Pennsylvania Game News - March 2016 - 27

pocket, turned to his friend Sam and said,
"See, I told you this here turkey spur
would bring me luck. We might not even
get in this fight."
By evening, the heavy gunfire tapered
off. It completely subsided once darkness closed in. Ambulance wagons
full of wounded came streaming down
the road. Henry felt sorry for the poor
wretches stacked like cord wood in the
wagons. The moaning and groaning
of soldiers with shattered limbs was
unnerving to men who hadn't yet been
in the battle.
"These men are lucky," a gruff teamster handling the mules of one wagon
said. "The danged dry woods caught fire
in some sections of the battlefield, and
wounded men we couldn't get to burned
to death."
Henry's outfit was told to sleep near
their positions without making campfires,
as word trickled down that the Army of
the Potomac would attack early the next
morning.
At 5 a.m., Confederate cannon signaled the dawn of another violent day.
At 7 a.m. most of the 149th Pennsylvania was ordered up the Orange Plank
Road and into the battle.
Henry again couldn't believe his luck,
as his company was ordered to stay behind
and guard rebel prisoners taken at the
onset of the fighting early that morning.
Later that afternoon, Henry's company
was told to march the prisoners, raggedlooking lean men dressed in butternut
and gray, back to Brock Road, where the
prisoners were to be marched north to the
Rapidan River landing.
"I hope you'uns have it better than our
boys do in Andersonville," Henry said to
the group of prisoners. Word had it that
MARCH 2016	

conditions at the Confederate prison camp
were atrocious.
Henry had survived another day.
He rejoined the rest of the 149th early
the next morning behind makeshift breastworks farther up Brock Road, and he was
relieved that only two men of his outfit
had been killed in the battle the previous
afternoon. Ten more had been wounded
while turning back a Confederate attack.
Word had it that the Army of the
Potomac was moving out, farther south
toward Richmond to a place called Spotsylvania, to outmaneuver the Army of
Northern Virginia.
Because they had missed the fighting,
Henry and privates Sam Patterson and
Tom Wilcox were chosen to venture out
and make sure the rebel skirmishers were
gone while the 149th assembled on the
road to move out.
Henry and his companions headed into
the woods beyond the Union breastworks,
and after going about 70 yards, passed a
scattering of dead rebel soldiers killed the
day before.
The three ventured another 200 yards
or so when Henry stopped and turned to
say something to his friend Sam.
Before he could get a word out, Henry
heard the crack of a rifle and felt the sharp
impact from a minié ball slamming into
his right side, knocking him off his feet.
Sam and Tom dragged Henry behind
a log.
"Where ya hit, Henry?" Sam asked.
Henry's right side was seemingly on
fire, and it was hard to breathe.
The frothy blood starting to appear on
Henry's lips made it clear to his fellow soldiers that he had been hit in the lower part
of one lung. Although they didn't say so
to Henry, they knew the wound was fatal.
"You hang on, Henry, we'll be back fer
yer with some help," Sam said.
27
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - March 2016
