Karl Bacon by An Eye for Glory: The Civil War Chronicles of a Citizen Soldier Read Free Book Online

men closed ranks and continued onward in a slow, deadly advance.
    Shot and shell screamed all around us. With each burst, heads ducked and bobbed, some even dove to the ground. Again my heart fainted within me, and I yearned to turn aside to the farm buildings for shelter.
    “Steady, men, steady. It’ll not be long now.”
    Sarge remained stolid and upright as he led the company forward, and I resolved to do the same. His lips quivered slightly, with fear I thought at first, but the movement was too rhythmical. Sarge had said he was always afraid when the shooting started, but I was sure he would never quiver with fear. I believe he was praying, for what I know not, but at such a time as was upon us, there was no shortage of things to pray for.
    The slope up to the enemy line at the sunken road was bisected by a second wagon lane. The 130 th Pennsylvania and the Fourteenth Connecticut advanced along the western side of this lane while the 108 th New York advanced along the eastern side, but the New York regiment slowed its pace and halted just below the crest of the hill, safely out of sight of the enemy, and they did not move until the fighting was done.
    The Pennsylvania and Connecticut boys continued up the slope and entered a cornfield. Much of the corn had been broken down by Weber’s men, some of whom lay dead or dying among the stalks. We stepped around them or over them and pressed onward. Wounded men staggered back through our line, at times being aided by one or two “concerned” friends. There was a low fence at the end of the cornfield, which marked its boundary with a mown hayfield. Across this grassy field we saw what we were up against.
    The land before us sloped downward for about a hundred yards, ending at a sunken lane with a strongly fortified fence. Sunlight gleamed off hundreds of Confederate bayonets, but little else could be seen of them as they lay in wait to kill as many of us as they could. Their officers walked back and forth behind the lines of riflemen, looking in our direction and barking orders.
    The First Delaware, in front of the Fourteenth, and the Fifth Maryland, in front of the 130 th Pennsylvania, began to advance into the hayfield toward the sunken road. They marched inperfect step, shoulder to shoulder, down the gentle slope, drawing ever nearer to the Rebel guns. Their colors flew high in the breeze, leading the straight line of blue toward the enemy. Sixty yards … fifty yards … forty yards. The line stopped about twenty-five yards from the sunken road.
    A Confederate officer brandished his saber high in the air. “Fire!”
    As if triggered by a single hand, a sheet of lead and flame leaped toward the men in blue. A second distinct sound, almost in the same instant, carried up that slope to my ears, the dull thud of hundreds of Rebel bullets simultaneously striking home in Federal flesh. Red blood misted the air. Almost all the color-bearers were shot down, the colors fell to the earth, and nearly half of the men went down as well. Some were blown over backward by the force of the volley, dead before they hit the ground. Others spun around, their arms flailing in a kind of grotesque pirouette, then pitching face downward into the dirt, never to move again. Many more were left writhing in agony in the red Maryland earth, staining it redder still with their life’s blood.
    I looked at the men on either side of me. John Robinson was just to my left, Jim Adams and Harry Whitting to the right. Fear was etched on the faces of my brothers, as I knew it was on mine. Wide eyes blinked again and again, breathing was quick and shallow, sweat dripped from chins and cap brims.
    “Steady, men, steady,” Sarge called out.
    Battle smoke drifted up the slope toward us. Gray, shadowy figures appeared moving toward us. Men began to fire sporadically through the smoke. I fingered the trigger of my Springfield; it bucked painfully against my shoulder.
    “Cease fire! Cease fire!” Captain