John Wesley Culpepper Diary (Cont.)

Chapter 16
Fuzzle’s Mill

{Fussell’s Mills, August 16, 1864}

I do not know where the mill was, whether it was steam, water or wind, nor do I know whether it belonged to Mr., Mrs., or Miss Fuzzle {sic Fussell}. All that I do know about it, is that the hard-fought partial engagement between some of Longstreet’s corps and a considerable force of federals, which occurred August 16, 1864, always bore to the confederates the name heading this chapter.

Beginning on the 14th of the month, as just mentioned, the federal troops had been steadily but slowly extending to their right, and we had been as constantly in motion in the works to keep in their front. On the morning of the 16th, the left of Anderson’s brigade rested on or near a public road, where it was quite level and straight. About a hundred yards in advance of our main works we had rifle-pits, strongly manned with picked skirmishers. The line of the enemy was within short range, and everybody felt that serious work was imminent.

The night before, while I was lying on the fragrant leaves, in a small grove of second-growth pines, enjoying a smoke of Zarvona tobacco, without molestation from sharpshooters, young {John Wesley} Culpepper, the handsomest lieutenant in the 8th Georgia, joined me, and filling his pipe from my bag, we were soon puffing sociably. He was so handsome and so pleasant that I always claimed him for a sweetheart. But his usual gayety was gone. To my inquiry he answered: "On the right of the regiment I have a better prospect than you do from that low ground on the left. All the afternoon I have noted the enemy’s movements. I divined that we shall fight tomorrow. And it {illegible section due to page break} instantaneously." I had never known one of these presentiments to deceive. And I felt that I had almost taken leave forever of my favorite companion. But of course I tried to drive away his blues. I could not do it. He spoke of his mother. He put down his head, and I knew that he was hiding his tears. At last he left me, saying, "I shall not try to dodge the death that I know is coming. I shall fall as befits one of the 8th Georgia." I had forgotten all this while I was sitting in the trenches the next morning, hurrying through a letter to my wife that I was trying to finish in time to get it off before the fighting commenced. While writing I became sub-conscious, as it were, of an increase of the cannonade. At last a shell tore off a large splinter from an oak, some thirty or forty feet distant, and as it twirled down to the ground it struck me on the shoulder and turned me over. As I got up, I noted that the shells were sweeping down the road, and pointing to it, I shouted in the ear of one of my company next to me, to make him hear, "That fire is intended to keep us from crossing. It is expected that our line will be broken on the other side." I sealed my letter, and delivered it to the regimental post-master. He had just started over the hill when the rattle of musketry broke out beyond the road, hardly a quarter of a mile off, as it seemed to me. The cannonade became more furious. Through its din I heard the feet of {a} galloping horse, and I saw a staff-officer pull up near our brigade commander. His clear voice brought every word that he uttered to me, as he said, "General Anderson, the line is broken just to your left. You know what to do;" and he sped away towards the right. I thought I heard some one call me. I looked towards the sound. There was Culpepper. His voice was not as penetrating as that of the staff-officer. But at last he made me understand, "What I told you last night;" and then he saw from my looks that I did remember. I felt sorrowful and sad, for I seemed at the moment to see him stretched stiff and bloody on the ground. But he smiled sweetly, -- triumphantly, I thought, -- and he went back to his company.

Relying on the men in the rifle pits to hold the position, Anderson ordered us out of the trenches, and to go at once, with another one of his regiments, towards the firing. That was the last command from a general officer that I heard that day. The men of the two different regiments quickly collected in scattered groups along the side of the road. I found that night that every company commander had ordered his men to get across as rapidly as they best could, and to stop as soon as they were out of danger. Nearly all of the shells burst about two feet above the ground, and always in the road. And in five minutes we had got perhaps a thousand men across, and if one was hurt during it I never learned of it. When I had got my company into something like order I saw that our line was spontaneously forming along a fence. Our regiment was on the right now, as we were really faced about, and my company (I) was next to the right company. The enemy was in a field of corn, advancing rapidly, firing as he came, and his huzzas were loud and boastful. A fence of rotten rails is a poor protection. Besides it makes the enemy’s aim surer. But the fence did us good service. That was, it marked the place for our new formation from the disorder of crossing the road. On our right were many fugitives from the place where the line of our entrenchments had just been broken. I stopped every one that I saw, and sent him to the fence. Lieutenant Thomas D. Gilham, of company K, imitated my example, and soon all the fliers were voluntarily extending our line along the fence. The enemy’s fire was rapid and precise. Bark, dust and splinters were rising in a cloud from the fence, and many of our men were falling. But they were standing to it. When we were crossing the road I apprehended that we were in a great strait, but I now saw that we had at least what is called a fighting chance. Our fire was beginning to tell. It had made the men in the corn-field lie down, and then their fire slackened greatly while ours increased. I had counted seven colors in the field. The lying down was really a confession of weakness, and it encouraged our men, who were always looking for opportunity to charge. Our ammunition was giving out, -- it does not take long to fire forty rounds -- and the different company officers had sent details to the ordnance wagon for more. There were swaying movements in our line, something like the waves that run along a rope swung loosely between two points when it is shaken at an end. Everybody seemed to be tempted forward. Somebody -- I believe it was just a private -- said in that tone which is always heard by the brave in battle, "Over the fence and charge." And we were over -- I can not now understand how we got over -- quickly, and almost at a time -- and down through the corn, upon those reclining regiments we dashed, and coming we raised a rending shout to which their huzzas heard shortly before were but child’s play. They gave us one severe volley, and I saw many of our men drop, but the line seemed to gather force. Culpepper, his sword in his right hand waiving above his head, his cap in the other, was fully thirty feet in front of his company, rushing forward, -- the perfection of gallant behavior in a daring charge. He fell, and as we passed I saw him lying on his back in a clear spot of ground. As our rush forward was accelerating, it flashed on the men lying down that they were in great peril. It would have been far safer had they rose and steadied their muskets in true aim, and after a volley come forward in a counter charge for they were some two or more to our one. But they did the very worst of all things save to surrender out-right. They ran away; and as they ran many, many of them found that while they could outrun us they could not outrun our bullets. If on a battle-field you find a place where the dead strew the ground thickly, you generally can count only a few of their adversaries mixed with them, and you will find on inquiry that this line gave way before a charge. When it gave way, that allowed full advantage to the fire of the other side, without check from a return fire.

Here I gave my canteen full of water to a wounded federal lying helpless on the ground. I could never be insensible to the thirst of a wounded man. I got another canteen from its dead owner.

There was now a lull for an hour or more. At every place, except a house, on our left, the enemy fell back to the line of works which he had taken; and he made them serve for himself. We pushed up in close range of the works, protecting ourselves as best we could. The fight was renewed at the house. It was about one hundred and fifty yards from the works, and it commanded an open place over which we felt we must charge in order to charge effectually. The fire from the house was galling. We assaulted it repeatedly, but we always failed. By this time, as I should have noted before, several skeleton brigades had reinforced us. A captain in one of these, and a captain in our regiment, laid their heads together and formed a plan to get the house. One marched his company by a long detour out of sight, and showed himself at the front of a thicket some hundred yards beyond it. His colleague had his men lying down on this side, sheltered by a low rise of the ground. The appearance of the men in the thicket was the signal for the charge of both parties. Distracted by the cheers in front and behind, the garrison threw away their fire, and the confederates were soon closing in around the house. I was running at full speed, a brave boy of the regiment at my side, and when within a few feet of the house a federal soldier stepped out of his hiding and leveled his musket. The boy with me did not see him , and I could not tell at which of the two he was aiming. The musket fired and my companion fell without a groan. The federal soldier threw down his musket, and told me that he surrendered.

We had the house now. Then came another lull. The house was near the extreme left of our assaulting line, and from it towards the right for several hundred yards the men begun -- just of themselves, it appeared -- to crawl slowly forward into the open place. Stumps, logs, bushes, hillocks, whatever could screen a man or turn a bullet, they got behind, where each one stayed until he had selected a protection a little further in front, to which after a while he would dart and then fall down behind it. A garrison, almost averaging four ranks deep, filled the works. It seemed to me that we were greatly out-numbered, but yet it seemed also that our method of approach was resistless. After a while we had a long line -- a very irregular one, it is true -- entirely across the open field, and in one place it was within seventy-five yards of the works. The musketry made us keep well covered; and we did not allow any heads to stay above the parapet longer than a second. Time and again we sprang forward, but we would have to return to our place, or fall down behind some other protection. At last a portion of our line touched a shallow ravine, which extended perpendicularly forward almost flanked the works running across the open field -- and that at close range-- and then, bending around to the right, approached within thirty yards of the parapet. Some of us got into the ravine, and we raised a cheer of triumph. It sounded oddly that the men flat on their bellies should crow so loudly, be we were justified in crowing. Soon we had the crest of the ravine lined with good men, and they made the garrison to our left keep low and dark by their musket fire. The ravine was filling all along. Our musketry became so effective that our line to the left of the ravine -- the latter being on the right of the field, -- could crawl well forward. To the right of me was a fine looking North Carolina major, in a new uniform. His eagerness drew us into an ill timed attempt to charge, before we had sufficient men in the ravine. We were repulsed, and he fell while he had his back to the works, waving his men to come on.

Under my self-training I could usually do without water in the hottest day, but now my thirst became intolerable. I sent off Chambers, a good man in Company H, with my canteen, taking his musket. Before he got back, word was passed along our line, that a reinforcement had arrived, and it would charge in a few minutes; when we heard its cheers on the left we must go into the works. The works could only be seen by those in the field and in the ravine. I noted that the men were erecting their spirits for a real charge. Just as they were ready, a loud cry from the left came to our ears. We rose and flew forward. Captain Brown, of the 59th Georgia, in Anderson’s brigade, a friend of mine, started near me. I was running my best when I caught sight of him. He was much the more fleet, and, seeming that he would be the first in, I envied him greatly. Straight at the ditch -- it was on our side -- he went, and he vaulted into the air, going up and down almost like a mortar shell. I lost sight of him behind the parapet. I could not compete with the Ravels {colloq. meaning "entanglements" probably abatis (intentionally felled timbers)} in leaping, and so I turned towards an opening left for a passage-way through the works, where there was no ditch and no parapet; and, just as I was about to enter, two Irishmen, wild with excitement from Brown’s sudden descent near them with his pistol drawn, rushed towards me with their bayonets down. Chambers had his bayonet in the scabbard. It occurred to me that I will shoot the first and club the other. I leveled the musket, and both of them immediately threw their pieces in the air high over me. I motioned them to the rear, and hurried in. The garrison were stumbling over felled trees, evidently very desirous to get to the neighboring forest before our line could open fire from the works. Their backs were towards me, and they seemed to move very awkwardly, and with more appearance of abject fright than I had ever observed on the field. I then saw that they were negroes. I shot my musket at a crowded group, but whether the shot took effect I never tried to find out. It was white troops that fought us in the corn-field, and white faces crowned the parapet when we were repulsed in the charge that the major led. I should like to have that sudden substitution of blacks for whites explained.

The fight ended at about 4 P.M. While we were rejoicing over the recovered works, Andy Everett, a member of our company, was displaying a large gold watch chain he had taken from a dead federal solider. Andy was sadly given to pillage. A quarter-master riding by asked what he would take for the chain. "Fifteen hundred dollars," said Andy. "Let me see it" said the other; and he took it in his hand, evidently to make sure of it, not to examine it. "It is a bargain" said the quarter-master, and he counted out the money. As he road away Andy said, "Damn him, why I did not ask him twenty five hundred."

Bob Gentry, a royal soldier of my company, was in the rifle pits when the fighting commenced. His ear told him that we needed help, and I first observed him at the fence loading and firing rapidly. I admired his gallantry later in the charge in the corn-filed, and he kept on the forward edge of the fight all day. It was not until we had retaken the works that it occurred to me he ought to have stayed in the rifle-pits. He was rejoicing in our victory, happy to know that he had done as much towards it as any other man in the ranks. Calling him aside, I asked him if he knew that he had in leaving the rifle pits committed an offense punishable with death. He changed countenance; and for an instant looked very guilty. Then he rallied and said, "I have heard of men being court-martialed and shot for running out of a fight, but I never knew that done to anybody for running into one."

Chambers came back with my canteen, and after my thirst was quenched, Cap. Lewis, who was in command of the regiment, I, and Wheeler, of the Atlanta Grays, one of the best confederate soldiers, went forward in the woods to reconnoiter. We were fired on by our own men, but they soon became ashamed of their mistake. After we got out of sight of the entrenchments, zip came a bullet from the front. Lewis and I treed {colloq.}. Wheeler fell on the ground, and gradually raised himself on his hands. Lewis said, "Wheeler, I see him by such and such a tree." "And I do now," replied Wheeler. The latter raised his carbine -- why he had a carbine instead of a musket, I do not now remember -- and aimed. It seemed that he would never have done. Lewis told me afterwards that he was afraid the gun was at half-cock. But at last he fired, and then he fell forward on his hands, where he remained gazing intently, until the smoke having cleared away, he said, "I got him." We went forward, and there the poor fellow lay, stark and stiff already. We were hungry, and we opened his haversack. It was filled with some kind of meat that I have forgotten, and hard tack. Some of the crackers were stained with his fresh blood. These we threw away, but the others we ate down there and ate greedily with the meat. I felt no compunction then; but often the act comes back to me, and I shudder, and wish that I had at least gone out of sight of the dead man before I ate his rations.

It was here that I noticed that my coat, vest and trowsers {sic} were drenched with perspiration. This never happened to me at any other time.

After eating we returned to the works. I thought of the North Carolina major. He was lying not far away. His body had not been removed, but friendly hands had laid it out. He was painfully beautiful. But I did not know him; and I desired to see Culpepper. He was likewise laid out on the spot where he had fallen. The sword was buckled on and the cap restored to his head. The blood had been washed from his face, and the bullet hole in the forehead did not disfigure him. To me it was in keeping. That was the way for a soldier like Culpepper to die. How tranquil, was the softness of his upturned face. I never had I seen him half so beautiful. Oh how I longed for the power to show him to his mother. I would have mingled my tears with hers, as I told her, "Here is your glorified boy."

Then I went to see him who had fallen by my side at the house. But friends had taken him away. I was told that he was also dressed in the extreme beauty of recent death.

I remember this battle as the one of all in which I took part that illustrates best what may be called automatic methods. After we crossed the road and until we seized the corn-field we were not reinforced. While fighting at the house, we received additions, but there was no general officer among them. The line which pushed across the field, into the ravine, and at last into the works, was really under the actual command of nobody. Further to the left, behind some second-growth pines, the region from which the cheers came which compelled us forward in the winning charge, there was evidently some wise direction of a general officer. But in that part of the field which I saw and which I have described there was no lead nor command except the experience of the field and line officers, and the combative, but prudent advancing of southern volunteers. It is a study for the military critic. Our line looked far more broken and undressed than the militia drill in Georgia Scenes; but that line; so far as I can judge was exactly what it ought to have been. It was a combination of Indian wariness and English stubbornness. It had antennae throughout, to tell by delicate contact, when to recoil and when to move forward. And its intelligence, although not directed by a commander present, was demonstrated by the shout which went up when it entered the ravine, the existence of which had not been suspected. Sometimes entrenchments are assaulted at the command of a celebrated leader, who has planned everything, and the result is such butchery of the assailants as scourged our attempt to storm Fort Sanders at Knoxville, or Gen’l. Grant’s operations of May 10, 1864, and afterwards at Cold Harber {sic}; and sometimes, as the affair herein described shows, a column of men, with good regimental and company officers, will, on proper ground, gradually feel their way on to the key, and then carry the works, -- all with small loss.