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lifting him out, laid him upon a blanket, hoping to get him into an ambulance; but upon seeking an ambulance sergeant, he said there was no present opportunity, as not all of our own wounded were yet cared for, but that the enemy's would be attended to as soon as possible.1
So furiously did the tempest rage at the angle, so numerous were the bullets fired from either side, especially from the Union, that nearly all the trees standing within musket-range were killed by them,2 and one sound oak, twenty-one inches in diameter, was absolutely cut off by bullets alone.
A section of it may now be seen in the War Department at Washington, to which it was presented by Gen. N. A. Miles, who commanded a brigade of Barlow's division in the charge.
Now came days of moving about, and changing positions.
‘No mere general statement,’ says Swinton, very truly, ‘can give any idea of the enormous amount of labor, suffering, and privation that befell the troops in these continual shiftings of the corps from point to point of the long line.’
The following extracts from a private diary detail our movements during tile week succeeding the battle.
They were by no means as onerous or varied as befell many of the organizations,—in fact, we got well rested, and prepared for a fresh start in these days.
1 What became of him afterwards, of course, is not known. A more stoical case I never saw. He manifested no great warmth of desire to get off the field, and displayed no disappointment after being apprised that he could not be removed yet. He made no conversation, only in answer to inquiries, and seemed perfectly reconciled to whatever Fate had in store, evidently not expecting much consideration from the ‘Yanks,’ although not saying so. He was a member of the Twenty-first Mississippi Regiment.
The Arakelyan press, Boston, 1909.
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