NOTES ON COLD HARBOR.

231

tin * 1 ^ des troyed, and that he intended to con-aee Ue Nie plodding work till the task should hein wasting very little time or strength

shj 6 • ltS to ma1ce a brilliant display of general-at/* ltL a eon l ;es i strategic wits with Lee. Webv t St l 3 e S a n to understand what Grant had meantout 18 6 x P ress i° u °f a determination to “fight itq OU ibis line if it takes all summer.”

^ , 11 ’ state of mind, however, was curiously illus-j )eQ 1 ^ e °f the character of the contest, and of theSort 6 1,v1l ° Participated in it on the part of the1 0 . a ' The Southern folk were always debaters,gis/^ ^°^ 10 ail d taking off their hats to a syllo-how*' The y bad never been able to understandSe e au y reasonable mind could doubt the right ofinir 8l ° n ’ or fail to see the unlawfulness andMat ^ coei 'cion, and they were in a chronicthat®-^ surprised incredulity, as the war began,ae North could indeed be about to wage a war1 0 ■ e VPa s manifestly forbidden by unimpeachabledjJ- Nr the same way at Cold Harbor we were alliu d S6C ' 1o waste a good deal of intellectual energyr 6ag ln °nstrating to each other the absurd and un-W 6 ° na ble character of General Grant’s procedure.t] lat 00v dd show that he must have lost already ineain P a iS 11 more men than Lee’s entire force,r eti. ° U ^t, logically, to acknowledge defeat and> p tbat having begun the contest with an over-t 0 a dvantage in point of numbers, he ought

Wliii a f 1lame( I to ask for reenforcements; and thatlosse ' C011 Nnuing the process of suffering greatLe 111 01 ’der to inflict much smaller losses on us,C6i ;^d ultimately wear us out, it was incon-ip y 16 fbat any general should consent to winp ai , 6( j * unfair way. Iu like manner we were pre-° a tUiv ■ i >rove fbe wicked imbecility of his plan ofbiip . S* 1 , a plan that could only end by placingWh ioh l 5 Position below Richmond and Petersburg,fr 0tn might just as well reach by an advancet er Monroe, without the tremendous slaugli-

I n . 16 Wilderness, Spotsylvania, etc.c °hsifl 10W °*' ® eilera l Grant’s stolid indifference toW ag ® ra tions of this character, however, thereWg ^filing for us to do but fight the matter out.

no fear of the ultimate result, however

Mai

■lllly

°ur own perception of facts pointed to the

’if.yj | , _

1, 6 destruction of our power of resistance.1 'ep e j a a bsolute faith in Lee’s ability to meet ands au ^ assa ult tliat might be made, and to de-^orefo * 16 means °f destroying Grant. There was,tlipj 110 f ear in the Confederate ranks of anyan a la f General Grant might do ; but there wasan d well-founded fear of starvation,^ n deed some of us were already suffering.^Pply l 16 ^ e ginning of that campaign our fooda nd 0l lad been barely sufficient to maintain life,bo r jj. le march from Spotsylvania to Cold Har-s °rib e it°- 1lave 156(3,1 a gross exaggeration to de-hard big *** 1i1la1 ' wa y- I > 1 m y own battery three^ere j s CUl1 ' s an d one very meager slice of fat pork1?as the fi eael1 man on 01lr arrival, and that^®Parti rS ^ ^ 0 °d that any of us had seen since our^be 'j 6 f r °m Spotsylvania, two days before.a Ucl * ® l }Pply did not come till two days later,ho tim„. usisted of a single cracker per man, with® at at all.

We practiced a very rigid economy with thisfood, of course. We ate the pork raw, partlybecause there was no convenient means of cook-ing it, but more because cooking would have in-volved some waste. We hoarded what we had,allowing ourselves only a nibble at any one time,and that only when the pangs of hunger becameunbearable.

But what is the use of writing about the pangsof hunger ? The words are utterly meaningless topersons who have never known actual starvation,and cannot be made otherwise than meaningless.Hunger to starving men is wholly unrelated to thedesire for food as that is commonly understoodand felt. It is a great agony of the whole bodyand of the soul as well. It is unimaginable, all-pervading pain inflicted when the strength to en-dure pain is utterly gone. It is a great despairingcry of a wasting body — a cry of flesh and blood,marrow, nerves, bones, and faculties for strengthwith which to exist and to endure existence. It isa horror which, once suffered, leaves an impressionthat is never erased from the memory, and to thisday the old agony of that campaign comes backupon me at the mere thought of any living creat-ure’s lacking the food it desires, even though itshunger be only the ordinary craving and thedenial be necessary for the creature’s health.

When we reached Cold Harbor the command towhich I belonged had been marching almost con-tinuously day and night for more than fifty hourswithout food, and for the first time we knew whatactual starvation was. It was during that marchthat I heard a man wish himself a woman,—theonly case of the kind I ever heard of,— and he ut-tered the wish half in grim jest and made haste toqualify it by adding, “or a baby.”

Yet we recovered our cheerfulness at once aftertaking the first nibble at the crackers issued to usthere, and made a jest of the scantiness of the sup-ply. One tall, lean mountaineer, Jim Thomas byname, who received a slight wound every time hewas under fire and was never sufficiently hurt toquit duty, was standing upon a bank of earth,slowly munching a bit of his last cracker andwatching the effect of some artillery fire which wasin progress at the time, when a bullet carried awayhis cap and cut a strip of hair from his head, leav-ing the scalp for a space as bald as if it had beenshaved with a razor. He sat down at once tonurse a sharp headache, and then discovered thatthe cracker he had held in his hand was gone,leaving a mere fragment in his grasp. At first hewas in doubt whether he might not have eaten itunconsciously, but he quickly discovered that ithad been knocked out of his hand and crushedto bits by a bullet, whereupon as he sat there inan exposed place, where the fire was unobstructed,he lamented his loss in soliloquy. “If I had eatenthat cracker half an hour ago, it would have beensafe,” he said. “ I should have had none left fornext time, but I have none left as it is. Thatshows how foolish it is to save anything. Whew!how my head aches ! I wish it was from over-eat-ing, but even the doctor couldn’t lay it to thatjust now. The next time I stand up to watch the