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As the fight grew furious the Colonel cried out "Put on the war
paint!" and looking around I saw the glorious man standing erect
with a red handkerchief, a conspicuous mark, tied around his bare head.
Taking the cue somehow we rubbed the torn ends of cartridges over our
faces, streaking them with powder like a pack of Indians and Colonel
to complete the similarity cried out, "Give'em the war whoop" and all of
us joined him in the Indian war whoop until it must have rung out amid
the thunder of the ordinance." The losses for this day were seven killed and one hundred and twenty wounded out of three hundred and nineteen present for duty. Among the wounded were Cross and Pvt. Leonard Howard from Lancaster who was struck by a musket ball that penetrated his right lung. His story is typical of the plight of many wounded. " I lay on the battlefield right in that ditch {Bloody Lane} for more than twenty-four hours. The stretcher bearers passed me by. No doubt they thought that I couldn't live, so they didn't bother to pick me up. My chum, Bill Corson, hunted all over trying to find me. At long last he did and gave me a drink from his canteen. He tried to get the stretcher bearers to help lug me off the field, but they refused. They said twas no use, I'd die anyway. So finally Bill told a couple of stretcher men |
that he'd report them to Col. Cross if they didn't take me off the field.
They picked me up and carried me to a set of farm buildings. The yard
was filled with wounded, as close together as they could lay. The house
and barn were filled with wounded officers and men. The stretcher men couldn't find any other place to leave me, so they dumped me in a
hog pen. The hogs had been slaughtered by |
removed from command of the army. Gove recorded, "The boys feel badly about it, I do not care, have lost confidence in Mac. Hope Burnside will do things up brown." On the same subject, Cross recorded in his journal, "Here we have heard the removal of McClellan from command of the army at this time an ill-advised operation. We were going on well, and two days would have brought us to the enemy...He carried the hearts of the army with him." On the morning of Dec. 13, 1862 the Fifth New Hampshire formed with the remainder of the Second Corps on the streets of Fredericksburg as part of Burnside's disastrous assault on the Confederate lines entrenched on the height above the town. Col. Cross recorded "I went to my regiment, counted my files, and found that I had two-hundred and forty nine rifles and nineteen officers - line, field and staff. I passed along the line and spoke to the officers and men; told them it twas to be a bloody strife, to stand firm, and fire low; to close on their colors and be steady. I told the officers, I said that they were expected to do their duty. Then I placed myself at the head of my men and we started, following the Click to continue |
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| the soldiers, of course, but the pen was a mess and swarm'in with flies.
(Howard survived the wound and lived to be ninety). Following Antietam, the Fifth with the rest of the army was involved in McClellan's ponderous pursuit of Lee. Corp. Gove wrote in his diary, "October 29, 1862, The Fifth N.H. left Concord one year ago today. We then had more than one hundred thousand men. Now we can but muster two hundred. On Wednesday, Nov. 12, 1862, McClellan was |
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