"Saw Horrors Enough for a Century:" Seven Days Battles-- Part 3: The Wounded Yankee

"I myself found a Yankee in a thicket on Friday who had been shot through his lungs the previous Monday & was alive, lying as he had been shot without food or drink. I found a surgeon (Yankee, of whom numbers were around) for this poor fellow, but it was no use. the Dr. merely pulled open his shirt & said, "He'll die, no use to move him" & went away & he did die while I was looking at him.

"The desperate courage of our men was beyond any precedent. I have never heard or read anything like it. Tuesday, Magruder ordered a charge on a collection of 36 guns, there was more than a mile of perfectly open ground to be gone over, our men were unsupported by artillery & entirely exposed to this awful fire. the charge of the [600?] was nothing to it. but they went at it with a yell. before they had gone 2/3 of the way a thousand men were stretched on that awful field & the increasing darkness was all that saved the rest."

--Old Secesh