Thompson's Independent
Pennsylvania
Artillery Reserve
Death Four Ranks Deep
As we returned a Yankee battery of eight guns had full play on us in the field, and our
line became a little confused; we halted, every man instantly turned and faced the
battery. As we did so, I heard a thud on my right, as if one had been struck with a heavy
fist. Looking around I saw a man at my side standing erect, with his head off, a stream of
blood spurting a foot or more from his neck. As I turned farther around, I saw three
others lying on the ground, all killed by this cannon shot. The man standing was a captain
in the 42nd Va. Regt., and his brains and blood bespattered the face and clothing of one
of my company, who was standing in the rear. This was the second time I saw four men
killed by one shot. The other occurred in the battle of Cedar Run, a few weeks earlier.
Each time the shot struck as it was descending - the first man had his head taken off, the
next was shot through the breast, the next through the stomach, and the fourth had all his
bowels torn out.
From the diary of Pvt. John H. Worsham, 21st Va.
A Cannonball in the Wilderness
"At one point," remembered Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a young Sixth Corps aide,
"General Sedgwick's. . . headquarters were very accurately shelled from the left -
one struck within a yard of quite a number of us who were siting on horseback &
bounced under the horses." Another staff aide, Thomas Hyde, was standing near the
corps commander when a stray cannonball decapitated a New Jersey private a few yards away.
The bloody head struck Hyde full in the face, momentarily blinding him and filling his
mouth with brains and gore. Friends moved to help the shaken aide to his feet, finding to
their astonishment that he was otherwise untouched. " I was not much use as a staff
officer for fully fifteen minutes," Hyde later recalled with a shudder.
Noah Andre Trudeau, Bloody Roads South, page 66.
Col. Wise on the effect of Artillery
"We often hear the sneering criticism that at such and such a battle but 1 or 2 per
cent of the enemy's loss was due to the fire of artillery. Any such test is entirely
erroneous. Not only do the guns exert a tremendous moral effect in support of their
infantry, and adverse to the enemy, but they do far more. They often actually preclude
heavy damage from the enemy by preventing him from essaying an assault against the
position the guns occupy. Then, again, by forcing the enemy to seek cover, they eliminate
their antagonists to that extent...Let us hear no more of artillery efficiency as measured
by the number of its victims."
Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Civil War, 1989, p.171
Jan. 5, 1863: The Aftermath of Murfreesboro
.....Nationals and Confederates, young, middle-aged, and old, are scattered over the woods
and fields for miles. Poor Wright, of my old company, lay at the barricade in the woods
which we stormed on the night of the last day. Many others lay about him. Further on we
find men with their legs shot off; one with brains scooped out with a cannon ball; another
with half a face gone; another with entrails protruding; young Winnegard, of the 3rd, has
one foot off and both legs pierced by grape at the thighs; another boy lies with his hands
clasped above his head, indicating that his last words were a prayer. Many Confederate
sharpshooters lay behind stumps, rails, and logs shot in the head. A young boy, dressed in
the Confederate uniform, lies with his face turned to the sky, and looks as if he might be
sleeping. Poor boy! what thoughts of home, mother, death, and eternity, commingled in his
brain as the life-blood ebbed away! Many wounded horses are limping over the field. One
mule, I heard of, had a leg blown off on the first day's battle; next morning it was on
the spot where first wounded; at night it was still standing there, not having moved an
inch all day, patiently suffering, it knew not why nor for what.
John Beatty, The Citizen Soldier or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, 1879, p.211
"We bury our dead"
At five p.m., Bate led the six hundred men of the 37th GA, 20th TN, and the 4th GA
Battalion of Sharpshooters into the Poe field. For an instant, perhaps, the Confederates
could see in the fading daylight the black outline of cannon barrels trained on them from
across the field. Then came the brilliant orange flashes, followed by the report of twenty
guns simultaneously, and the field was blanketed in smoke and blood. Bate's horse was torn
to pieces by canister. The Tennessean mounted another and kept on. It too was cut down.
Both regimental commanders were struck and Maj. T.D. Caswell fell at the head of his
sharpshooters, nearly half of whom were killed or wounded. For three, maybe four minutes,
the Confederates withstood the pounding. Men fell at the rate of nearly one every second.
Finally, after 180 had been hit, Bate led the rest back into the woods.
Ambrose Bierce watched the slaughter from behind the batteries: "Nothing could be
heard but the infernal din of their discharge, and nothing seen through the smoke but a
great ascension of dust from the smitten soil. When all was over and the dust cloud had
lifted, the spectacle was too dreadful to describe. The Confederates were still there --
all of them, it seemed -- some almost under the muzzles of the guns. But not a man of all
those brave fellows was on his feet, and so thickly were all covered with dust that they
looked as if they had been reclothed in yellow. `We bury our dead,' said a gunner
grimly."
Peter Cozzens, This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga, 1992, pp.256-257.
[Canister is packed in sawdust; the resulting smoke is bright yellow and even
thicker than the clouds of smoke from the black powder charges.]
Civilian Death
Now it was Minty who was in trouble, and he had to act fast. "My only means of
crossing the creek was Reed's Bridge, a narrow, frail structure, was planked with loose
boards and fence rails, and a bad ford about three hundred yards farther up," he
recalled. By the time Minty's first squadron trotted across, the head of the rebel column
was only five hundred yards away, "carrying their arms at right shoulder shift, and
moving at the double quick as steadily as if at drill." Mrs. Reed stood on her porch
and jeered the troopers as they rode past her house. "You Yanks are running! Our army
is coming! Our friends will not hurt me!" Just then Bledsoe's Missouri battery
(Confederate) swept the house with canister, throwing her mangled body against the door.
Peter Cozzens, This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga, 1992, p. 105.
The following excerpts were taken from Edward A. Moore of the Rockbridge Artillery,
ANV, The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson, 1907.
Just after we got to the top of the hill, and within fifty or one hundred yards of the
position we were to take, a shell struck the off-wheel horse of my gun and burst. The
horse was torn to pieces, and the pieces thrown in every direction. The saddle-horse was
also horribly mangled, the driver's leg was cut off, as was also the foot of a man who was
walking alongside. both men died that night. A white horse working in the lead looked more
like a bay after the catastrophe. To one who had been in the army but five days, and but
five minutes under fire, this seemed an awful introduction. p.31
As we drove into the road again, I saw several infantrymen lying horribly torn by shells,
and the clothes of one of them on fire. p.35
[Moore counts 27 holes in walls of a house which had been struck by three artillery
shells.] Being an artilleryman, and therefore to be exposed to missiles of that kind, I
concluded that my chances for surviving the war were extremely slim. p.49
Still photographed on my memory is the appearance of the body of one of the Second
Virginia Regiment being hauled on our rear caisson. His head had been shot off, and over
the headless trunk was fastened a white handkerchief, which served as a sort of guide in
the darkness. p. 78
....One of the drivers, Fuller, was lying on the ground, his head toward the enemy. A
shell entered the crown of his head and exploded in his body! p. 162
So great was the loss of horses, there being over a hundred in this battery killed in
battle, that during the last year of the war they were unhitched from the guns after going
into action and taken to the rear for safety. p. 315