Sharpsburg September 17th 1862
This is repost from something I wrote a year or so ago. Was thinking about my experiences at the 140th Anniversary reenactment of the battle of Sharpsburg. Just thought it would be appropriate for today:
A September Morning
The morning came all to early. We had been on the move for the better part of a week and with very little to eat, all of it cold. It was still dark, wet and a little chilly when morning reveille sounded. Our mess had just been issued some rations and the fat back was just starting to sizzle on the tin canteen half carefully laid on the coals of last nights fire. It promised to be the first hot chow this week for the regiment. It had been a hard, fast march from Fox's Gap on South Mountain. It wasn't to be. The long roll sounded, its stirring beats dashing our hopes and souring our dispositions. Reluctantly, tired men moved to gather musket, cap pouch and cartridge box. We would make them pay for interrupting what little breakfast was to be had. The dawn was just beginning to make a grey and hazy smear over the fields. The thunder rolled across us as we fell into our ranks. The sun slowly continued on its journey, changing the sky from dark grey to light. The Captain was dressing the company line on the colors, while the First Sergeant gave us one last gear check, it would not take long. Our line was small. Only 28 men of company L out of the 110 which had marched from Texas a year, a lifetime, before remained. The Ragged First's 1200 men had dwindle to little over 200 steadfast souls. It seemed as if we had stood there for hours staring into the mouth of hell.
The sun finally broke over the waving stalks of corn, still shrouded in fog and smoke, and danced across undulating waves of burnished steel crawling towards us through the amber stalks of corn. My breath caught in my throat at just the sheer rhythmic beauty and terror of the spectacle before me. I was so lost in the sight before me that I didn't hear the orders to advance and a sharp shove from the corporal standing behind me brought me back to the task at hand. I wondered if I had loaded my rifle, It seem so important right then that I could think of nothing else. Suddenly, we were within the dancing field of corn. The stalks pressed against us, slowed us, disrupted our tightly ordered ranks as if to say "only chaos and death may pass into here." Suddenly, a sheet of fire and smoke erupted to our front. Stalks of corn and leave fell as if scythed. Men screamed and fell suddenly the impenetrable rows of ripening corn were filled with blue clad soldiers. Officers were screaming orders, I couldn't hear them, but I saw the rifles flash to the ready. My body reacted as if a machine, to the ready, aim! I felt my Enfield kick back into my shoulder, but did not hear it. All the rifles in the regiment spoke with one voice, raising a scream of defiance, or maybe joy, from our depleted ranks.
I could not see or hear the blue clad demons that torment us. The air was rent with an unceasing roar, as if a giant sheet of canvas were being perpetually ripped, and thick with powder smoke. Only the sharp spears of fire reaching out towards me told me the blue clad soldiers were still there. I absently worked my musket, reaching for the cartridge, biting it open, tasting the bitter salty powder on my tongue, pouring it into the muzzle, ram it home, search for the percussion cap with raw bloody fingers, press it to the nipple, cock to ready, aim at a flash and fire. The rifle slammed against my shoulder, again and again, numbing it. My fingers were scorched with the heat from my piece and torn from the sharp edges of the little brass caps. Death was all around me. My mess mates fell and I stepped over their bodies. The Captain moved up and down our shrinking line shouting encouragement it mattered not. We were no longer men in need of encouragement, we were a machine. A pitiless, remorseless machine belching fire and bristling with bright steel.
All humanity was burned away, only the mechanical dance of loading, firing, and closing files remained. With every volley we took a step forward as the spears a flame to our front retreated just a little. I knew they would break, I could feel them breaking! A high screeching roar rent the air as the regiment screamed in defiance, I realized I was screaming as well. I saw the Lone Star flag of Texas launched forward and it pulled me along with. Yelling like things possessed, and trampling over the torn corn and blue heaps once men, we pursued our blue demons deeper into the shredded stalks of corn. The field was alive with flame but we pressed into it backs bowed, hats down over our eyes as if fighting through a driving rain, a storm a fire, steel and death. I saw the First Sergeant fall and suddenly I was thrown backward punched in the chest pulled into darkness and quiet. Death had come to reap the harvest from a cornfield watered in blood near Sharpsburg, September 1862.
Only this story ended happily. As the firing died away the roar of applause replaced the noise of the guns. The wounded, dead and living, both blue and gray arose from the field and embraced each other with joy, in a cornfield near Sharpsburg, September 2002 at the 140th commemoration of the Battle of Sharpsburg.
FORWARD THE OLD BRIGADE
TO THE TYRANT NEVER YIELD
A September Morning
The morning came all to early. We had been on the move for the better part of a week and with very little to eat, all of it cold. It was still dark, wet and a little chilly when morning reveille sounded. Our mess had just been issued some rations and the fat back was just starting to sizzle on the tin canteen half carefully laid on the coals of last nights fire. It promised to be the first hot chow this week for the regiment. It had been a hard, fast march from Fox's Gap on South Mountain. It wasn't to be. The long roll sounded, its stirring beats dashing our hopes and souring our dispositions. Reluctantly, tired men moved to gather musket, cap pouch and cartridge box. We would make them pay for interrupting what little breakfast was to be had. The dawn was just beginning to make a grey and hazy smear over the fields. The thunder rolled across us as we fell into our ranks. The sun slowly continued on its journey, changing the sky from dark grey to light. The Captain was dressing the company line on the colors, while the First Sergeant gave us one last gear check, it would not take long. Our line was small. Only 28 men of company L out of the 110 which had marched from Texas a year, a lifetime, before remained. The Ragged First's 1200 men had dwindle to little over 200 steadfast souls. It seemed as if we had stood there for hours staring into the mouth of hell.
The sun finally broke over the waving stalks of corn, still shrouded in fog and smoke, and danced across undulating waves of burnished steel crawling towards us through the amber stalks of corn. My breath caught in my throat at just the sheer rhythmic beauty and terror of the spectacle before me. I was so lost in the sight before me that I didn't hear the orders to advance and a sharp shove from the corporal standing behind me brought me back to the task at hand. I wondered if I had loaded my rifle, It seem so important right then that I could think of nothing else. Suddenly, we were within the dancing field of corn. The stalks pressed against us, slowed us, disrupted our tightly ordered ranks as if to say "only chaos and death may pass into here." Suddenly, a sheet of fire and smoke erupted to our front. Stalks of corn and leave fell as if scythed. Men screamed and fell suddenly the impenetrable rows of ripening corn were filled with blue clad soldiers. Officers were screaming orders, I couldn't hear them, but I saw the rifles flash to the ready. My body reacted as if a machine, to the ready, aim! I felt my Enfield kick back into my shoulder, but did not hear it. All the rifles in the regiment spoke with one voice, raising a scream of defiance, or maybe joy, from our depleted ranks.
I could not see or hear the blue clad demons that torment us. The air was rent with an unceasing roar, as if a giant sheet of canvas were being perpetually ripped, and thick with powder smoke. Only the sharp spears of fire reaching out towards me told me the blue clad soldiers were still there. I absently worked my musket, reaching for the cartridge, biting it open, tasting the bitter salty powder on my tongue, pouring it into the muzzle, ram it home, search for the percussion cap with raw bloody fingers, press it to the nipple, cock to ready, aim at a flash and fire. The rifle slammed against my shoulder, again and again, numbing it. My fingers were scorched with the heat from my piece and torn from the sharp edges of the little brass caps. Death was all around me. My mess mates fell and I stepped over their bodies. The Captain moved up and down our shrinking line shouting encouragement it mattered not. We were no longer men in need of encouragement, we were a machine. A pitiless, remorseless machine belching fire and bristling with bright steel.
All humanity was burned away, only the mechanical dance of loading, firing, and closing files remained. With every volley we took a step forward as the spears a flame to our front retreated just a little. I knew they would break, I could feel them breaking! A high screeching roar rent the air as the regiment screamed in defiance, I realized I was screaming as well. I saw the Lone Star flag of Texas launched forward and it pulled me along with. Yelling like things possessed, and trampling over the torn corn and blue heaps once men, we pursued our blue demons deeper into the shredded stalks of corn. The field was alive with flame but we pressed into it backs bowed, hats down over our eyes as if fighting through a driving rain, a storm a fire, steel and death. I saw the First Sergeant fall and suddenly I was thrown backward punched in the chest pulled into darkness and quiet. Death had come to reap the harvest from a cornfield watered in blood near Sharpsburg, September 1862.
Only this story ended happily. As the firing died away the roar of applause replaced the noise of the guns. The wounded, dead and living, both blue and gray arose from the field and embraced each other with joy, in a cornfield near Sharpsburg, September 2002 at the 140th commemoration of the Battle of Sharpsburg.
FORWARD THE OLD BRIGADE
TO THE TYRANT NEVER YIELD
posted by Ed | 9/17/2005 05:05:00 AM
|
0 comments
