Butchery of the Mountain Man

CHAPTER THREE

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—July 3, 1863

There had been fierce fighting for the two previous days and if Captain John Jackson, of the 151st Pennsylvania, had to give an honest account of who was winning the battle he would be unable to do so. So far John had seen nearly one-half of his company killed, or so badly wounded as to be taken from the field.

“Captain, would you like to take your lunch with me?” Lieutenant Sanderson asked. “We’ve got a quiet moment; I don’t know when we’ll get a better opportunity.”

“What are you offering for lunch, Bobby?” John asked his second in command. “Baked ham? Roast beef? Fried chicken, perhaps?”

“Ahh, you can have that anytime,” Sanderson said. “How about some nice hardtack, fried in bacon grease?”

“Absolutely,” John teased. “Who would want roast beef when we can have that?”

“I can also throw in a fresh peach that I took from a peach orchard,” Sanderson added.

“I thought the orchard had been picked clean.”

“It has,” Sanderson said. He smiled. “It just so happens that I’m one of the ones who picked it clean.”

“Cap’n, I believe them rebs is gettin’ ready to come at us,” one of his men said.

“I believe you are right, Sergeant Dunn,” John replied.

“It’s goin’ to get pretty hot,” Dunn suggested.

“Yes, but consider this. Would you rather be here, behind a stone fence, waiting for them? Or would you rather be one of those poor souls who are going to have to cross that field toward us?”

“Yes, sir, I see what you mean,” Dunn said. “I’d rather be here.”

“Here” was Cemetery Ridge.

At one o’clock two Confederate artillery pieces fired. John was sure that was a signal, because almost immediately afterward, a mile-long line of Confederate cannons began firing, keeping up a steady bombardment. John hunkered down against the stone fence as the missiles whistled and whizzed by overhead. Amazingly, the Confederates were, for the most part, overshooting their target, with the cannonballs bursting on the ridgeline behind the Union positions. The Federal artillery returned fire. The cannonading continued for one solid hour, with enough of the shells falling onto the waiting Union soldiers to do some physical damage, but causing considerably more fear and unease.

Then first the Confederate, then the Union artillery ceased fire and the loud thunder that had been washing across the field for nearly an hour grew silent.

As John listened, he could actually hear the sound of mockingbirds, and he marveled that nature could so turn off the folly of human warfare. Then he heard the faint notes of a bugle call as it rolled across the thousand yards that separated the two armies. That was followed by the long roll of drums.

“Here they come!” someone shouted.

“The rebs is attackin’!”

“They’re a-fixin’ to come at us!”

None of the proclamations were necessary, as every Union soldier in position could see the long gray line stretching out all the way across the field.

John stood up behind what was left of his company in order to be able to exercise command and control over his men. This also had the effect of inspiring his men, because while they could hunker down behind the stone wall, their commander was exposing himself to enemy fire.

For the moment all was quiet, save for chirping of the mockingbirds and the steady, rhythmic tat of the drums, urging the soldiers on. They were still too far away to separate the individual soldiers from the mass of gray. But he could see the flags . . . bits of red fluttering in the breeze, and the flag bearers who were taking the lead position of each of the committed units.

Slowly, steadily, inexorably, the Confederate soldiers, fifteen thousand in all, and under the command of General Pickett, moved across the field.

“Steady, men, hold your fire, hold your position,” John ordered.

The drumbeat cadence grew louder, and as the advancing army moved closer, John could hear the clank and rattle of their equipment, and the fall of their footsteps on the open ground.

“Stay in line, men, stay in line!” a Confederate officer called to his men, his words drifting across the distance between them. He was in front, holding a saber upon which he had placed his hat, and John couldn’t help but think of the courage it took to be exposed like this young Confederate officer was.

John did not believe he had ever seen a more magnificent sight, nor a more foolish one. What officer in his right mind would commit his men in such a way?

Suddenly one of the Confederate soldiers gave out a yell that John had heard before. It was what the others referred to as a rebel yell. The other Confederate soldiers joined in, and with that yell, the advancing soldiers stopped their measured march, and broke into a run. Thousands of throats roared their defiance, their shouts answered by many more thousand Union soldiers.

Union artillery opened up then, and John saw the awful effect of the grape and canister as it tore into the Confederate lines.

“Fire!” John shouted, and not only his men, but Union men all up and down Cemetery Ridge began shooting.

For a moment John forgot that he was standing in the open, then he heard the angry buzz of minié balls flying by him, and he moved quickly to the stone fence. That was when he saw the dashing young saber-brandishing young Confederate officer go down.

The deadly musket fire, to say nothing of the sustained grape and canister artillery fire, so devastated the Confederate advance that within moments the fifteen-thousand-man massed front was broken into several smaller units. Finally the front row of the Confederate soldiers actually managed to cross the stone wall, where they engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Federals as the two bodies of men slashed at each other with sabers, thrust with bayonets, clubbed with rifle butts, and shot from point-blank range with pistols. But quickly the Confederate ranks, which had been so decimated by cannon and rifle fire during their long approach toward Cemetery Ridge, began to be overwhelmed by the superior numbers of the Union troops. Realizing they could not sustain the attack, those who could manage it broke off the engagement and retreated back across the broad field, leaving the dead and dying behind them.

Gradually the constant bang and pop of gunfire died out, and all that could be heard were the moans and cries of the wounded, and the shouts of soldiers in blue and gray, calling for assistance from hospital corpsmen.

John, who miraculously had not been wounded, walked over to sit on the stone fence and look back across the field, covered now with a low-lying fog of gun smoke. The smoke was so thick that the retreating Confederate soldiers were quickly enveloped by the cloud. What he could see, though, were the bodies of the dead, strewn across the field, many of which had been nearly cut in two.

The sounds on the battlefield which, but moments earlier had been the thunder of artillery fire, the rattle of musketry, and the challenging screams of men locked in deadly combat, had changed. Now the only sounds were the low moans and whimpers of the wounded. Many of the wounded were from John’s company, and he stopped by to see each one.

One of the wounded was Lieutenant Sanderson.

“How badly are you wounded, Bobby?” John asked.

“I don’t know,” Sanderson replied. He chuckled. “It hurt like hell when I was first hit, but the truth is, I don’t feel anything now.”

“I’ll get you to the aid station,” John offered.

“No, sir. Not before the men,” Sanderson replied.

John smiled, and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “That was a collective ‘you,’ Lieutenant. I intend to get all of you to the aid station.”

John mustered the rest of his company, and organized them to move the wounded, including Lieutenant Sanderson, to the aid station.

“Cap’n, do you reckon we’re goin’ to counterattack?” Sergeant Dunn asked.

“Do you want to leave as many blue-clad bodies out there as there are gray now?” John replied.

“No, sir.”

“I’m pretty sure General Hancock doesn’t want to either.”

Old Main Building, University of Colorado—

October 1923

“John’s prediction was correct,” Smoke said as he continued to tell the story. “The next day, July Fourth, General Lee started back to Virginia, leading a twenty-seven-mile-long train of hospital wagons. He halted his army at the flooded Potomac River and had his men dig in to fight another battle, but General Meade’s army was too battered and too exhausted to counterattack. Also his troops had used up almost all of their ammunition and would have to be resupplied before they could fight again.”

“What happened to all the dead the dying?” Professor Armbruster asked.

“The citizens of Gettysburg, the civilians, were left to deal with the thousands of wounded. They turned private homes, businesses, schools, and public buildings into hospitals. For some time afterward, infection and unsanitary conditions caused disease to spread through the town. But they didn’t have to handle it alone; volunteers came from the North and the South. Northerner and Southerner worked together to care for the wounded and bury the dead, regardless the color of the soldier’s uniform. They also piled up, and burned the carcasses of horses and mules killed in the fighting.”

[It had been a grand plan with Lee proposing to take the offensive, invade Pennsylvania, and defeat the Union army in its own territory. Such a victory would have moved the fighting out of Virginia, bringing some relief to that beleaguered state, as well as strengthen the hand of those politicians in the North who wanted peace at any price. It was also believed that it would undermine Lincoln’s chances for reelection. It would reopen the possibility for European support that was closed at Antietam. The result of this vision was the largest battle ever fought on the North American continent. This was Gettysburg, where more than 170, 000 fought and over 40,000 were casualties.

In the grand scheme of things, Lee’s plans failed, but this battle is now referred to as the high-water mark of the Confederacy. From this point forward, victory for the South was unachievable. How many lives could have been saved, had the Confederacy realized then that further continuation of the war was a terrible waste.

It is now believed that this battle had a profound impact upon John Jackson, causing memories which remained with him for the rest of his life. Of course, John Jackson wasn’t the only one damaged by the terrible consequences of the battle at Gettysburg. As of the publication date of this book, it is sixty-two years since that terrible battle was contested, and there are still many survivors who continue to bear the scars, as does, indeed, our entire nation.—ED.]

“Hold it up for a moment, will you, Professor?” Wes asked, his voice coming through the intercom box. “I have to set up a new disc.”

“Very well, tell us when you are ready,” Professor Armbruster replied. Then, taking his finger away from the toggle switch that activated the intercom, he spoke to Smoke.

“Jackson went all through the war without sustaining any wounds, didn’t he?”

“It depends on what you call wounds,” Smoke said. “He had the kind of wounds that you can’t see.”

“Traumatic shock.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Jackson, undoubtedly, suffered from a syndrome known as traumatic shock. Last year, Dr. Walter Bradford Cannon, a noted physiologist, published a book on this very subject. It refers to a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma, such as being in a war.”

“Yes. I’ve never heard of that term before, but it certainly had an effect on him.”

“You know, one of the things that I found most interesting in my research on John Jackson is that he did have a college degree,” Professor Armbruster said. “But he never used that degree. Instead, he lived for many years in the wilds of Montana and Colorado.”

Smoke chuckled. “I think the fact that John was an educated man did surprise a few people. But it wasn’t something that ever got in the way.”

“Got in the way?” Professor Armbruster replied. “What an odd thing to say, suggesting that, somehow, an education might get in the way.”

“Professor, could you see any of your contemporaries in academia doing what John Jackson did? And I’m not talking about his vendetta with the Crow, I mean the many years he lived in the mountains, surviving off the land.”

“No,” Armbruster agreed. “No, to be honest with you, Mr. Jensen, I don’t know that I, or any of my peers, could do that.”

“It’s because your education would get in the way,” Smoke said. “You have learned to expect certain privileges as your due, because of your academic position. It is always hard for anyone to function in a milieu that is vastly different from the environment to which they have become accustomed. John Jackson was able to do this.”

“I must confess, Mr. Jensen, that, given what I have read and heard about you, that I am—and please don’t think this to be patronizing, because I don’t mean it that way—but your language, your deportment, is considerably different from what I expected. Have I missed something in my research? Did you attend college?”

Smoke laughed. “Yes, the University of Sally.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My wife was a schoolteacher when I met her. She never quit learning, or teaching. And she shared it all with me.”

“Well, I must congratulate her. She did a wonderful job with you.”