Sickness
sapped men’s strength, morale, and life. Near Sewell Mountain in the fall of 1861 a Southern soldier wrote, “I have
seen good soldiers, good true - men [who] would be a
honor to any nation, parched and burning up with fevers, lying in wet tents without
bedding supplied.” If a sick man were to send for a doctor, the writer
continued, and if “perchance he saw fit in the majesty of his exalted position”
to come at all, he wrote, “it would be to ask a few crabbed questions…and
without one word of sympathy or encouragement, turn upon his high heeled boots
and proudly strut off.” The soldier wrote, “I have seen worse sufferings if
possible than this...I have seen wagons crowded with sick men with no bedding
but a knapsack and an old blanket and conveyed over miserably rough roads….I
have seen the same men put out of wagons when they could be hauled no further
to drag themselves over the mountains best they could - staggering from
weakness and disease, after they had been literally jolted to death - or try to
walk until their last expiring breath…and then buried in some unknown spot, far
away from home and loved ones.”
At
about the same time, in mid - September, disease was also the worst enemy for
the Confederates at Manassas. Because of the lack of “proper enforcement of
hygienic regulations,” wrote one soldier, “the past month has been one in which
there has been a reckless waste of life in the army in consequences of which
our camp is now suffering.” Major contributors to the suffering and death
included flies, lice, fleas, and mosquitoes, which bit and crawled over men’s
bodies, annoying the living and transmitting diseases such as dysentery and
malaria. Insects contributed to the ungodly sights on the battlefield. Flies
swarmed over swollen and darkened corpses, emitting stomach - turning stench
from bodies covered with large masses of wiggling maggots that feasted upon the
corpses’ eyes, nose, mouth, and other body parts.
Every
battlefield, especially Bull
Run, was “an awful looking
place,” wrote a Southern soldier. Yet this and other sites of combat had almost
a hypnotic attraction. More than one Confederate soldier who was camped at
Centreville near the Bull Run battlefield would state, “If we do not go away from
here soon, I think I shall go up and take a look at it.” What they saw were
about a dozen abandoned houses in different areas of the battlefield where
families had previously lived happily. The Henry house had been riddled by a
dozen cannonballs and numerous bullets. Others had bloodstained floors, where
wounded men had been carried. Fence rails were strewn about everywhere, and
fields of corn had been trampled down, presenting a sight far worse than most
had imagined. The evidence of the battle remained: clothing, old shoes, and
human bones were scattered in every direction. Several hundred yards east of
the Henry house stood a small monument marking the spot where Bartow had
fallen. Every tree around the Henry house that was large enough for a walking
stick had been cut down and taken away; large cherry trees’ branches had been
stripped to make pipe stems. The ground around the Henry house was strewn with
dead horses and the graves of Union soldiers. Those who fell on the Southern
side were buried respectfully; the Yankees received less care and were tossed
in gullies and mass graves, where dirt covering them had washed away. Arms and
legs could be seen sticking out of the ground.
The
graves of New York Zouave were a popular visitation
site of Confederates camped at Centreville. The Southerners used fence rails to
pry up their bodies to get buttons off their clothes. One Confederate sent his
wife samples of hair from a Zouave’s head and a tooth
from a Union artillery horse. In early December, Confederates dug up a Federal
artilleryman and were amazed to find that from the waist down, the flesh was
firm and well preserved. Finding this difficult to believe, all who passed by
took a rail and turned the body over to get a complete look. This and other
sights caused the soldier who sent his wife the Zouave’s
hair to tell her that it was “shocking to look over such a place, but a
soldier’s heart soon gets hard and he can look at much [of] anything.”
Nevertheless, men on both sides would agree with the Federal soldier who, after
campaigning in western Virginia,
wrote, “I think I have discovered that the martial road to glory ‘is a hard
road to travel.’”
The
gods of war would demand even more.
