Saturday, September 20, 1862, in Virginia
If I do not write this down, I will not be able to recall this in the future. Yet, in order to do this, I must recall it and it sickens me to do so. On Tuesday night, we could hear the cannonade in the distance and knew that our time to enter the fray was close. On Wednesday morning, the entire division was put on the road early in the direction of the thunder.
We marched faster than usual and rested so little. We all knew that something big was happening and we must be there in a hurry in case our presence would make the difference. As we came nearer to the source of the sounds, they grew in such scale that we knew that whatever was happening, it was larger than we had imagined.
As we approached the battlefield, we could see Yankee signalmen waving their flags. If they were signaling our arrival, there was nothing we could do about it. They were too far away to shoot down. When we joined battle, the brigade was facing a lush cornfield into which we entered, not knowing what would be on the other side. In the cornfield, while taking the top of a slight rise, we encountered the Yankees. We opened fire as did they. They were Rhode Islanders, and as we held the high ground, we cut them down as if they were the corn itself.
They Yankees stood our fire for awhile and withdrew rather rapidly to the cover of a stone fence. Our Colonel Barnes ordered a charge and so we complied, yelling all the way. Barnes noticed that we had advanced so far from our lines that we were unsupported and withdrew a bit. Once others advanced to within supporting distance, Barnes ordered the attack resumed and we drove them away from the fence.
There we stood and shot it out with the enemy. In our squad, Vincent was hit in the left hand. In our company, John Fain, Bill Taylor and a boy of just seventeen, Elias Frasier, were killed. Colonel Barnes suffered a Minie ball to his thigh which is a very bad would to have inflicted. Barnes had taken over command of the regiment after Dunnovant had resigned this spring. I suppose Major Jones, if he still lives, is now in charge of the regiment.
When night fell, we were still in posession of our part of the field, and there we stayed, largely falling in place to the ground. We dared not pitch a proper camp lest the Yankees advance again upon us. I fell asleep straight away, without any supper. If anything happened after I entered the realm of the unconsious, I remained thankfully unaware.
When dawn broke the next day and the haze had left the fields and our eyes, we could see a sight that should never be seen by anyone. The hills here are gentle and we could see for some distance. We observed spots before our eyes, many spots dotting the fields. Each had been someone's son but no more. They have been turned into spots of grey and blue lying peacefully on green fields now turned red.
All during the day, part of us stood to as the rest of us ate or replenished our cartridges or searched for friends alive or dead. I could only get down two crackers and no more. Finding sweet water was difficult. My canteen is now empty. I noticed poor Castles, and several others, have to remove themselves from us to go and evacuate their stomachs.
What is grown in fields watered with blood?
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