[45]
Learning from his attendants, who were bending over and fanning him, that he was still conscious and might be spoken to, I bent forward and took his cold, clammy hand in mine.
“Who is it?”
he inquired, looking up languidly.
“A friend — don't you remember who bought that saddle of you near the sugar-house?”
“Yes, I remember.
Ah! sir, you will have to set me down among the items.”
“Oh! No, Lieutenant, I hope not,” I replied, although my heart belied my speech, for death seemed stamped upon every lineament.
I left him as another glorious martyr to his country's cause; but I am glad to say that, at this moment of writing, I hear the ball has been extracted, that he is doing well, and hopes are entertained of his recovery.
Judging from what his own men say of him, (and I find this one of the surest tests of merit,) a braver young man does not live in the United States service.
Before leaving this hospital, I cannot refrain from bearing my testimony to the unceasing and faithful attention toward the wounded which I noticed on the part of Surgeon L. C. Hartwell, Medical Director of the Third division.
Before General Paine was wounded, he had succeeded in getting five regiments within three or four rods of the enemy's works — some of the skirmishers actually getting inside.
Our loss on this occasion was very great — the killed, wounded and missing of Paine's command reaching to nearly seven hundred.
A number of officers and privates (among them Captain Stamyard, of the Eighth New-Hampshire, Lieutenant Harsley and Lieutenant Newell, of the same) being wounded, were ordered in as prisoners, under threat of being shot from the enemy's works.
General Paine was shot below the knee of the left leg, shattering both bones, but hopes are still entertained of saving his leg. He was not brought off the field till night-time, when his wound was dressed and he immediately conveyed to New-Orleans.
While this was going on in one portion of General Grover's command, the remainder, if not so hotly pressed, were scarcely less actively engaged.
At two A. M. the troops under General Weitzel's immediate command got into motion from their present locality, (which they so gallantly won on the twenty-seventh of May, and have held ever since,) and advanced round to the left to Colonel Dudley's front, leaving five companies on picket-line.
The attack — for assaults these demonstrations can scarcely be called — was made by two columns in two different places.
The column on the right was composed of Grover's division and Weitzel's brigade, under command of General Weitzel, while the left was composed of General Emory's division, under command of General Paine--whose doings I have just recorded.
Colonel Dudley's brigade, of Augur's division, was held in reserve.
The forces under General Weitzel comprised his own brigade, formed of the Eighth Vermont, Lieutenant-Colonel Dillingham; Twelfth Connecticut, Lieut.-Colonel Peck; Seventy-fifth New-York, Lieutenant-Colonel Babcock; One Hundred and Fourteenth New-York, Lieutenant-Colonel Perlee, and two regiments of Grover's division — the Twenty-fourth Connecticut and Fifty-second Massachusetts.
The history of the action on the part of General Weitzel would be but a counterpart of that of General Paine--the same obstacles to overcome, the same indomitable bravery in opposing them, the same temporary suspension of hostilities in the face of opposition too elaborately difficult to be surmounted for the moment.
Of what was going on at the extreme left, under General Dwight, I am not yet so well informed, for correspondents cannot be omnipresent, though many would have them so, and I would rather tell your readers nothing than give them incorrect information.
I therefore do not feel myself in a position either to support or oppose the rumors which I hear everywhere — and among officers of very high rank — that the right wing did not come up <*>s promptly to the mark as it was supposed they would have to do, if we would divide the enemy and keep them from concentrating their power, as they certainly did, upon our valorous and devoted right wing.
The very same complaint was made — with what amount of truth time alone will decide — against our left wing in the great attack of our right wing on the twenty-seventh May.
To whatever cause it may be attributed, it is certainly lamentable to see any thing like a want of complete cooperation in moments of such intense consequence to the nation.
Go where we will, do what we may, it seems to be our everlasting fate to be allowing ourselves to suffer for want of concentration and cooperation.
The very same portion of the enemy who were so desperately contending with our right wing under Weitzel, on the twenty-seventh May, are actually asserted to have — at a later hour of the day — opposed us at other portions of our line, which could not have been possible had our movements been simultaneous.
With a plan so well concocted, it is quite impossible to suppose that such an oversight could have formed part of the scheme, and therefore we are driven — in both events of the twenty-seventh May and the fourteenth June--to ascribe failure to some lack of punctuality in carrying out directions, somewhere or other.
All I can answer for is that that portion of the line which had been most immediately under my own observation, (I mean Major-General Augur's,) on both those occasions, came squarely up to the orders given to it.
New-York herald account.
near Port Hudson, June 17, 1863.
At early dawn on Sunday, the fourteenth instant, we commenced another advance movement on Port Hudson, with a force which was thought to be equal to any emergency, but which, as the result will show, was entirely insufficient to accomplish the object of the original plan.
As I have before indicated, in speaking of the conjunction of our right and left, the rebel de 