Excerpt from an account titled From the Wilderness to Spottsylvania by Brevet Colonel R. S. Robertson as recorded in Sketches of War History, 1861-1865, Papers Read Before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 1883-1886, Volume 1 starting on page 281. At the time of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House First Lieutenant Robertson was serving as an aide to Colonel Nelson Miles who commanded the 1st Brigade of Barlow's Division of Hancock's 2nd Corps, Army of the Potomac.
.... "At half-past four we started up the slope with silent but rapid tread. We reach the crest, to find a mistake has been made, and there is another valley and another slope to climb, and our premature cheers have awakened the foe. We sweep in their picket line, capturing nearly every man. We are fired on by the reserve picket, but drive it in.
Enthusiasm can no longer be controlled. The arms had been carried at a " right shoulder shift." Now they are brought to a " charge," and the charging column, with cheers which might almost wake the dead, and were omens of victory, breaks into a double-quick.
We see the frowning earth-works in our front lined with the now thoroughly aroused enemy, whose every eye was taking deadly aim over the long line of glittering muskets resting beneath the logs which crowned the rampart. We tear away or crawl through the abatis. The first line seems to melt before the terrific volley which salutes us.
Gallant Colonel Seviers, of the Twenty-sixth, is among the first to fall, shot through the breast, but still living. A dear friend crosses over to my side, and begins to speak, but his sentence is finished in eternity, for he falls with the words half uttered, shot through the head.
They fall too fast to notice who is gone, but the places of the stricken ones are filled at once, and the mad mass surges on over the intrenchments, in a resistless terrible wave which sweeps all before it. Here a savage hand to hand conflict ensues, between men maddened with the battle fury, so that they fight with muskets clubbed, with bayonets and with swords. Our onset is too strong for resistance, and we sweep in General Ed. Johnson with four thousand men and thirty stands of colors. As we press on, a park of artillery is encountered. The brave artillerists sullenly stand by their guns, fighting to save them, with rammers used as clubs, and every weapon in their reach; and many of the gallant fellows are slain at their guns, disdaining to surrender. Onward sweeps the resistless mass, with cheers and yells of exultation, sending twenty-five cannon to the rear, as further trophies of its valor. We reach an open space where the houses of Spottsylvania can be seen, and louder grow the exulting cheers. But, there is a lion in our path. Lee is massing all his army in a second line of works, and, as we strike that, the hammer rebounds. A deadly continuous blaze of musketry and a raking fire of artillery check our further advance. Still, if fresh troops, full of ardor, could now take the place of our broken and disorganized mass, it may yet accomplish the work.
None come, however, and we labor to organize our broken and shattered column in line to hold the position we have reached. We have no regimental or company organizations left, but a disorganized and shattered line devoid of organization.
The Confederates pour out over their intrenchments and drive us back. Again we advance, and again are compelled to retire, but do it fighting the way inch by inch. At last we have fallen back in successively advancing and receding waves, until we form again on the outside of the breastworks we had so fairly and yet so dearly won.
Behind them, or rather, in front, we can breathe again, holding this line until fresh troops can be sent up. Column after column attempted to charge beyond the line, but none succeeded in passing beyond us. There is a point in battle beyond which flesh and blood can not pass, and we had found that point.
The " Horse-shoe " was a boiling, bubbling and hissing caldron of death.
Lee's army was hurled against us as we lay hugging the slope of the earth-work, loading and firing at will, in five successive waves, in his effort to retake this, the key to his position ; but our fire was too hot, and the waves of gray were successively beaten back with terrible loss. Once a few hundred, with a stand of colors, in their furious charge, reached the inside of the works. To advance was impossible, to retreat was death, for in the great struggle that raged there, there were few merely wounded. The bullets sang like swarming bees, and their sting was death. As a charge would be made we would rise to our feet to meet the shock. Clubbed muskets and bayonet thrusts were the mode of fighting for those who had used up their cartridges, and frenzy seemed to possess the yelling, demoniac hordes on either side, as soft-voiced tender hearted men in camp, sought like wild beasts, to destroy their fellow men.
The dead were piled in swaths and winrows both outside and inside the line of works.
Outside, the harvest was of blue — inside, of mingled blue and gray — peaceful enough as they lay there, unmindful of the pitiless storm which rages round them. The living out side the breastworks, and they inside, are not so quiet, for they try to probe each other with bayonets, and if a hand is raised, a hundred bullets assail it.
Once the rebel colors floated out with the wind, until it could be grasped by one of our boys. The brave color-bearer rose to his feet, clinging to the staff. Our brave boy also rises, clinging to the flag, and, with disengaged hands, they seek to grasp each others' throats in a deadly struggle for the flag. Thus they stand over the very rampart, both determined to win the flag. By common consent, firing ceased at that point, and both sides eagerly watch and encourage the fray. Finally, the flag is torn from its staff, and its proud captor, with a shattered arm, is hailed with shouts of applause. I wish I knew his name, that I might hand it down to the future to be honored in history.
All that forenoon the battle raged thus fiercely over that small space, where the musketry fire was so hot and fierce that the ground was bared of bushes, as with a scythe, and a white-oak tree, twenty-two inches in diameter, was cut down wholly by bullets. Its stump was exhibited at the Centennial, and is now in the Ordnance Museum at Washington.
The ground drank its full of blood, and grew slippery to the foot. Fresh troops from the other corps were continually being pushed up to the salient, in vain endeavors to make a new assault upon the enemy's line within. But the heaps of dead, the pools of blood, and the terrific volleys of musketry, were too much for man's endurance. To advance was impossible, to hold our position was grand." ....