The American Civil War - This Mighty Scourge of War

Portrait of a soldier 227

pitchforks - very disagreeable ... Regular
equinoctial storm - have had nothing to eat
for almost twenty-four hours.' Violent
downpours had drowned every fire for miles.
Through one uncomfortable day, Lieutenant
Howard, General Steuart, and three others
huddled unhappily in a storm-shaken tent
all day long, hungry and miserable.

Howard missed the campaigning around
Bristoe Station in October 1863 because he
had gone to the Confederate capital for

religious reasons - to be confirmed in the

Episcopal faith in Richmond's elegant

St Paul's Church. He had returned to duty by

the time of the Battle of Mine Run, where

his staff chores brought him under heavy

fire: 'the bullets coming through the switchy

woods sounded somewhat like the hissing of

a hail or sleet storm.' He also noticed in that

engagement one of the benchmarks of the

war's evolution. Confederate soldiers had

reached the conclusion that substantial

protective fortifications made really good

sense in the face of rifled musketry. They

used 'their bayonets, tin cups, and their

hands, to loosen and scoop up the dirt,

which was thrown on and around the trunks

of old field pine trees' that they cut down

and stretched lengthwise.

During the winter of 1863-64, genuine

hardship became a constant companion of

Southern soldiers. Lieutenant Howard

described his diet, at a point in the food

chain well above the privates and corporals,

as consisting mostly of 'corn dodgers' - corn

meal cooked with water - for both breakfast

and dinner. In good times, dinner also

included 'a soup made of water thickened

with corn meal and mashed potatoes and

cooked with a small piece of meat, which ...

was taken out when the soup was done and

kept to be cooked over again.'

Events in the spring campaign in 1864

threw McHenry Howard into the cauldron of

combat, then yanked him out of action as a

prisoner of war. At the Wilderness, the night

of 5 May echoed mordantly with the 'moans

and cries' of wounded men from both armies

who lay between the lines and beyond

succor. 'In the still night air every groan

could be heard,' Howard wrote, 'and the calls

for water and entreaties to brothers and

comrades by name to come and help them.'

The next morning, fires started in the

underbrush by muzzle flashes spread

through the Wilderness and burned to death

some of the helpless wounded.

Spotsylvania followed Wilderness

immediately. On 10 May 1864, a brutal

The burning of Richmond. (Ann Ronan Picture Library)