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Show Brother "Johnny," It was the third day of the battle of the Wilderness. Down to the south-east of our brigade, the thick pine woods enclosed the little opening in front of me, and there were the "Johnnies" in force under A. P. Hill. It was one of the few opportunities where artillery could be used in that strange battle, and our five batteries swept and raked? raled? that belt of woods with shell, grape? and shrapnel. Down went whole trees, topping one across another their trunks cut sheer off. Still the Confederates stuck there, half buried in branches and boughs. Then the command "Charge!" was given, and we went for that woody bolt - what was left of it - across the open stretch, at a headlong run, and rushed into the thick brush. There we drew the enemy's fire. In our very faces came the smoke, so hot that it fairly scorched. We had no time to see who fell, but of forty-seven men in my company, only twenty-one reported that night. There the boys in gray right under our noses, crouched on the ground, with rifles aimed at us from over logs and from beside trees, and not an inch would they budge. Our line went over them like an ocean breaker. I saw but two men run back from us, [unreadable line, crease of paper]carry and clear the woods. After passing a hundred yards through the densest of the pines, we came to a much thinner growth with clumps of old dead grass. Here the reserves of the Confederates and two or three batteries caught on the fly - shells, rockets and grape?, a terrific outburst from the left and in front, almost in our very faces! With the first explosion I was struck by a fragment of shell on the right leg above the knee, which whirled me round so violently that I fell. For a minute my limb was numb. I sat up, and put my hands on it. The bone was broken, and there was a white, gaping wound where the blood gathered rapidly. With the first throbs of pain, the crimson life-tide gushed out. Such pain! It is an agony which none can know but the poor fellow who sees his good leg or arm dying? Lying?, a piece of shattered flesh, before his eyes, and feels the awful hurt of a well-nigh mortal wound, while the blood gushes as if in a moment or two it would drain his heart. To save my live, I bound my handkerchief quickly and tightly around the leg above the wound. For an instant, I writhed, then turned faint; so I can but dimly remember the counter charge of the Confederates, and the wild yell with which they chased back our broken and rented line, leaping over me where I lay, like eager bloodhounds. Following this I may, indeed, have lain unconscious for some minutes, for the next thing that I recall was the crackling and smoke of the burning pine brush and grass close by. Raising myself a little, I saw that all out to the right it was blazing like a furnace, and the men were running back through the smoke. The shell's had set the woods on fire. The roar and crackling grew louder; and then the horror of my situation burst upon me. Summoning all my strength, I tried, forgetful of my broken leg, to get up; but I fell back, too weak to even creep. Nearer still roared and flamed the frightful fire. I shouted, and prayed [to] Heaven. I envied even the poor fellows about me who lay so still and did not stir. At last I got upon my hands and one knee and tried to crawl, but soon pitched forward on my face. Just then three "Johnnies" came hurriedly through the brush, stopping for an instant, here and there, to go through the pockets of our dead - as the custom was. "Hello here!" I heard. "Dead, you?" and one of them gave me a poke with his rifle butt. I tried to raise my head. "Yes, that's hard; but got any greenbacks?" I shook my head; then, gathering strength, I partly turned. Two of the men had started on; the third stood in the smoke, regarding me for a moment. Fresh from the charge, his face and hands were smeared? Covered? With powder-stains, and his clothes were torn. "For mercy's sake," I cried, "drag me out of the brush, or kill me! Don't let me roast! Put a ball through me first!" The fellow uttered an impatient oath. But I saw real pity in his face. Curse this bloody, hellish war!" he exclaimed, and taking a step towards me, he cocked his rifle. I shut my eyes, thinking that in another moment, I should be out of pain - in eternity - for those boys in butternut didn't often miss their man. But instead, I heard, after a moment, his gun flung down. Then his arms clutched under me, and he took me up clear of the ground. I screamed with pain. "Wal, I don't blame her for yellin'!" he said, as he half-carried, half-dragged me along. Then, after stopping to catch breath, he said, "I reckon, Yank, I'd been kinder to yer to gin yer the bullet. For the doctors will be cuttin' and hackin' yer. Not a mite o' chloroform in our whole command, either, they say. And ef yer do pull through, they'll check yer inter some of them blasted prison holes." "Shoot me, then, and have done with it!" I gasped, for the fire was close on us. But he lugged me on; and he was scarcely as heavy a man as myself. Every few rods he had to stop. The flames seemed spreading all around us, and every moment or two a shell would tear through the woods and explode, scattering fire, and whizzing fragments of iron everywhere. He got me to a stone wall which skirted the woods on one side, and lifted me over it. There was a field with short green grass on the other side. He he put me down, partly in the shade of a great oak. "Thar, Yank," he said, "yer out of the fire, anyhow. Can't stay by yer, though. I must git my shootin' iron back thar in the brush, et ‘taint burnt up. But I'll tell yer what, Yank, I'll look round here tonight - ef I ain't dead myself ‘fore that time, and we hold on here." "God bless you, Johnny!" I exclaimed; "but just one sip of water if you've got it." "Thunderation!" he muttered. "I haint got half a pint in my cap, and don't expect to get another fill-up today!" But he jerked off his canteen, took one swallow, and then put it into my weak hands. "Thar, drink, you poor sufferin' cuss! Yer may keep it, too. Hang on to it ef ya can till I come round. Yer tin war's scacer [scarcer?] than twenty-dollar bills in our corps, a darned sight!" I felt him prop my head up with something - it was his old, worn, yellow-gray coat. The next moment he was gone - over the wall, back into the burning woods, after his gun. I never saw him again. The Confederates did not "hold on" there, as all know who have read the story of that terrific struggle. I say terrific, for it is quit the fashion with many of our brave stay-at-homes to say that when Grant took the command, Leo was already beaten, and all we had to do was to chase the Confederates to Richmond. It is but an ill tribute to the brave men we fought, or the fifty or sixty thousand of our brave fellows who lie buried at Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor. Our corps retook the ground. Later in the day I was found and taken to the rear. Whether my [unreadable, crease in paper] Christ-like ally I was [unreadable, crease in paper] survived the succeeding battles of the campaign or not, I do not know. Often since that day I have thought that I might have asked his name and regiment, but I was in no condition to think of that. To me he was simply a "Johnny" - but none the less a brother. He saved my life, saved me from a horrible death, and that, too, in the brutal hurry and fury of battle, when I honestly cannot say that I should have done as much for a Confederate lying there in my place. Only a soldier can really understand it. I ought not, as I have said, have rescued Johnny, if he had been in my place, but after that act, I should have done it at the risk of my life. That rough boy in butternut taught me a lesson of the true brotherhood of man, that has influenced all my life since. Had the war continued after I got well, I might have fought on from principle, but I should never have fired another bullet in malice; and I always feel as if I had a brother somewhere down South. It will take more than any of the "bloody-shirt" politicians can say, to make me forget the boy in gray who lugged me out of the burning woods at the Wilderness. The old battered canteen he left me I am still "hanging on to," as he requested. If he is living to-day, and "tin war" is scarce with him, he can have it; and with it, too, whatever also I can give that he may need more than I, for perhaps this little sketch may be the means by which I may hear from him. - Youth's Companion. |