A Moment from Pickett's Charge

The horses of the lead officers were galloping to the front. The red battle flags rippled lazily as the color guard marched ahead of the infantry. As some of the smoke finally began to clear, the infantry’s bayonets glimmered brightly in the afternoon sun. They were in perfect alignment. It was the best I had seen this division march in the three days I had been with them. I was almost proud of them. And there was still no noise yet coming from the Union front. 

          We marched slowly down the shallow slope and onto the valley floor. With the smoke fading away by this point and we could now see how difficult this mission was going to be. The Federals wouldn’t fire until we were within range, but when they did we had nowhere to run and nowhere to take cover. In addition to Pickett’s Division, two additional Divisions were marching along just to our left under Major Generals Pettigrew and Trimble.

The drummers had been told to stay close to Armistead because once the attack would begin he would need to communicate orders to us. We would then translate those orders to the soldiers through certain drum calls. He was easy to keep tabs on because he continued to hold his felt hat on the tip of his sabre high above his head as he marched out in front of us. He made for an easy target if I ever saw one.

       

   Just when I was beginning to wonder how long we would be able to march until the Federals began shooting again, I heard cannons firing off from our right near the hill called Little Round Top. They had a near flanking position on us since we were marching east and they were pointed due north. The enfilade fire would take out as many as ten men with a single round. Kemper’s brigade was taking most of the punishment. The guns would roar in a puff of smoke, then a whistling projectile could be heard speeding through the air, squealing like a tea kettle, and then an explosion would erupt in the midst of the brigade lines sending chunks of dirt and flesh flying in all directions. The men looked like rag-dolls being tossed around. Many of the men died instantly, but many did not. Some were even hobbling or crawling back towards Confederate lines leaving trails of blood and guts behind them.

          The ordnance rifle cannon had been developed just a few years earlier. It delivered shells that would explode on impact. The muzzle of these cannons had been built with a three inch spiral groove bore along the inside. This groove created a similar effect to the rifled muskets: improved accuracy and better range.

The 3-inch rifled cannon normally fired Hotchkiss or Schenkel shells that looked like bullets and weighed between 9 and 14 pounds. They could also be used to fire canister but, as a rifle, they were not as effective with that sort of ammo. Canister was best when fired from the older smoothbore Howitzers or Napoleon cannons. The timed shells that were fired would burst in the air with devastating effect, shooting out shards of jagged iron shrapnel that would tear men to pieces.  

          “Left oblique!” commanded Armistead. We began to march at a slight angle towards the north where we would soon merge with the Pettigrew and Trimble Divisions. We reached another of the low swales in the land about halfway across the valley where we were ordered to halt.

          “Dress the line!” came the command.

          “Outrageous!” fumed Sgt. Maddox. “We’re open targets out here!”

          It was bad enough to be marching across an open field with guns free to rain down on us from above, but having paused in the open to realign and fill in the gaps that fallen soldiers had left made us an even easier target. Men slid together to fill in the open spaces but as they were doing so more men continued to be blown to bits by the Union barrage. The smell of blood and screams of pain made my stomach flip. I wanted to puke again, but I hadn’t eaten anything in so long I had nothing to vomit up.

          Union cannons were firing from our left as well. Atop Cemetery Hill was another battery of guns laying waste to Pettigrew’s Division. If the Rebels were to have any chance at all of breaking this line they had better pick up their pace. If they delayed much longer there would be no one left to take the hill.

"Boy Colonel"

By Don Troiani, this painting captures the moment when Henry Burgwyn of the 26th North Carolina regiment seized the unit's battle flag to lead the charge up McPherson's Ridge. He died moments later.

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The Amputation Bench

When we entered the house we also found it filled with wounded and tormented men. Bloody and nasty. Pain and anguish that was every bit as bad as Hiroshima. Severed limbs. Buzzing flies. Open wounds. Bullets being picked out from ripped flesh. The living lying next to the dead or soon-to-be dead. And the smell. Blood, excrement, sweat, and the ever-present stench of the dead which reminded me of rotten beef. We immediately fell back into line helping the medics and surgeons with the poor soldiers. Mrs. Weikert brought out all of the linens, cotton, and muslin she could find.

          “Rip this up, Kyla,” said Mrs. Weikert handing me a pile of thin linen sheets. “Tear them into strips and the doctors will use ‘em as bandages.”

          I was impressed with Mrs. Weikert’s devotion to the soldiers. She sacrificed all of her sheets and blankets without a second thought for these poor men. The surgeons took these strips of cloth as fast as we could rip them up. Once all of the linens had been torn into strips Tillie and I went outside with pots of water to where more of the injured were lying. A few days earlier such scenes would have sent me reeling back into a vomit-induced panic. Now, after seeing so many terrible scenes of war, I think I was becoming almost numb to these gory sights. At least I thought that was the case until we went out to the amputation benches.

Just outside the basement door was one such worktable. As I approached carrying a pot of fresh water I saw the medics and a couple black helpers lifting an injured soldier onto the table. They laid him down and gave him a drink from a bottle of whiskey. Tears were falling from his eyes and his hands were trembling greatly. They put a cattle horn over his mouth through which they administered chloroform. They did this in hopes of producing unconsciousness. In this case I don’t think they quite succeeded before the doctor began his dreadful work.

The soldier’s left leg had a ghastly wet wound just below the knee. His pants had been cut off at the thigh leaving the bottom part of his leg exposed. A large gash filled with what looked like raw meat and bone was poking out from the skin below the knee. The two assistants held down the soldier’s other leg and his arms while the surgeon pulled out a bloody saw. He went to work on his butcher’s task, sawing off the leg while the man groaned and attempted to writhe about under the strong hold of the assistants.

“Don’t stare, Kyla,” Tillie whispered to me.

I hadn’t even noticed how obvious my staring was. I quickly turned around and nervously walked away before remembering I hadn’t dropped off the water yet. I went back to the table and left the pot of fresh water on the ground. I picked up the bowl of red water the doctor had been using since morning. It was filled with nasty bits of flesh and gruel. Big black flies were buzzing all around it.    

Just beyond the fence that surrounded the yard on the south side of the house was where the doctors threw all of those sawed off arms and legs. This pile of limbs was the most horrifying and atrocious thing I had ever seen. The pile was actually higher than the fence. Arms, legs, toes, and hands. Bones and blood. The common theme. Flies swarmed around it like a dust cloud. A bird landed on one of the legs and began picking dark red tissue out from the open end. This pile represented what it was these soldiers were giving up for the war as well as any other gruesome image I could think of. 

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We will mark that officer

After lunch I noticed several large, rough-edged wooden crates being lined up on the ground across the road from the garden. The crates were roughly two feet wide and six feet long. I recognized immediately what they were for.

          “No tellin’ how soon I’ll be put in one of those,” a young sergeant joked as he walked by.

          “I will consider myself very lucky if I even get one,” said another soldier.

          “Lucky?” I asked as I handed him a tin cup filled with water. “Why would you be lucky to get a coffin?”

          “Because it means they at least found my body, miss.” He finished his water with a loud gulp. “Some boys out there are blown to bits so bad, there ain’t nothin’ left when the guns are done with ‘em. They simply disappear.”

    

      Nothing left? That was a terrifying thought.

          “Get up, you damn coward!”

          I was jarred from the frightful thoughts of battle when I heard the voice of a Union officer down the road. He was yelling at one of the young soldiers. The soldier had been marching along with the rest of his regiment heading towards the front when apparently he had lost his nerve. The sounds of guns booming in the distance and the sights of the bloodied and wounded being transported past him must have been too much for him to handle. He was crawling along the side of the road on his hands and knees. Tears were streaming down his face.

          “Get up and march, you worthless coward!” the officer yelled again.

          “I . . . I can’t, sir,” said the quivering soldier. “My legs w-won’t move.”  My heart ached for him. He looked like a homesick teenager.      

         By that time Tillie had run up beside me to see what was happening. “Oh, that poor boy,” she said.

         We watched as the officer kicked the soldier in the ribs knocking him flat into the dirt. “Get up now, or I will beat you to death!” yelled the officer. He kicked the soldier again. He grabbed a rifle from another passing infantryman and used the butt of the gun to hit the poor soldier three or four time on his shoulders and the back of his head. The soldier appeared to be unconscious so the officer simply left him where he lay.

          A couple of the other men ran over and picked him up and carried him up to the house. It would be several hours until the young man revived. In addition to the blows on the back of his head he had also been suffering from sunstroke received during the long march.

          “We will mark that officer for this,” said one of the soldiers who had brought the injured man inside.

          “What do you mean?” asked Tillie.

          “It means that in the midst of battle, that officer will have more guns than those of the enemy to worry about,” said the soldier. I was later told that some of the most cruel and inhuman officers fell in battle that way, from being shot “accidentally” by their own side.

--from Time Trip #4: Killing for Country 

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Kyla and Hardtack

We were led through a stretch of woods where there had been a cavalry fight just an hour before. We saw scores of Rebel prisoners being kept under close watch in a field on the other side of the woods. They covered most of the field that I could see. There must have been thousands of them. They looked defiant, but tired. At least most of them did. Some of them looked scared liked they missed their moms and wanted nothing more than to go home.

          We stopped there for a rest since it was relatively safe and so far from the primary combat. We got out of the carriage and I sat in the shade of one of the large trees with Tillie. The air was humid and still. I was begging for a breeze. There were a few Union soldiers sitting nearby and one of them was eating a plank of hardtack. We had missed breakfast that morning so we were both hungry. Hardtack was supposed to be gross and unappetizing, but I was so hungry I would have eaten cardboard at that moment. The soldier must have noticed us looking at him as he ate because he reached into this brown haversack and pulled out another biscuit for us. After trying the hardtack I still believe I would have rather chosen cardboard.

-- Kyla's account from 

Time Trip #4: Killing for Country 

"Hampton's Duel" by Don Troiani

July 3, 1863, Confederate Cavalry Lieutenant General Wade Hampton fought a fierce battle east of Gettysburg just as Pickett's Charge began along Cemetery Ridge.

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Cannoneers

I couldn’t imagine how many tons of iron was being quickly shipped across that valley. I was mesmerized by the speed and efficiency of the cannoneers. They worked in groups of four or five at each gun. The cannon would fire and a new shell and powder would be loaded into the muzzle. Like a well-oiled machine, the men working the guns functioned in perfect harmony with one another only performing those exact motions which allowed the hot guns to be fired again and again as quickly as possible. It was a process they could probably do in their sleep. Grab a shell, load the round, stuff the muzzle, light the fuse. Boom. Rinse. Repeat. 

--from Time Trip #4: Killing for Country 

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Burying Horses

              Men on fatigue duty were sent up ahead of the marching column to make any necessary repairs to the roads or build bridges if needed. While still in camp, men on fatigue duty were the ones ordered to clean the camp sight, dig ditches, drain swamps, and bury the dead horses.

          Burying horses is tough because their legs want to keep sticking up out of the ground. Sometimes the bony limbs had to be sawed completely off. If they weren’t deep enough then the dogs would dig down and start eating the horse corpse. That awful smell didn’t seem to bother the dogs. On marches, just like the pickets, soldiers on fatigue duty were also instructed to look for any possible sources of additional provisions or supplies.

--from Time Trip #4: Killing for Country

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You eat maggots?

           When we went back downstairs I noticed the putrid smell of gangrene had been overwhelmed somewhat by the smell of freshly baked bread. Mrs. Schriver and her mother were busy slicing loaves for the injured soldiers while more bread was being baked in the wood fire oven. The oven was made from black iron, and it put out a lot of heat. The back door was still closed to protect us from sharpshooters, but we had to open all the windows elsewhere in the house and fan in some fresh air to keep from boiling ourselves. The taste of homemade apple butter spread across that fresh bread made enduring the stifling heat worth it.

          “I haven’t tasted such sweet bread in all my life,” said one of the injured soldiers. The fingers from one of his hands had been blown off by shrapnel so Tillie helped feed him.

          “What kind of food do the soldiers have out there?” I asked him.

          “Not much. Some hardtack is the only food I guess. We used to have salted pork, but I haven’t seen much of that in weeks. At least not without maggots crawlin’ in it.”

          “That's awful!” said Tillie.

          “They’re not so bad once you get used to ‘em,” continued the soldier. “I hear they kinda good for ya.”

          “You eat maggots?” I asked surprised.

          “You eat anythin’ when you’re hungry enough,” said the soldier.

--from Time Trip #4: Killing for Country

Hardtack biscuits and a tin cup.

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Adventure 4 - Gettysburg Cover

                     “There is one thing that I didn’t understand about that sit-in, though,” said Zammie.

                “And what’s that?” asked Mr. G.

                “Why didn’t they fight back? Why just sit there and take that abuse? I was confused that Anne was mad at me for fighting off that guy. And then she helped him as if he was on her side.”

                “It’s because they were outnumbered, right, Mister G?” asked Kyla.

                “True, they were outnumbered, Kyla, but that’s not why they engaged in a peaceful protest. They were following the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. who taught that those who are acting in a lawful and just manner should never engage in violence even if violence is enacted against them.”

                “Not even for self-defense?” asked Zammie.

                “Self-preservation, sure. But that doesn’t require an assault on your enemy which is what I think you mean.”

                “What I mean is if someone is hitting you then you have to hit 'em back to get 'em off you,” said Zammie. 

                “In most situations that is true. But the point of the peaceful protest is to maintain the higher moral ground. With hope that there is enough just sentiment in the world watching that your argument of peace will overpower your opponent’s argument of hate. This is true whether it’s just a few people like Anne Moody and the other students or if it’s entire armies going to war.”

-- from Time Trip #4: Killing for Country

ADVENTURE 4 

GETTYSBURG COVER 

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Get Those Toes!

There were rows of snake-rail fencing surrounding the fields where we were camping. Several soldiers had been asked to begin tearing the wood logs down and chop them up for the campfires and cooking. While I was helping separate the coffee and sugar rations before dinner I heard several of the men yelling and laughing by one of the nearby fences. When I went over to see what they were yelling about I saw that one of the men was pulling an axe out of his boot. Somehow he had missed the log he was chopping on and the axe blade had sunk into the top of his foot.

                The man’s face had gone ghostly white. The axe blade was near the toe-end of his boot. When he pulled it up and saw the blood on the axe head he exhaled a curse that caused the other soldiers around him to erupt in laughter.

                “Does it hurt, Henry?” asked one of the soldiers.

                “Not too bad. Maybe I just nicked myself,” he answered. He sat down on another log and took off his boot. I gasped when I saw that the three smallest toes on his sockless left foot were gone. They had been cut clean off leaving behind three raspberry shaped nubs.

                “Well! Where’s yur toes, Henry?” asked one of the laughing soldiers.

                Henry picked up his boot and turned it upside down and began shaking it out. I watched as three little white sausages fell out into the grass.

                “Get those toes before the dogs do, Henry!” Another round of laughter erupted. Henry claimed there wasn’t much pain to be felt, at least not yet. Regardless he was given a discharge and sent back home. I overheard some of the other soldiers claiming that Henry did it on purpose just for that reason. They said that when he heard the guns from Gettysburg booming in the distance he began to grow yellow. Maybe that was true, maybe not. Either way I’m sure there were some other soldiers there who were more than a little jealous of Henry’s discharge orders.

--from Time Trip #4: Killing for Country

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4

KILLING FOR COUNTRY  

To be released in March 2013! 

Makin' Me Itch

     The vegetable rations we were given that night looked like dried out blocks of green cheese mixed with pork fat. “You need to boil those,” said Mr. Ankles. “Like this.” He took the dry block and dropped it in one of the mess pans of hot water. Within a few minutes the block began to break apart and the dried out parsnips, carrots, and turnips within began to plump up a little. “Looks like you got some onions in this one.” Mr. Ankles poked at the floating vegetables with his knife, investigating each morsel. The vegetables had no flavor at all and they had the consistency of hot mush. “No you know why our boys’ll be cleanin’ out some of them gardens round here.” Mr. Ankles chuckled again and finished eating his steak.

     “What you cookin’, Nicky?” asked Steven. I looked over and saw the other drummer boy poking a stick into a mess kettle that was hung over a fire. The water in the kettle was beginning to boil over. Nicky lifted the stick up out of the water and a gray mass of wet clothing lifted up with it. I realized now that he was only wearing an undershirt and long johns. “Why you cookin’ your clothes?”

     “Damn lice,” said Nicky. “Makin’ me itch. I heard this is the only way to git rid of ‘em.”

     “You have lice?” I asked.

     “Yeah. Awful little critters.” The camp cooks used mess kettles to boil coffee, soups, and our peach sauce among other things. Some of the men also used them boil their clothes when they had lice which apparently was spreading through the camp like crazy.

I took off my cap and ran my hand through my shaggy hair. It was natty and filthy and probably hadn’t been washed in months. I looked at my dirty fingers and there they were. A couple tiny, clear-skinned bugs in my sweaty hand.  “Ah, crap.”

     “You need a mess kettle, too, Zammie?” I looked up and saw Steven grinning at me. 

--from Time Trip #4: Killing for Country

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4

KILLING FOR COUNTRY  

To be released in March 2013! 

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

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WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

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Adventure 4: Killing for Country

"I thought dying for your country was the worst thing that could happen to you, and I don't think it is. I think killing for your country can be a lot worse. Because that's the memory that haunts."

--Senator Bob Kerrey, Vietnam Veteran

From Civil War to Civil Rights . . .

From a simple pistol to the atomic bomb . . .

TIME TRIP #4: KILLING FOR COUNTRY
 is a journey through history 
unlike anything you've ever read.

The latest installment in the Time Trip series will push the boundaries of historical adventure once again, sending Zammie and Kyla on an epic path across three continents as they experience the lead up, breaking point, and culmination of war and its impact on the children who have to live through it.

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KILLING FOR COUNTRY  

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A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

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WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

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