericksburg, for they had eyes and ears and must have known. Anyway, it was the first time that I marked
them shooting wounded men as the poor devils dragged themselves off.

If Burnside meant to make a show, to please the scribblers and senators, that should have been enough. Those first attacks were finished, before a single regiment—or a single Union soldier—reached the enemy lines. Torrents of fire coursed from our enemy’s guns, as if the air itself had been ignited. No man could stand before that storm and live.

It should have been enough to show any general with a pair of eyes that the odds was hopeless. Yet, more of our brigades had begun to advance. Only to be shot to bits by the rows of enemy cannon and to fade away before the volleys of ten thousand Rebel rifles.

The madness continued for hours. All piecemeal it was, feeding handsome regiments and brigades into a grinder. It no longer struck me as brave, but only wanton. Somewhere a regimental band mocked all the misery, playing jaunty tunes to urge men on.

Out on the field, there were stretches of ground where you might have jumped from one body to another, dead and living both, to make a game of never touching the earth. I could see only a portion of that swale, but it was almost solid blue now, with the survivors who could make no further progress toward the enemy seeking safety behind their brothers’ corpses. Some men even rolled and shoved the bodies of the fallen into barricades for the living. Wherever they did so, the dead would begin to move again, slightly and sullenly, as countless rounds punched into them.

Men burrowed into the wreckage of cloth and flesh. The closer you looked to the forward edge of those bodies, the thicker the piles and the grislier the scene. They were packed in like young snakes in a nest, tormented and writhing. Hundreds of other able-bodied soldiers refused to leave the ditch that divided the field.

And then I heard another band play, just when I thought our attacks might have been halted. These musicians played
with a blitheness careless of the day. Twas an Irish reel, all quickness and jollity.

I saw them unfold from the alleys and lanes, ordered up at last. They dressed their ranks in good order, not a pistol shot from our perch. Our house had not gone unscathed by shell, and Jimmy and I were dusted over with plaster, but we lacked the sense to tear ourselves from the spectacle. I think I may claim that both of our hearts quickened. For this was the matter of the day to us.

Meagher did not dismount, but rode along their lines. His men cheered him, as if he were leading them off to a pick-nick, with free beer and prizes for all. Indeed, they did not have the concentration of flags before them that had led all the other brigades. But I saw one field of green unfurl, at which the lads in the ranks stood straighter and prouder. Every man wore a green sprig in his cap.

Even in the battle’s lull, the valley remained in a tumult. The guns had only slackened, the way a glutton at table slows, although he will not cease eating. Odd rifle shots competed with screams and shouts. I saw Meagher speaking to his men, gesturing with his sword as he restrained his high-spirited horse. But I could not catch his words.

Twas only one brigade. And its strength had already been sapped by the summer’s battles. Antietam had bled it badly. But those lads showed proud and fine as the Guards on parade.

They stepped off to the beat of a half-dozen drums, with their bandsmen silent now. The breeze tugged that green flag toward the enemy, as if even nature wished to lead them on. That very same wind, light and cold, swept off a great deal of the smoke, leaving the field of battle unusually clear. A still day would have shrouded the valley, but now the smoke only hung in pockets or drifted above the firing lines of our enemies. It was almost as if General Meagher had been a prophet: All the world could see the Irish advance.

Those lads had pluck. My heart nearly broke to see them go, yet I tell you I felt like cheering. As some of their comrades did
along our lines. The Irish marched as if they were the invincible heroes of old, taking pains to dress their ranks, even keeping step as best they could. Oh, those lads had taken their general’s words to heart. They meant to show us all what they were made of.

And the Irish always like a good scrap, of course.

When the enemy’s cannon, confident of range, opened upon the Irish, they did not react as the other brigades had done. They closed up well enough. But instead of gritting their teeth, they shouted defiance, a thousand men and more, threatening revenge as they quickened their pace.

The guns ripped lanes right through them, dissolving men, detaching limbs, tossing bodies heavenward as bad-tempered girls fling dolls. The blue ranks entered a band of smoke. When they re-emerged, their numbers were markedly fewer. And still an angry core of them were shouting, threatening, cursing and damning their enemies. I could not see Meagher any longer, nor any man on horseback. The officers who did not lie dead were leading their men on foot.

They reached the ditch where the mill-race ran and fair leapt down into it, shoving stragglers aside and scrambling up the other bank, as if in a contest. I thought they might make a wild charge from the spot. Instead, God bless them, they rallied to their standard and their officers, forming up in perfect order again.