Gordon And The Bayonet Charge At Antietam

In the opening chapter of General John B. Gordon's interesting

"Reminiscences of the Civil War" he tells us that the bayonet, so far as

he knew, was very rarely used in that war, and never effectively. The

bayonet, the lineal descendant of the lance and spear of far-past

warfare, had done remarkable service in its day, but with the advent of

the modern rifle its day ended, except as a weapon useful in repelling

cavalry charges or defending hollow squares. Fearful as their glittering

and bristling points appeared when levelled in front of a charging line,

bayonets were rarely reddened with the blood of an enemy in the Civil

War, and the soldiers of that desperate conflict found them more useful

as tools in the rapid throwing up of light earthworks than as weapons

for use against their foes.



Later in his work Gordon gives a case in point, in his vivid description

of a bayonet charge upon the line under his command on the bloody field

of Antietam. This is well worth repeating as an illustration of the

modern ineffectiveness of the bayonet, and also as a story of thrilling

interest in itself. As related by Gordon, there are few incidents in

the war which surpass it in picturesqueness and vitality.



The battle of Antietam was a struggle unsurpassed for its desperate and

deadly fierceness in the whole war, the losses, in comparison with the

numbers engaged, being the greatest of any battle-field of the conflict.

The plain in which it was fought was literally bathed in blood.



It is not our purpose to describe this battle, but simply that portion

of it in which General Gordon's troops were engaged. For hour after hour

a desperate struggle continued on the left of Lee's lines, in which

charge and counter-charge succeeded each other, until the green corn

which had waved there looked as if had been showered upon by a rain of

blood. But during those hours of death not a shot had been fired upon

the centre. Here General Gordon's men held the most advanced position,

and were without a supporting line, their post being one of imminent

danger in case of an assault in force.



As the day passed onward the battle on the left at length lulled, both

sides glad of an interval of rest. That McClellan's next attempt would

be made upon the centre General Lee felt confident, and he rode thither

to caution the leaders and bid them to hold their ground at any

sacrifice. A break at that point, he told them, might prove ruinous to

the army. He especially charged Gordon to stand stiffly with his men, as

his small force would feel the first brunt of the expected assault.

Gordon, alike to give hope to Lee and to inspire his own men, said in

reply,--



"These men are going to stay here, general, till the sun goes down or

victory is won."



Lee's military judgment, as usual, was correct. He had hardly got back

to the left of his line when the assault predicted by him came. It was a

beautiful and brilliant day, scarcely a cloud mantling the sky. Down the

slope opposite marched through the clear sunlight a powerful column of

Federal troops. Crossing the little Antietam Creek they formed in column

of assault, four lines deep. Their commander, nobly mounted, placed

himself at their right, while the front line came to a "charge bayonets"

and the other lines to a "right shoulder shift." In the rear front the

band blared out martial music to give inspiration to the men. To the

Confederates, looking silently and expectantly on the coming corps, the

scene was one of thrilling interest. It might have been one of terror

but for their long training in such sights.



Who were these men so spick and span in their fresh blue uniforms, in

strange contrast to the ragged and soiled Confederate gray? Every man of

them wore white gaiters and neat attire, while the dust and smoke of

battle had surely never touched the banners that floated above their

heads. Were they new recruits from some military camp, now first to test

their training in actual war? In the sunlight the long line of bayonets

gleamed like burnished silver. As if fresh from the parade-ground they

advanced with perfect alignment, their steps keeping martial time to the

steady beat of the drum. It was a magnificent spectacle as the line

advanced, a show of martial beauty which it seemed a shame to destroy by

the rude hand of war.



One thing was evident to General Gordon. His opponent proposed to trust

to the bayonet and attempt to break through Lee's centre by the sheer

weight of his deep charging column. It might be done. Here were four

lines of blue marching on the one in gray. How should the charge be met?

By immediate and steady fire, or by withholding his fire till the lines

were face to face, and then pouring upon the Federals a blighting storm

of lead? Gordon decided on the latter, believing that a sudden and

withering burst of deadly hail in the faces of men with empty guns would

be more than any troops could stand.



All the horses were sent to the rear and the men were ordered to lie

down in the grass, they being told by their officers that the Federals

were coming with unloaded guns, trusting to the bayonet, and that not a

shot must be heard until the word "Fire!" was given. This would not be

until the Federals were close at hand. In the old Revolutionary phrase,

they must wait "till they saw the whites of their eyes."



On came the long lines, still as steady and precise in movement as if

upon holiday drill. Not a rifle-shot was heard. Neither side had

artillery at this point, and no roar of cannon broke the strange

silence. The awaiting boys in gray grew eager and impatient and had to

be kept in restraint by their officers. "Wait! wait for the word!" was

the admonition. Yet it was hard to lie there while that line of bayonets

came closer and closer, until the eagles on the buttons of the blue

coats could be seen, and at length the front rank was not twenty yards

away.



The time had come. With all the power of his lungs Gordon shouted out

the word "Fire!" In an instant there burst from the prostrate line a

blinding blaze of light, and a frightful hail of bullets rent through

the Federal ranks. Terrible was the effect of that consuming volley.

Almost the whole front rank of the foe seemed to go down in a mass. The

brave commander and his horse fell in a heap together. In a moment he

was on his feet; it was the horse, not the man, that the deadly bullet

had found.



In an instant more the recumbent Confederates were on their feet, an

appalling yell bursting from their throats as they poured new volleys

upon the Federal lines. No troops on earth could have faced that fire

without a chance to reply. Their foes bore unloaded guns. Not a bayonet

had reached the breast for which it was aimed. The lines recoiled,

though in good order for men swept by such a blast of death. Large

numbers of them had fallen, yet not a drop of blood had been lost by one

of Gordon's men.



The gallant man who led the Federals was not yet satisfied that the

bayonet could not break the ranks of his foes. Reforming his men, now in

three lines, he led them again with empty guns to the charge. Again they

were driven back with heavy loss. With extraordinary persistence he

clung to his plan of winning with the bayonet, coming on again and again

until four fruitless charges had been made on Gordon's lines, not a man

in which had fallen, while the Federal loss had been very heavy. Not

until convinced by this sanguinary evidence that the day of the bayonet

was past did he order his men to load and open fire on the hostile

lines. It was an experiment in an obsolete method of warfare which had

proved disastrous to those engaged in it.






In the remaining hours of that desperate conflict Gordon and his men had

another experience to face. The fire from both sides grew furious and

deadly, and at nightfall, when the carnage ceased, so many of the

soldiers in gray had fallen that, as one of the officers afterward said,

he could have walked on the dead bodies of the men from end to end of

the line. How true this was Gordon was unable to say, for by this time

he was himself a wreck, fairly riddled with bullets.



As he tells us, his previous record was remarkably reversed in this

fight, and we cannot better close our story than with a description of

his new experience. He had hitherto seemed almost to bear a charmed

life. While numbers had fallen by his side in battle, and his own

clothing had been often pierced and torn by balls and fragments of

shells, he had not lost a drop of blood, and his men looked upon him as

one destined by fate not to be killed in battle. "They can't hit him;"

"He's as safe in one place as another," form a type of the expressions

used by them, and Gordon grew to have much the same faith in his

destiny, as he passed through battle after battle unharmed.



At Antietam the record was decidedly broken. The first volley from the

Federal troops sent a bullet whirling through the calf of his right leg.

Soon after another ball went through the same leg, at a higher point. As

no bone was broken, he was still able to walk along the line and

encourage his men to bear the deadly fire which was sweeping their

lines. Later in the day a third ball came, this passing through his arm,

rending flesh and tendons, but still breaking no bone. Through his

shoulder soon came a fourth ball, carrying a wad of clothing into the

wound. The men begged their bleeding commander to leave the field, but

he would not flinch, though fast growing faint from loss of blood.



Finally came the fifth ball, this time striking him in the face, and

passing out, just missing the jugular vein. Falling, he lay unconscious

with his face in his cap, into which poured the blood from his wound

until it threatened to smother him. It might have done so but for still

another ball, which pierced the cap and let out the blood.



When Gordon was borne to the rear he had been so seriously wounded and

lost so much blood that his case seemed hopeless. Fortunately for him,

his faithful wife had followed him to the war and now became his nurse.

As she entered the room, with a look of dismay on seeing him, Gordon,

who could scarcely speak from the condition of his face, sought to

reassure her with, the faintly articulated words, "Here's your handsome

husband; been to an Irish wedding."



It was providential for him that he had this faithful and devoted nurse

by his side. Only her earnest and incessant care saved him to join the

war again. Day and night she was beside him, and when erysipelas

attacked his wounded arm and the doctors told her to paint the arm above

the wound three or four times a day with iodine, she obeyed by painting

it, as he thought, three or four hundred times a day. "Under God's

providence," he says, "I owe my life to her incessant watchfulness night

and day, and to her tender nursing through weary weeks and anxious

months."