Killed at Resaca
The best soldier of our staff was Lieutenant
Herman Brayle, one of the two aides-de-camp. I don’t remember where
the general picked him up; from some Ohio regiment, I think; none
of us had previously known him, and it would have been strange if
we had, for no two of us came from the same State, nor even from
adjoining States. The general seemed to think that a position on
his staff was a distinction that should be so judiciously conferred
as not to beget any sectional jealousies and imperil the integrity
of that part of the country which was still an integer. He would
not even choose officers from his own command, but by some jugglery
at department headquarters obtained them from other brigades. Under
such circumstances, a man’s services had to be very distinguished
indeed to be heard of by his family and the friends of his youth;
and “the speaking trump of fame” was a trifle hoarse from
loquacity, anyhow.
Lieutenant Brayle was more than six feet in height
and of splendid proportions, with the light hair and gray-blue eyes
which men so gifted usually find associated with a high order of
courage. As he was commonly in full uniform, especially in action,
when most officers are content to be less flamboyantly attired, he
was a very striking and conspicuous figure. As to the rest, he had
a gentleman’s manners, a scholar’s head, and a lion’s heart. His
age was about thirty.
We all soon came to like Brayle as much as we
admired him, and it was with sincere concern that in the engagement
at Stone’s River—our first action after he joined us—we observed
that he had one most objectionable and unsoldierly quality: he was
vain of his courage. During all the vicissitudes and mutations of
that hideous encounter, whether our troops were fighting in the
open cotton fields, in the cedar thickets, or behind the railway
embankment, he did not once take cover, except when sternly
commanded to do so by the general, who usually had other things to
think of than the lives of his staff officers—or those of his men,
for that matter.
In every later engagement while Brayle was with us
it was the same way. He would sit his horse like an equestrian
statue, in a storm of bullets and grape, in the most exposed
places—wherever, in fact, duty requiring him to go, permitted him
to remain—when, without trouble and with distinct advantage to his
reputation for common sense, he might have been in such security as
is possible on a battlefield in the brief intervals of personal
inaction.
On foot, from necessity or in deference to his
dismounted commander or associates, his conduct was the same. He
would stand like a rock in the open when officers and men alike had
taken to cover; while men older in service and years, higher in
rank and of unquestionable intrepidity, were loyally preserving
behind the crest of a hill lives infinitely precious to their
country, this fellow would stand, equally idle, on the ridge,
facing in the direction of the sharpest fire.
When battles are going on in open ground it
frequently occurs that the opposing lines, confronting each other
within a stone’s throw for hours, hug the earth as closely as if
they loved it. The line officers in their proper places flatten
themselves no less, and the field officers, their horses all killed
or sent to the rear, crouch beneath the infernal canopy of hissing
lead and screaming iron without a thought of personal
dignity.
In such circumstances the life of a staff officer
of a brigade is distinctly “not a happy one,” mainly because of its
precarious tenure and the unnerving alternations of emotion to
which he is exposed. From a position of that comparative security
from which a civilian would ascribe his escape to a “miracle,” he
may be despatched with an order to some commander of a prone
regiment in the front line—a person for the moment inconspicuous
and not always easy to find without a deal of search among men
somewhat preoccupied, and in a din in which question and answer
alike must be imparted in the sign language. It is customary in
such cases to duck the head and scuttle away on a keen run, an
object of lively interest to some thousands of admiring marksmen.
In returning—well, it is not customary to return.
Brayle’s practice was different. He would consign
his horse to the care of an orderly—he loved his horse,—and walk
quietly away on his perilous errand with never a stoop of the back,
his splendid figure, accentuated by his uniform, holding the eye
with a strange fascination. We watched him with suspended breath,
our hearts in our mouths. On one occasion of this kind, indeed, one
of our number, an impetuous stammerer, was so possessed by his
emotion that he shouted at me:
“I’ll b-b-bet you t-two d-d-dollars they d-drop him
b-b-before he g-gets to that d-d-ditch!”
I did not accept the brutal wager; I thought they
would.
Let me do justice to a brave man’s memory; in all
these needless exposures of life there was no visible bravado nor
subsequent narration. In the few instances when some of us had
ventured to remonstrate, Brayle had smiled pleasantly and made some
light reply, which, however, had not encouraged a further pursuit
of the subject. Once he said:
“Captain, if ever I come to grief by forgetting
your advice, I hope my last moments will be cheered by the sound of
your beloved voice breathing into my ear the blessed words, ‘I told
you so.’ ”
We laughed at the captain—just why we could
probably not have explained—and that afternoon when he was shot to
rags from an ambuscade Brayle remained by the body for some time,
adjusting the limbs with needless care—there in the middle of a
road swept by gusts of grape and canister! It is easy to condemn
this kind of thing, and not very difficult to refrain from
imitation, but it is impossible not to respect, and Brayle was
liked none the less for the weakness which had so heroic an
expression. We wished he were not a fool, but he went on that way
to the end, sometimes hard hit, but always returning to duty about
as good as new.
Of course, it came at last; he who ignores the law
of probabilities challenges an adversary that is seldom beaten. It
was at Resaca, in Georgia, during the movement that resulted in the
taking of Atlanta. In front of our brigade the enemy’s line of
earthworks ran through open fields along a slight crest. At each
end of this open ground we were close up to him in the woods, but
the clear ground we could not hope to occupy until night, when
darkness would enable us to burrow like moles and throw up earth.
At this point our line was a quarter-mile away in the edge of a
wood. Roughly, we formed a semicircle, the enemy’s fortified line
being the chord of the arc.
“Lieutenant, go tell Colonel Ward to work up as
close as he can get cover, and not to waste much ammunition in
unnecessary firing. You may leave your horse.”
When the general gave this direction we were in the
fringe of the forest, near the right extremity of the arc. Colonel
Ward was at the left. The suggestion to leave the horse obviously
enough meant that Brayle was to take the longer line, through the
woods and among the men. Indeed, the suggestion was needless; to go
by the short route meant absolutely certain failure to deliver the
message. Before anybody could interpose, Brayle had cantered
lightly into the field and the enemy’s works were in crackling
conflagration.
“Stop that damned fool!” shouted the general.
A private of the escort, with more ambition than
brains, spurred forward to obey, and within ten yards left himself
and his horse dead on the field of honor.
Brayle was beyond recall, galloping easily along,
parallel to the enemy and less than two hundred yards distant. He
was a picture to see! His hat had been blown or shot from his head,
and his long, blond hair rose and fell with the motion of his
horse. He sat erect in the saddle, holding the reins lightly in his
left hand, his right hanging carelessly at his side. An occasional
glimpse of his handsome profile as he turned his head one way or
the other proved that the interest which he took in what was going
on was natural and without affectation.
The picture was intensely dramatic, but in no
degree theatrical. Successive scores of rifles spat at him
viciously as he came within range, and our own line in the edge of
the timber broke out in visible and audible defense. No longer
regardful of themselves or their orders, our fellows sprang to
their feet, and swarming into the open sent broad sheets of bullets
against the blazing crest of the offending works, which poured an
answering fire into their unprotected groups with deadly effect.
The artillery on both sides joined the battle, punctuating the
rattle and roar with deep, earth-shaking explosions and tearing the
air with storms of screaming grape, which from the enemy’s side
splintered the trees and spattered them with blood, and from ours
defiled the smoke of his arms with banks and clouds of dust from
his parapet.
My attention had been for a moment drawn to the
general combat, but now, glancing down the unobscured avenue
between these two thunderclouds, I saw Brayle, the cause of the
carnage. Invisible now from either side, and equally doomed by
friend and foe, he stood in the shot-swept space, motionless, his
face toward the enemy. At some little distance lay his horse. I
instantly saw what had stopped him.
As topographical engineer I had, early in the day,
made a hasty examination of the ground, and now remembered that at
that point was a deep and sinuous gully, crossing half the field
from the enemy’s line, its general course at right angles to it.
From where we now were it was invisible, and Brayle had evidently
not known about it. Clearly, it was impassable. Its salient angles
would have afforded him absolute security if he had chosen to be
satisfied with the miracle already wrought in his favor and leapt
into it. He could not go forward, he would not turn back; he stood
awaiting death. It did not keep him long waiting.
By some mysterious coincidence, almost
instantaneously as he fell, the firing ceased, a few desultory
shots at long intervals serving rather to accentuate than break the
silence. It was as if both sides had suddenly repented of their
profitless crime. Four stretcher-bearers of ours, following a
sergeant with a white flag, soon afterward moved unmolested into
the field, and made straight for Brayle’s body. Several Confederate
officers and men came out to meet them, and with uncovered heads
assisted them to take up their sacred burden. As it was borne
toward us we heard beyond the hostile works fifes and a muffled
drum—a dirge. A generous enemy honored the fallen brave.
Amongst the dead man’s effects was a soiled
Russia-leather pocketbook. In the distribution of mementoes of our
friend, which the general, as administrator, decreed, this fell to
me.
A year after the close of the war, on my way to
California, I opened and idly inspected it. Out of an overlooked
compartment fell a letter without envelope or address. It was in a
woman’s handwriting, and began with words of endearment, but no
name.
It had the following date line: “San Francisco,
Cal., July 9, 1862.” The signature was “Darling,” in marks of
quotation. Incidentally, in the body of the text, the writer’s full
name was given—Marian Mendenhall.
The letter showed evidence of cultivation and good
breeding, but it was an ordinary love letter, if a love letter can
be ordinary. There was not much in it, but there was something. It
was this:
“Mr. Winters, whom I shall always hate for it, has
been telling that at some battle in Virginia, where he got his
hurt, you were seen crouching behind a tree. I think he wants to
injure you in my regard, which he knows the story would do if I
believed it. I could bear to hear of my soldier lover’s death, but
not of his cowardice.”
These were the words which on that sunny afternoon,
in a distant region, had slain a hundred men. Is woman weak?
One evening I called on Miss Mendenhall to return
the letter to her. I intended, also, to tell her what she had
done—but not that she did it. I found her in a handsome dwelling on
Rincon Hill.19 She was beautiful, well bred—in a word,
charming.
“You knew Lieutenant Herman Brayle,” I said, rather
abruptly. “You know, doubtless, that he fell in battle. Among his
effects was found this letter from you. My errand here is to place
it in your hands.”
She mechanically took the letter, glanced through
it with deepening color, and then, looking at me with a smile,
said:
“It is very good of you, though I am sure it was
hardly worth while.” She started suddenly and changed color. “This
stain,” she said, “is it—surely it is not——”
“Madam,” I said, “pardon me, but that is the blood
of the truest and bravest heart that ever beat.”
She hastily flung the letter on the blazing coals.
“Uh! I cannot bear the sight of blood!” she said. “How did he
die?”
I had involuntarily risen to rescue that scrap of
paper, sacred even to me, and now stood partly behind her. As she
asked the question she turned her face about and slightly upward.
The light of the burning letter was reflected in her eyes and
touched her cheek with a tinge of crimson like the stain upon its
page. I had never seen anything so beautiful as this detestable
creature.
“He was bitten by a snake,” I replied.