THE CAUSE OF A SILENT BATTLE.
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attack, had not driven the Federal line in theirfront at the same time with the rest of the divis-ion ; but they had now forced it, and were closely
following the fugitives. The prisoners, about 800iu number, were turned over to the 5th Texas regiment, which was close on their heels.
R eference has been made to the supposed effectof the wind in preventing, as in the case of theheavy cannonading between the Mcrrimac and Con-gress , the transference of sound-waves a distanceof not over three and one-half miles over water ;and at another time, during the bombardments ofthe Confederate works at Port Royal , a distance ofnot more than two miles. “ The day was pleasant,”says the writer, “ and the wind did not appear unu-sually strong Yet “ people living in St. Augustine ,Florida , told me afterward that the Port Royalcannonade was heard at that place, 150 miles fromthe fight.” &
It occurs to me that the effect of the wind isgreatly exaggerated in these instances. How anordinary breeze could “ carry all sounds of the con-flict away from people standing within plain sightof it” and yet carry the same sound 150 milesin the opposite direction, is rather too stronglyopposed to scientific fact to remain on recordundisputed.
In all of these cases, is it not probable that thevarying density of the air had much more to do withthis strange acoustic opacity than the wind ?
These statements call to mind the prevalent be-lief that fog, snow, hail, and rain, indeed, any con-ditions of the atmosphere that render it opticallyopaque, render it also acoustically opaque ; which,up to the time of Mr. Tyndall’s experiments in theEnglish Channel , off Dover, had scarcely beenquestioned. His tests made in 1873-74 provedconclusively, as is now well known, that on cleardays the air may be composed of differently heatedmasses, saturated in different degrees with aqueousvapors, which produce exactly the deadening effectsdescribed above.
I submit as a case in point a similar effect, andits explanation as furnished by Mr. R. G. H. Kean
j For references to the phenomena of irregular transmissionof sound at the battles on the Chickahominy, see the articlesof Generals Joseph E. Johnston, Gustavus W. Smith , andWm. B. Franklin, pp. 213, 244, and 368, respectively. InVol. I., p. 713, General R. E. Colston, mentions the inter-esting fact about the engagement between the Congress andMcrrimac , at the mouth of the James River, March 8th, 1862.
S>The Port Royal incident was related in a communica-tion to “The Century” magazine by Mr. S. H. Prescott, ofConcord, N. I-I., in part as follows: “At the bombardmentof the Confederate works at Port Royal, South Carolina , inNovember, 1861, the transport my regiment was on lay nearenough inshore to give us a fine view of the whole battle;but only in some temporary lull of the wind could we hearthe faintest sound of firing. The day was a pleasant one, andthe wind did not appear to be unusually strong; but I noticedthen and afterward that a breeze on the coast down that waywas very different from the erratic gusts and flaws I hadbeen used to in the New England States , the whole atmos-phere seeming to move in a body, giving sound no chance totravel against it, but carrying it immense distances to theleeward. People living at St. Augustine, Florida , told meafterward that the Port Royal cannonade was heard at thatplace, 150 miles from where the tight took place. A portionof the siege-batteries at Morris Island. South Carolina , were
to Professor Tyndall, and considered by the latterof sufficient value to find a place in his publishedworks:
“ On the afternoon of June 27th, 1862, 1 rode, iu com-pany with General G. W. Randolph, then Secretary ofWar of the Confederate States, to Price ’s house, aboutniue miles from Richmond. The evening before GeneralLee had begun his attack on McClellan’s army, by cross-ing the Chickahominy about four miles above Price ’s,and driving iu McClellan’s right wing.
“ The battle of Gaines’s Mill was fought the afternoonto which I refer. The valley of the Chickahominy isabout one and a half miles wide from hill-top to hill-top. Price’s is on one hill-top, that nearest to Rich-mond ; Gaines’s farm, just opposite, is on the other,reaching back in a plateau to Cold Harbor.
“ Looking across the valley, I saw a good deal of thebattle, Lee ’s right resting in the valley, the Federal leftwing the same. My line of vision was nearly in the lineof the lines of battle. I saw the advance of the Con-federates, their repulse two or three times, and in thegray of the evening the final retreat of the Federalforces. I distinctly saw the musket-lire of both lines,the smoke, individual discharges, the flash of the guns.I saw batteries of artillery on both sides come intoaction and lire rapidly. Several field-batteries on eachside were plainly in sight. Many more were hid by thetimber whicli bounded the range of vision.
“ Yet looking for nearly two hours, from about 5 to7 p. m. on a midsummer afternoon, at a battle in whichat least 50,000 men were actually engaged, and doubt-less at least 100 pieces of field-artillery, through anatmosphere optically as limpid as possible, not a singlesound of the battle was audible to General Randolph andmyself. I remarked it to him at the time as astonishing.
“Between me and the battle was the deep, broadvalley of the Chickahominy, partly a swamp shadedfrom the declining sun by the hills and forest in thewest (my side). Part of the valley on each side of theswamp was cleared: some in cultivation, some not.Here were conditions capable of providing several beltsof air, varying in the amount of watery vapor (andprobably in temperature), arranged like laminae at rightangles to the acoustic waves as they came from thebattle-field to me.” |
not more than two miles from our camp, but at times tliefiring from them and the enemy’s replies could only be beardvery faintly even at that short distance, while at others,when the wind blew from the opposite direction, the soundswere as sharp and distinct as if the battle were taking placewithin a few rods of us.”
-I General E. M. Law, of Lee ’s army, in the “SouthernBivouac” for May, 1887, speaks as follows of the “silentbattle” of Gaines’s Mill: “To the troops stationed near theliver, on the Richmond side, the action at Gaines’s Mill wasplainly visible, that part of it, at least, which took place inthe open ground. I have been told by an eye-witness thatfrom Price ’s house, on the opposite side, he could distinctlysee the Confederate lines advancing to the attack throughthe open ground heyond the Chickahominy swamp, and coulddistinguish the direction of the lines of battle by tlie volumeof smoke arising from the woods farther to the Confederatecenter and left. But it was all like a pantomime; not asound could be heard, neither the tremendous roar of themusketry nor even the reports of the artillery. As they sawour assaulting lines recoil from the onset, as they wereseveral times compelled to do early in the fight, tlie anxietyof our friends ‘ over the river’ to help was intense; but theenemy was in tlieir front also, and their time for action wouldsoon come.” EDITORS.