Curious weapons.
What a morning for a battle!
We had scarcely swallowed our coffee when the boom of the two guns immediately in our front and the hurling of a few shells far over our heads warned us that the ball was about to open, and hastened us down to our hastily-constructed rifle-pits (they had been thrown up with bayonets and tin-cups the night before). As the enemy's skirmishers approached and the minie-balls whistled overhead and thumped the earth-works in front, I noticed that one man took a Testament from his pocket, and siting bolt-upright, with his head above the breast-works, began to read.
He seemed totally unconscious that he was disobeying orders and exposing his person to the bullets at the same time.
Lieutenant Brown ordered him several times to lower his head behind the embankment, but he seemed not to hear, until
Brown drew his sword and threatened to take his head off, when he suddenly returned to consciousness and obeyed.
This old sword of
Brown's was a most
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curious and antique specimen.
It was shaped something like a reap-hook or Turkish scimeter.
Brown had been a colonel of militia, and I suppose had sported this sword on many a ‘general muster’ day, when walking-sticks and umbrellas constituted the arms of the rank and file.
A brave old fellow, though, was
Brown, and he fought through the war, though ‘muster free’ when he entered the army.
By the way, amongst the curious things of that day and time, nothing was more curious than some of the weapons with which we armed ourselves, unless it was the idea of war which led us to adopt such weapons.
I believe our entire army was armed with
Bowie knives.
I, myself, purchased in
Richmond, at an exorbitant price, a formidable-looking knife, all unconscious of the fact that the modern soldier has a decided reluctance to submitting his person to the carving process, whatever may have been the fashion in
Caesar's day. Most of my company, though, were armed with knives of wonderful make and fashion.
Truly they were ‘fearfully and wonderfully made.’
They were manufactured at
Howardsville, Albemarle county, in
Driscoll's foundry.
They weighed as much as five or six pounds, and proved very serviceable shortly after in hacking the ‘blue-beef,’ of wild-onion flavor, with which our commissariat abounded One officer got
Driscoll to make him a two-edged sword, weighing, I suppose, twenty-five pounds, and a ‘
Bowie’ weighing half as much.
The sword, which was ground to a sharp edge, was fully four inches broad, and
Peter Francisco would have found difficulty in wielding it. When we fell back from
Centreville to
Bull Run, one of the hottest days I ever felt, it was pathetic to see this officer, with these two formidable weapons and a pistol to-boot buckled around his waist, staggering along under the rays of that July sun. He fell a martyr to his efforts to keep up with the column, for he had a sunstroke, and was not in the
battle of Manassas.
He learned better afterwards, and fought bravely through the war, distinguishing himself by his courage and zeal.
After the war he became well known to the people of
Richmond, and occupied high official positions.
There is no exaggeration about these things.
How they make us smile when we think of them!
When the firing began that morning, a negro cook left his fire, seized a musket, and started down to the breastworks with the evident intention of fighting it out by the side of his master.
Some officer, much to my regret, ordered the faithful fellow back, and in the discussion that followed it was urged that to allow him to fight with us and for us would be to put a negro on
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an equality with white men. How times have changed!
Then a negro was denied the privilege of fighting for his master, but since then he has disported himself and made laws for that same master in legislative halls.
Presently the enemy debouched in front of us and
Latham, until then as silent as the grave, ran two of his pieces (I think he had two at that point) out into the road and opened on them.
His command, ‘Ready!’
‘Aim!’
‘Fire!’
repeated each time in stentorian tones, could plainly be heard from one end of the line to the other, and we all felt for the first time that peculiar elation which the booming of our own cannon always produced.
This was the first taste of our masked battery which the enemy got, and it proved unpalatable, as they scampered away in great haste.
After they retired,
Latham turned his attention to two of their guns in the road in front of him and ‘knocked them into pie.’
We saw them there the next day spiked and abandoned where they stood.
Though not occupied ourselves for some time after that, we began to hear the increasing roar of battle over on the extreme left, about the
Henry House.
An Alabamian came down to our line and told us bad news from that quarter.
He said our men were being cut to pieces and driven back.
Then came an order for us to double-quick to the left.
Out of our rifle-pits we tumbled, coming into line on the plain in rear of our former position.
Just as we started at a double-quick, the enemy saw us and commenced to shell us. I saw a rifle shell almost spent pass close to the head of our column, bounding and ‘swapping ends’ as it went.
It came very near the long legs of a tall, lanky sergeant, and he jumped up about three feet as it passed under him. This ugly customer seemed to take all the starch out of the fellow, for he dropped out behind a tree just before we reached our position on the left, and the last I saw of him that day he was parting with his breakfast, swallowed so eagerly a short while before.
I never suffered so from heat before or since.
I believe when we halted my tongue was almost hanging out. We crossed a small branch, and I dropped down and drank out of a bloody pool where some of the wounded had been washed.
I could not help it. My thirst was intolerable.
