THE FIRST VISIT. GETTYSBURG. By A. H. Nickerson. men were busy preparing their coffee when a mounted officer came through the camp at a furious pace. His horse was reeking with perspiration, and both horse and rider gave unmistakable evidence that they were the bearers of portentous news. All eyes were turned upon the ominous messenger as he dashed up to corps headquarters, flung himself from his saddle, and delivered a message to the corps commander. Hancock always was the most energetic and impetuous of generals. In the execution of an order he imparted his vigorous personality to everything and everybody about him, from the chief of staff to the orderly who brought him his horse. No one could ever truthfully accuse him of failing to do what he was commanded, or of executing an order in a lukewarm or slothful manner. When he received a command, he stood not on the order of going, but went at once with the vim and the élan, as well as the intelligence, born of his superb personality, his soldierly instincts, and his loyal nature. It did not seem to us that a minute had elapsed from the time the messenger arrived before we received the order to "fall in ;" and even while our ranks were being formed, the general, with his whole staff, dashed out upon the road toward Gettysburg. Then everyone turned to his neighbor to know what had occurred or was occurring. The answer sped through the ranks with the speed and shock of an electric current: "The battle is on at Gettysburg; General Reynolds has been killed; General Meade has ordered Hancock to go at once to the front and assume command, representing him "the corps to follow as fast as its many legs could carry it. Our column had not been long en route when we met an ambulance bear- As we drew nearer to the scene of the overture to America's Waterloo, though still some distance away, we could see the wreaths of smoke curling up over the hills, and occasionally there came to our ears the dull roar of the guns that were covering the retreat of the First and the Eleventh Corps, as they fell back into their new positions on Cemetery Hill. We were marching at the route step, without much in the way of impedimenta, and yet, when the sun went down, those hills which we afterward learned were Little and Great Round Top, seemed almost as far away as ever; and it was very late when we finally halted, stacked arms, and laid down for a brief rest. As we had made a fair day's march previous to the halt at Taneytown, we were much exhausted and fell asleep before our tired bodies had fairly touched the ground. It did not seem as though our eyes were fully closed before we were aroused, and day had not yet broken when we moved down to the front and took our position in line of battle with our right resting on Cemetery Hill and our left extending toward Round Top. Here, all day long on the 2d, we supported our batteries and watched the manoeuvres of our comrades and the enemy on our left, until at about four o'clock P.M., when they joined in the series of fierce struggles in front of Round Top, now known as the "Peach Orchard,' "Devil's Den," etc. It was growing dark when, just before Early made his assault upon the Cemetery Hill front, an order came for my regiment to go down to the extreme front, deploy two companies as skirmishers, and support them with the other eight companies to be posted along the Emittsburg road. My company was one of those selected for the advance line, and being the senior officer in rank, I was placed in command. The companies we were to relieve had already been pressed back some distance by the aggressiveness of the enemy, so that we had a sharp fight to recover the ground we were directed to occupy. The struggle for this position was all the more fierce because Early's assaulting column was just then moving upon Cemetery Hill, in our immediate right rear. At the precise moment when we recovered this position, we heard the cheers of the rest of our comrades of the old brigade, as they hurled Early and his " tigers" back from their fierce onslaught upon the salient point of our whole line-Cemetery Hill. From this time forward, slacking a little with the darkness of the night, but renewed at the first glimpse of dawn, the skirmishing on our line was continuous until at one P.M. the next day, when it found its culmination in the charge of Pickett's assaulting column. How those veteran soldiers swept up to and well-nigh penetrated the main Union line of battle, still farther back than was my support; how they were grappled with in front, while we hung upon their flanks, until, in one of the fiercest conflicts of the war, they were hurled back, let us hope forever, has often been told in speech, song, and story. It is a matter of some personal as well as State pride, that the detailed maps of the battle show that the Eighth Ohio occupied the post of honor on this occasion, on the extreme front line and far in advance of the spot now known as "the high-water mark of the Rebellion.” During the latter part of this struggle I was hors de combat and lying on the high ground, not far from the spot originally dedicated by President Lincoln, for the battle monument. When Lee's batteries reopened fire to cover the retreat of Pickett's broken columns, the shells coming from the right rear and front enfiladed the position and appeared to cover every foot of ground. Men lying near me were cut in two and others torn in pieces by the jagged missiles. I thought a change of location, no matter how slight, might take me out of their immediate range. Certainly it could not be worse, so I dragged myself a short distance only to find that I was in a worse place, if possible, than where I had been. Then, by a supreme effort, for I had been shot through one arm and through the lungs, I struggled to my feet and started to run. I had taken but a few steps when the blood gushed from my mouth in a torrent, and I fainted and fell. When consciousness returned, an ambulance attendant was bathing my face, and as soon as I opened my eyes he, with the aid of the driver, placed me in his ambulance. Even while they were doing this a conical shell went crashing through one of the wheels of the vehicle. The driver very properly did not wait to see whether his wheel could hold together, or if the shell exploded, but went tearing over the fields at full speed. The ground was awfully rough and covered with débris, but he turned out for nothing. There were two of us in the ambulance, but how we remained there is, to this day, a mystery to me. In the mad fury of that drive we were dashed against each other until the awful torture made us both unconscious. In this comparatively happy state we remained until the nurses, at the barn where we next found ourselves, revived us with brandy. Here I found that the attending surgeon was an old friend from my native State, and I felt that he would not hide the truth of my condition from me. When he came to examine me, I remarked that it looked very badly for me. "Very badly," said he, "sententiously; as his hand came to the great jagged hole made by the bullet in its exit. "You know," said I, "I am not afraid to hear the worst; is there any hope for me, doctor?" "No," said he, very kindly, as he patted me gently on the forehead, and looked away; "no, my boy, none whatever." And yet poor Surgeon McAbee is many years dead, and I am still here. What took us from this barn hospital, which was near Meade's headquarters, I do not know. I have an indistinct remembrance of another ambulance ride across the fields, another jolting and banging, and finally being laid not too tenderly on the ground, where there were no less than two thousand more companions in misery, Union and Confederate, and all of the worst character of wounds. The location was in a bend of Rock Creek; the ground was very low and spongy, and, in accordance with the usual custom after a heavy cannonade, it commenced to rain soon after we got there and continued to do so all night. Many years have passed since then, and yet the recollection of the horrors of that awful night almost wrench a groan from me now. By a strange piece of luck, one of the hospital attendants had picked up my servant, whom he brought to me. "Jerry" was a mite of a fellow whom it would be base slander to mention as a "colored" boy, for he was the blackest negro I ever saw. He was very young, too, and about as broad as he was tall. His duties had heretofore been confined to blacking my shoes when in camp, and carrying my haversack and rubber coat when on the march. To these latter-mentioned articles he had still clung, so that when it commenced to rain the little rubber coat was used to partially cover me. It would only cover a small portion of my person, but, inadequate as it was, it was more than many of my comrades had. The rain poured down in torrents, saturating the exposed portions of my clothing until, with the aid of a shallow pool that formed where I lay, it permeated the whole and I was thoroughly drenched. At times I became unconscious, but recovered enough to miss the little cover which the rubber coat had afforded. Although it was very dark, I felt all around for it and could not imagine where it had gone, but gone it certainly had. The next day the mystery was explained. Little Jerry had visited me during one of the unconscious spells and, believing that I was dead, had constituted himself my executor and sole administrator, and as such had taken charge of my effects, consisting of the haversack and the aforesaid rubber coat. To add to this uninterrupted round of pleasure, toward morning I was seized with an awful thirst. Though the rain was pouring down my face and over my now totally unprotected body, I wanted water as I had never before wanted it. I called, and called again and again, but no one came. Those who were not disabled were sleeping too soundly for one feeble voice to awaken them. Finally a sergeant of my regiment, who was lying near, answered and said that he would try and get some water for me. I heard him get up and the rattling of his canteen, as he started down to the creek for the coveted drink, but he did not return. He had been badly wounded himself, and daylight showed that in his effort to succor his fellow-soldier, he had fallen near the banks of the stream and there bled to death. "Greater love hath no man," than was here shown by poor Sergeant Tracy. The hope that had been raised and disappointed seemed to make me more thirsty than ever. A stream of water was boiling, bubbling, and running within my hearing; my face and body were drenched; and yet it seemed as though I should die of thirst. Since then I have been on the deserts of Arizona when the mercury would have registered not less than a hundred and ten in the shade-had there been any such luxury-and no one knows how much higher "in the open;" not a drop of water within a distance of forty miles, and so thirsty that my tongue was swollen till I could not speak; and yet the thirst endured on that July night at Gettysburg lives in my memory as exceeding in intensity that of all other occasions. At last a blessing, though terribly disguised, came to my relief; I became delirious, unconscious. The first thing I afterward recalled, except the wild phantasmagoria that always accompanies hours like these, was when, on the day following, an old friend, a captain in my regiment, lifted me out from among the dead, who had died during the night, and the muddy pool in which I had been lying. Little Jerry had returned to camp that morning and reported that "De captain done gone died last night." So my friend, with several other officers of the regiment, had come to try and find my body. Poor Jerry! he little knew how nearly the carrying away of the rubber coat came to finishing me, and thus confirming his story. Our visitors only remained with us for a very short time, as the regiment with the remainder of the army was already on the march following Lee. Every available man was ordered forward, and the fate of the immense number of wounded was left to the care of the citizen-nurses who were expected to soon be there to assist the few soldier-attendants left with us. Of course no one foresaw that the little stream which ran around us would soon overflow its banks, or doubtless more men would have been left, at least for this emergency. As it was, the stream, swollen to an unusual height, did soon overflow its banks, and sweeping through our dismal ranks, drowned many helpless fellows before the few attendants there could get them out of the way. The man who was looking after me, finding that he could not, alone, carry me to higher ground, cut some stakes, drove them into the ground, placed poles on them, and then breaking up an old barrel, took the staves and laid them across the poles, thus making quite a comfortable bunk, several feet above the water. Upon this, after great labor on his part, and no little anguish on my own, this faithful man succeeded in placing me out of reach of the angry waters that swept through our camp and under my cot. The overflow was probably not over two feet in depth, but to men who could not raise their heads, this, like Mercutio's wound, was enough-it sufficed. The few attendants there worked like Trojans, but it was impossible to save all, and quite a number of the more helpless ones were drowned within the range of my limited vision. It was some days before the citizens began to arrive on the field; a delay that was quite natural, in view of the confused state of the railroads in that vicinity. When, however, they commenced to come, there was no limit either in the number or high character of the volunteer nurses. In accordance with the prerogative established on the occasion of sacred memory, when she was last at the cross and first at the sepulchre, the first volunteer attendant I saw on the field of Gettysburg was a woman. I find that she wrote her name in my diary, on July 7, 1863, "Miss Cornelia Hancock, New Salem, N. J." She carried writing materials, envelopes, and postage stamps, and wrote letters to the friends of those who were too desperately wounded to do so themselves. She took down just what each wanted to say, without abridgment, and in this manner many a mother, sister, and sweetheart received their first, last, and only message from their loved ones, whose lives ebbed out on this fatal field. It was a thoughtful, sensible, and delicate service, faithfully performed. Soon there was no lack of attendants. Every walk in life appeared to be represented. Some gentlemen brought their wives and daughters, and remained for weeks doing with their own hands the most disagreeable drudgery, sleeping on the ground, and enduring other privations with the heroism of veteran soldiers. The old Keystone State outdid herself; her quota being filled thrice over by some of the wealthiest and most accomplished men and women within her borders. One group from Chester County was composed entirely of Quakers, or members of the Society of Friends. They were of the best and most reputable of that exceedingly respectable county. I saw ladies of this delegation, with their own hands, cooking delicacies at an open fire, where the wind blew the smoke and ashes in their faces with the persistence proverbial of all such out-of-door cooking "ranges." Clergymen from all denominations were there. They may, however, be divided into two classes-those who depended upon prayer and works, and those who relied exclusively on prayer without works. The difference between the two will be better understood by a brief description of the course pursued by one of each class, who, during the early part of my stay, paid daily visits to me. One was a portly man, about fifty-five years of age. He carried with him a large bible and a hymn-book. Ido not recall that he ever brought anything else, or even asked a patient to take a glass of water. When he came in he asked me how I felt, and if I was prepared to die. Then he adjusted his spectacles and read a chapter from his bible. That finished, he selected what seemed to be the longest hymn he could find, and in a wheezy voice sang it all through without skipping a stanThese interesting exercises were then closed by a lengthy prayer in which advice to the Creator was the most prominent feature. He daily inflicted this programme upon me at a time when every breath I drew was like the thrust of a dozen daggers, until the surgeons finally found it out, and then they forbade his entering my tent at all. za. In striking contrast with this was the course pursued by another wearer of the cloth-a stout, energetic man of about thirty-five years of age. As he never troubled me with any of the conundrums which others of his profession considered it their duty to propound to those of us who were loitering along on the brink of eternity, it was some time before I knew that he was a minister of the Gospel. He never came into my tent that he did not do something for my comfort. Without being told, he seemed to have an intuition of what was needed, and then off came his coat and the thing was done. One of the many bad features in my case was the utter distaste I had for anything in the way of food. Such nourishment as I did take was taken like any other medicine, because the surgeons prescribed it. Everyone who came to see me brought something that they thought might tempt the appetite. The Hon. and Colonel Levi Maish, who was himself convalescing from |