Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1918 — SLEPT WHILE GUNS ROARED [ARTICLE]

SLEPT WHILE GUNS ROARED

Charles Francis Adams Told of Taking a Nap on a Hillside During Pickett's Charge. In the campaigns of both Antietam and Gettysburg I was an officer in a regiment of cavalry, a mere subordinate, responsible only for obedience to orders. At Gettysburg July 3 the division to which we belonged occupied the high, partly wooded ground on the right of the line, covering the enemy’s flank and rear. It was a bright July day, hot, and with white clouds slowly rolling across the sky. Neither our lines nor those of the enemy were visible to us; and the sounds of battle were hushed. Walting for orders and for action, we dismounted, out of regard, for our horses as as for ourselves, and sat or lay on the turf. Inured to danger by contact long and close and thoroughly tired in body and overwrought in mind we listened for the battle to begin; and shortly after noon the artillery opened. We did not know it, for we could see nothing in that direction, but it covered the famous advance of Pickett’s Virginia division upon Meade’s center —that wonderful -feat of arms—and just then, lulled by the Incessant roar of the cannon, while the fate of the army and the nation trembled in the balance, at the very crisis of the great conflict, I dropped quietly asleep. It was not heroic, but it was essentially war.—From the Autobiography of Charles Francis Adams.