Chenango American, Greene, NY, July 16, 1863
Gettysburg - Incidents of the Battle
Capt. Cushing, Co. A, Fourth Regular artillery, was killed, and his battery suffered severely. The gallantry of this officer is beyond praise. Severely wounded early in the afternoon, he refused to leave his post beside his guns, but continued to pour grape and canister into the advancing columns of Rebels until they had reached the very muzzles of his pieces, and sure of their capture were attempting to turn them upon our forces, when they were driven off by our infantry. At this moment Capt. Cushing received his death wound, and fell lifeless to the earth. Heaps of corpses and wounded in front of his battery this morning, told a terrible tale of the effectiveness of its fire.
None of the company were taken prisoners by the Rebels. After the battle but one gun of this battery remained uninjured - the rest having been dismounted or destroyed by the terrible fire of the enemy, which for the time was concentrated on the batteries in this part of the field. In front of this position fell dead the Rebel General Dick Garnett, who was courageously leading his men in this charge upon our batteries on Crow Hill. The Rebel General Armstead was also wounded here while advancing at the head of his brigade.
About fifty yards in front of our batteries was a stone wall, running from our centre in a southwesterly direction, behind which laid several regiments, picking off the enemy as they advanced up the slope of the hill. Notwithstanding the terrific fire poured into their ranks from our guns, so impetuous was the charge of the Rebels that they drove our men from their position, and were advancing upon our batteries several of which they captured, but the capture was only temporary. Gen. Gibbon's division, composed of Gens. Webb's, Harrell's and Hall's brigades, at the point of the bayonet, drove them back over the stone wall into the plain below.
Gen. Gibbon's division captured fourteen stand of colors and a large number of prisoners. Twenty-eight stands of colors in all were captured by the Second corps.
Gen. Armstead, when taken prisoner, asked immediately for Gen. Meade, who was his classmate at West Point.
Col. Ward, of the Fifteenth Massachusetts, was killed.
Corp. Payden, of the First Minnesota, was captured, escaped, seized a musket and seized a rare opportunity, and actually made ten Rebels surrender. While marching them to Gen. Gibbon's quarters, a Rebel behind a tree on the way drew a bead on him with his rifle. Hayden saw him in time to bring his piece to a level, and cry out, "Surrender." The fellow actually threw down his gun and joined the cavalcade, and Hayden came in with eleven captives.
Wounded prisoners taken in Gettysburg this morning report that Gen. Bradley L. Johnson, of Maryland, was killed in Thursday's attack on our right. He was struck by a shell while charging our lines at the head of his division. Gen. Hood is also reported to have had his leg shot off, and from the effects of which he has since died.
Rebel officers with whom I have conversed frankly admit that the result of the last two days has been most disastrous to their cause, which depended, they say, upon the success of Lee's attempt to transfer the seat of war from Virginia to the Northern Border States. A wounded Rebel Colonel told me that in the first and second days' fight, the Rebel losses were between ten and eleven thousand. Yesterday they were greater still.
In one part of the field, in a space not more than twenty feet in circumference, in front of Gen. Gibbons' division, I counted seven dead rebels, three of whom were piled on top of each other. And close by, in a spot not more than fifteen feet square, lay fifteen "graybacks" stretched in death. These were the adventurous spirits who, in the face of the horrible stream of canister, shell and musketry, scaled the fence wall in their attempt upon our batteries.
Very large numbers of wounded were also strewn around not to mention more who had crawled away or been taken away. The field in front of the stone wall was literally covered with dead and wounded, a large proportion of whom were rebels. When our musketry and artillery took effect they lay in swaths, as if mown down by a scythe. This field presented a horrible sight, such as has never yet been witnessed during the war. Not less than one thousand dead and wounded lay in a space of less than four acres in extent and that too, after numbers had crawled away to places of shelter.
The enemy's infantry, saving a small force of sharpshooters, was wholly out of sight at daylight on Saturday morning. there was talk on Friday night, after the battle, of organizing a column of pursuit.
Before the fighting was over, before sunset, considerably, the Signal Officers reported that an immense train of army wagons was going out of Gettysburg northwest, on the road to Cashtown. Oh! that they could have run against the stone wall of the Harrisburg army.
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