Chapter 14: Camp Life and News-Gathering

The story of the Wilderness campaign, during which were fought the greatest musketry battles in the history of the world, with their awful slaughter, has been told by hundreds of witnesses, and by Carleton himself in his books; but the life of the camp and how the great army was handled, how the news was forwarded, and how Carleton beat the government couriers and all his fellow historians of the hour, getting the true report of the awful struggle before the country, has not been told, or at least, only in part. Let us try to recall some of the incidents.

In the first place, this was the time of the year when the flies and manifold sort of vermin, flying, crawling, hopping, hungry, and ever biting, were in the full rampancy of their young vigor. It was not only spiteful enemies in human form, that sent crashing shells and piercing bullets, but every kind of nipping, boring, sucking, and stinging creatures in the air and on the earth, that our brave soldiers, and especially our wounded, had to face. Even to the swallowing of a mouthful of coffee, or the biting of a piece of hard tack, it was a battle. Flies, above, around, and everywhere, made it difficult to eat without taking in vermin also. Even upon the most careful man, the growth of parasites in the clothing or upon the person was a certainty. Within twenty-four hours the carcass of a horse, left on the field of battle, seemed to move with new and multitudinous life suddenly generated. The stench of the great battle-fields was unspeakable, and the sudden creation of incalculable hosts of insects to do nature’s scavenger work was a phenomenon necessary, but to human nerves horrible. The turkey-buzzards gathered in clouds for their hideous banquet.

All this made the work of the surgeons greater, and the sufferings of the wounded more intense; yet, redeeming the awful sight of torn and mangled humanity, was the splendid discipline and order of the medical staff. Upon the first indications of a battle, the regimental wagons of each corps would be driven up to some real or supposed safe place. It was the work of but a few moments for the tables to be spread with all their terrible array of steel instruments, while close at hand would be the stores of lint, bandages, towels, basins, and all the paraphernalia which science and long experience had devised. These diminished, in some measure, the horrors of the battle for at least the wounded. It was a sublime and beautiful sight, as compared with the wars of even a century ago, when the surgeon had scarcely a recognized position in the army. In the very midst of the hell of fire and flame and noise, the relief parties, with their stretchers, would go out and return with their burdens. Soon the neighborhood of the surgeon’s wagon looked like a harvest-field with the windrows of cut grain upon it. Strange as it may seem, there was often more real danger in this going and coming from rear to front, and from front to rear, than on the very battle line itself. Many a man preferred to stand in the fighting files with the excitement and glory, than to get out into the uncertain regions of wandering balls and bursting shells. The Carletons, both uncle and nephew, had often, while out collecting news, to scud from cover to cover, and amid the “zip, zip” of bullets. Dangerous as the service was, there was little reward to the eyesight, for the Confederate army, like the Japanese dragon of art, was to be seen only in bits, here and there.

How easy for us now, in the leisure of abundant time and with all the fresh light that science has shed upon surgery, and focussed upon the subject of gunshot wounds, to criticise the surgeons of that day, who, with hundreds of men each awaiting in agony his turn, were obliged to decide within minutes, yea, even seconds, upon a serious operation, without previous preparation or reinforcement of the patient. The amputation, the incision, the probing had to be done then and there, on the instant. It is even wonderful that the surgeons did as well as they did. Often it was a matter of quick decision as to whether anything should be attempted. One look at many a case was enough to decide that death was too near. Often the man died in the stretcher; sometimes, when marked for the operating-table, he was asleep in his last sleep before his turn came. Surgeons, hospital stewards, nurses, detailed men, had to concentrate into moments what in ordinary hospital routine may require hours.