In Defense of the Flag. David W. Stafford

      Now in the commencement of this narrative and tale of my early life, I must say that a good part of my life has been somewhat gloomy. At the time of my entering the service of my country I was seventeen years of age. It was just after the first and second engagements at Bull Run.

      My father was a poor man, the father of some nine children, and a shoemaker by trade. I had left home early in my youth, when about fourteen or fifteen years old, and at this time, just before the war, a boy’s chances for labor and wages paid were very small. I worked for only seven dollars a month. This was the first labor I ever performed, working by the month. Oh, how my mind goes back to childhood days!

      Now in the fall of 1862, on the 28th day of August I felt it my duty to respond to my country’s call, and I enlisted in the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers, to serve three years.

      After I had been some two years in the service, my brother, two years younger than myself, enlisted and came to the army at Rappahannock Station, on the Rappahannock River. Now I had written a good many letters home to my poor brother, advising him not to come to the army, but it was of no avail. He would and did come, but I have reason to thank God that it was his own good will, and that my brother’s life blood was not shed in vain for his country, although I did try my best to have him stay at home.

      Soon after he came to the regiment and was placed in the same company with me, I was detailed to go on picket duty. Very shortly thereafter I became injured while assisting in the building of rifle pits at night and was sent from our headquarters to Washington. I had previous to this been through all of the engagements from the Antietam war, where we first found the regiment. I had participated in all of the engagements, such as the first and second Fredericksburg battles and the Chancellorsville battle, or “Stick in the Mud,” and the Culpepper battle and Mine Run, and at this place it certainly did seem as though we run, for we retreated clear beyond Manassas Junction, in the direction of Washington, and we could not stop long enough to steep our coffee without getting shelled from the rebel batteries. For six miles, on what was called the stone pike, we double marched, and it did seem as though the rebels were destined to lick us every time we met them. I had, up to the time of my brother’s coming into the army, participated in all of the engagements that our regiment had been called into.

      There is one thing that I recall to memory very distinctly. It is the incident of our camping on the battle field of Bull Run, on our retreat from Mine Run, near the Rapidan River. Near this run the rebels had very strong fortifications thrown up. Now on the battle field of Bull Run our dead had just been covered—a great many by the enemy—on top of the ground, and so shallow that the bones of thousands of the dead, skulls and all others, lay on top of the ground. Oh, how sad it did seem to wake in the morning to find the country strewn with human bones for miles around, and it is one thing that I can’t forget very soon.

      I had gone over the ground in the direction of Bull Run, and very close to the run, studded with trees, sat the skeleton of one of our Indiana men against a large elm tree, just as he had died one year before. I called the attention of the officers to this spectacle. The skeleton was in a sitting posture, the flesh having entirely disappeared, and on the ground lay his blue clothes. On the arms of the clothes were the emblems showing the sergeant’s stripes and the number of his company and regiment. One of the officers just touched his sabre under the chin of this skeleton and it fell all to pieces. I thought this a wonderful sight.

      Now after my injury at Rappahannock Station, of which I have already spoken, and being sent to Washington, I stayed in Lincoln hospital. Here I was treated some two months and was sent home on a seventeen days’ furlough, when the Battle of the Wilderness came on. This was the first battle that my poor young brother had ever been in. As our troops were charging on the enemy’s works for the third or fourth time, my brother fell, pierced through the right thigh, and another ball passed through the shoulder very close to the heart. After the battle he lay on the field eight hours before he was finally taken to Alexandria, near Washington, and here he was placed in what was called the Haywood church. This church had been made over into a hospital in which to place the wounded soldiers.

      I had not been home but a few days at this time. As soon as I found on the list of the wounded that my brother had been hurt, I went back to Washington and returned to Lincoln hospital, from which place I had received my furlough. I was very uneasy until I got a pass to go to Alexandria, where my poor brother lay dying of his wound, received in the Battle of the Wilderness. On receiving the pass and arriving at Alexandria I stayed two days. I found on leaving my poor brother that his stay in this world was very short. I went to headquarters and called for another pass and told them of the condition of my brother. They told me if I was able to travel back and forth to the city that they would send me to the front and ordered me to go back to the barracks until the next morning at ten o’clock, and, oh, with what a sad heart I spent the night, scarcely sleeping, and then to think of the suffering my poor wounded brother would have to endure! It made my heart ache as I thought of his parting words. While at his bedside he told me of a good old lady nurse who had told him of his Lord and Saviour, how He had died to redeem him, and, oh, how happy he was in all of his suffering! He would point me to the kind old nurse, tell me how much she had told him about his Creator, and it was wonderful what faith he had in God. He would tell me how much the old nurse reminded him of our mother. He told me if he could only see our poor old mother he could die contented. Oh, what sad hours these were to me! I would go out on the street to pass away the time. I felt so sad after I started to leave him and to think of his last words, when he would look up and say, “David, don’t be gone as long as you were before.” I think I saw him twice before he passed away.

      Now comes almost the saddest part

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