Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 2.
Frank Moore, Ed.

As soon as the proper arrangements could be made, Gen. Garnett's body was conveyed on one of his own litters, thrown from their wagons by his flying soldiers to hasten their retreat, to Gen. Morris' Headquarters. There fresh clothing was procured from a Georgia trunk in one of the captured wagons, and the body was decently laid out.

The brave boy who fell by him was taken to the hill above the Headquarters and buried by Virginia troops. At his head they placed a board with the inscription: “Name unknown. A brave fellow who shared his General's fate, and fell fighting by his side, while his companions fled.”

When Gen. Garnett fell it was only known that he was an officer attempting to rally the flying rebels. He wore a Colonel's uniform, with the epaulet changed, and the Brigadier-General's silver star glittering on the shoulder strap. Over this he wore a fine black overcoat. The ball struck him in the back, (as he was turning on his heel to rally his men,) passed transversely through his body, and came out on the left side of his breast. He wore a dress sword, with plated silver hilt, which had been presented to him by his old friend, Gen. G. M. Brooke, of war of 1812 distinction. This, with his gold chronometer, the opera glass slung across his shoulder, a fine topographical map of Virginia, and his pocket-book, containing sixty-one dollars in Virginia currency, were taken from his person by Major Gordon, to be kept at Headquarters till an opportunity should offer for returning them to his family. Two or three of the bills in the pocket-book were of the new edition of continental money lately issued by Virginia.

Gen. Garnett was a slightly built man, with small head, finely cut and intelligent features, delicate hands and feet, black hair, and with full beard and moustache, kept closely trimmed, and just beginning to be grizzled with white hairs. His features are said, by those who knew him, to have retained their natural expression wonderfully. He was instantly recognized by Major Love, Gen. Morris, and Capt. Bentram, all of whom were intimately acquainted with him. Major Love had been for four years his room-mate at West Point, and had always cherished a warm friendship for him till he turned traitor to the flag and to the Government which had educated and made him what he was.

Returning from the bank where Garnett lay, I went up to the bluff on which the enemy had been posted. The first object that caught the eye was a large iron rifled cannon, (a six-pounder,) which they had left in their precipitate flight. The star-spangled banner of one of our regiments floated over. Around was a sickening sight. Along the brink of that bluff lay ten bodies, stiffening in their own gore, in every contortion which their death anguish had produced. Others were gasping in the last agonies, and still others were writhing with horrible but not mortal wounds, surrounded by the soldiers whom they really believed to be about to plunge the bayonets to their hearts. Never before had I so ghastly a realization of the horrid nature of this fraternal struggle. These men were all Americans — men whom we had once been proud to claim as countrymen — some of them natives of our own Northern States. One poor fellow was shot through the bowels. The ground was soaked with his blood. I stooped and asked him if any thing could be done to make him more comfortable; he only whispered “I'm so cold!” He lingered for nearly an hour, in terrible agony. Another — young, and just developing into vigorous manhood — had been shot through the head by a large Minie ball. The skull was shockingly fractured; his brains were protruding from the bullet hole, and lay spread on the grass by his head. And he was still living! I knelt by his side and moistened his lips with water from my canteen, and an officer who came up a moment afterward poured a few drops of brandy from his pocket-flask into his mouth. God help us! what more could we do? A surgeon rapidly examined the wound, sadly shook his head, saying it were better for him if he were dead already, and passed on to the next. And there that poor Georgian lay, gasping in the untold and unimaginable agonies of that fearful death for more than an hour!

Near him lay a Virginian, shot through the mouth, and already stiffening. He appeared to have been stooping when he was shot; the ball struck the tip of his nose, cutting that off, cut his upper lip, knocked out his teeth, passed through the head, and came out at the back of the neck. The expression of his ghastly face was awful beyond description. And near him lay another, with a ball through the right eye, which had passed out through the back of the head. The glassy eyes were all open; some seemed still gasping with opened mouths, all were smeared in their own blood, and cold and clammy, with the dews of death upon them.

But why dwell on the sickening details? May I never see another field like that! There were on it ten corpses; two more died before they could be removed to the hospital; three died during the night; another was dying when I left.

All around the field lay men with wounds in the leg, or arm, or face, groaning with pain, and trembling lest the barbarous foes they expected to find in our troops, should commence mangling and torturing them at once. Words can hardly express their astonishment, when our men gently removed them to a little knoll, laid them all together, and formed a circle of bayonets around them, to keep off the curious crowd, till they could be removed to the hospital and cared for by our surgeons.

There was a terrible moral in that group on