Many years ago, when I worked for the National Park Service,
I performed a program called “Life of the Civil War Soldier.”
Although I regularly changed my program over the years, I often utilized a
quote from Private Oliver Willcox Norton, Company K, 83rd
Pennsylvania. Here’s how it went:
My two tent mates were wounded, and after that . . . I acted
like a madman. . . . I was stronger than I had been before in a month and a kind
of desperation seized me. . . . . I snatched a gun from the hands of a man who
was shot through the head, as he staggered and fell. At other times I would
have been horror-struck and could not have moved, but then I jumped over dead
men with as little feeling as I would over a log. The feeling that was
uppermost in my mind was a desire to kill as many rebels as I could. The loss
of comrades maddened me.
I read that quote to visitors more times than I can count; in fact, I believe I can still recite it from memory. The quote referred
to Norton’s experience at the Battle of Gaines’s Mill, June 27, 1862. When I
trotted it out during my NPS program, I used it as a way of demonstrating the comradeship
that motivated men in battle. After reciting it, I moved on, discussing another
aspect of Civil War soldiery. Rarely did I consider the context of the quote, the
man who wrote it, or the tent-mates he mentioned.
Since that time, I’ve been more interested in those
questions. Recently, it occurred to me to revisit the letter. I had just re-read
Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam,
a book about PTSD in U.S. veterans. Shay dedicated a
chapter to what he called the “berserk state,” a rage-filled episode whereby a soldier
attempts to rout the enemy single-handedly, with “social disconnection . .
. [from] his memorable deeds.” (In the book, Shay emphasized berserking as a
common element in both ancient warfare and in the Vietnam War, but he argued
that a berserk state could arise at any time and in any conflict.) It occurred to me
that Norton’s battle-rage was a classic case of “revenge as reviving the dead,”
the belief that spilling the enemy’s blood will, in some way, bring back the
dead or save the wounded from further harm. In short, Norton had achieved the beserk state. More to the point, so Shay reminded me, the berserk state was dangerous to all who
achieved it. Shay wrote: “I conclude that the berserk state is ruinous,
leading to the soldier’s maiming or death in battle—which is the most frequent
outcome—and to lifelong psychological and physiological injury if he survives.
I believe that once a person has entered the berserk state, he or she is
changed forever.”
Those lines really opened my eyes. Oliver Norton’s seemingly
simplistic letter of what he did at Gaines’s Mill was, in fact, admission of
psychological damage sustained in the midst of combat. The loss of his two
friends and thrown him into a berserker rage, one from which he likely never
recovered.
So today, I want to talk a little bit more about what
happened during this particular incident. My task is pretty simple. Norton’s letters paint a clear picture of the scene. All I need to
do is provide the proper context. The Battle of Gaines’s Mill occurred at dusk.
Major General James Longstreet’s Confederate division attacked the left end of the Union
line, comprised of Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield’s brigade, which sat perched atop a low
ridge overlooking a sluggish stream called Boatswain’s Creek. Eventually, Brig.
Gen. Chase Whiting’s division joined in the assault, overrunning Butterfield’s
infantrymen. The 83rd Pennsylvania occupied the center of
Butterfield’s line, and during the three-hour battle, it lost 46 killed, 51
wounded, and 99 missing.
Norton’s letters can take it from here.
First, I should point out that the quote I used in my NPS
program was actually pieces from two of his letters profitably melded together.
One letter was written to Norton’s sister, Libby, dated July 26. Here is what
he wrote:
You ask me how I felt when the battle commenced, if I feared
I should fall, etc. That is a very hard question to answer. In the fight at
Gaines’ Mill I had lain in the woods almost all day waiting for them before I
saw a rebel. They had been shelling us all the time, and occasionally a shell
would burst within a few feet of me and startle me a little, but we had so
strong a position and felt so certain of driving the rebels off that I was
anxious to have them come on. The last words I heard Colonel McLane say were,
‘You’ll see enough of them before night, boys.’ His words proved too true. We
had but little to do with repulsing them, for they did not come within range of
our guns either time, but we could hear the firing, and, when the cheers of our
men announced their victory, a feeling of exultation ran through our minds.
‘Come on,’ we thought, ‘we’ll show you how freemen fight,’ but when they
attacked us so unexpectedly in the rear, my feelings changed. Surprise at first
and a wonder how they could get there, and then, when the truth flashed through
my mind that they had broken through our lines, a feeling of shame and
indignation against the men who would retreat before the enemy. Then, when the
colonel was killed and Henry and Denny wounded, I felt some excited. I was
stronger than I had been before in a month and a kind of desperation seized me.
Scenes that would have unnerved me at other times had no effect. I snatched a
gun from the hands of a man who was shot through the head, as he staggered and
fell. At other times I would have been horror-struck and could not have moved,
but then I jumped over dead men with as little feeling as I would over a log.
The feeling that was uppermost in my mind was a desire to kill as many rebels
as I could. The loss of comrades maddened me, the balls flew past me hissing in
the air, they knocked my guns to splinters, but the closer they came they
seemed to make me more insensible to fear. I had no time to think of anything
but my duty to do all I could to drive back the enemy, and it was not duty that
kept me there either, but a feeling that I had a chance then to help put down
secession and a determination to do my best. My heart was in the fight, and I
couldn’t be anywhere else. I told you it was hard to describe one’s feeling in
a battle, and it is. No one can ever know exactly till he has been through it.
The other letter was written to Norton’s cousin, dated July
5.
Our colonel fell dead at the first fire and the major
immediately after. Our senior captain was shot and we were almost without officers.
My two tent mates were wounded, and after that, they tell me, I acted like a
madman. God only knows why or how I came out alive. I had three guns shot to
pieces in my hands, a rammer shot in two, and I was struck in three places by
balls. One that cut my gun in two lodged in my left shoulder, one went through
my canteen and struck my left leg, and one just grazed my left eyebrow. The
deepest was not over half an inch and is almost well now.
Norton wrote a third letter that described his feelings during
the battle. This one was written to his family, dated July 4.
The Eighty-third was posted in a deep gully, wooded, and with
the stream I mentioned running in front of us. We built a little breastwork of
logs and had a good position. On the hill behind us the Forty-fourth and
Twelfth New York and the Sixteenth Michigan were posted. When the rebels made
the first attack, we could not fire a shot, the hill concealing them from us,
and so we lay still while the bullets of two opposing lines whistled over our
heads. They were repulsed, but only to pour in new troops with greater vigor
than before. Suddenly I saw two men on the bank in front of us gesticulating
violently and pointing to our rear, but the roar of battle drowned their
voices. The order was given to face about. We did so and tried to form in line,
but while the line was forming, a bullet laid low the head, the stay, the trust
of our regiment—our brave colonel, and before we knew what had happened the
major shared his fate. We were then without a field officer, but the boys bore
up bravely. They rallied round the flag and we advanced up the hill to find
ourselves alone. It appears that the enemy broke through our lines off on our
right, and word was sent to us on the left to fall back. Those in the rear of
us received the order but the aide sent to us was shot before he reached us and
so we got no orders. Henry and Denison were shot about the same time as the
colonel. I left them together under a tree. I returned to the fight, and our
boys were dropping on all sides of me. I was blazing away at the rascals not
ten rods off when a ball struck my gun just above the lower band as I was
capping it, and cut it in two. The ball flew in pieces and part went by my head
to the right and three pieces struck just below my left collar bone. The
deepest one was not over half an inch, and stopping to open my coat I pulled
them out and snatched a gun from [Private Fiscal M.] Ames in Company H as he
fell dead. Before I had fired this at all a ball clipped off a piece of the
stock, and an instant after, another struck the seam of my canteen and entered
my left groin. I pulled it out, and, more maddened than ever, I rushed in
again. A few minutes after, another ball took six inches off the muzzle of this
gun. I snatched another from a wounded man under a tree, and, as I was loading
kneeling by the side of the road, a ball cut my rammer in two as I was turning
it over my head. Another gun was easier got than a rammer so I threw that away
and picked up a fourth one. Here in the road a buckshot struck me in the left
eyebrow, making the third slight scratch I received in the action. It exceeded
all I ever dreamed of, it was almost a miracle.
Several common threads run through all three of Norton’s
letters, not the least of which involved his mentioning of the wounding of his
two friends, Henry and Denny, left behind under a tree when the 83rd
Pennsylvania withdrew. Subsequent letters revealed Norton’s agony over not
knowing their fate. On July 7, he wrote his sister, Libby, “I am very lonely
now. My two most intimate friends, Henry and Denison, were both wounded on the
bloody field of Gaines’ Mill on the 27th of June, and left on the
field to the tender mercies of the rebels. Henry, I fear, I never shall see
again. He was badly wounded, and everyone in the company except myself thinks
he is dead, and I am hoping against hope. Denny was shot through the left hand,
and I left them under a tree together.”
Later on, in September, Norton learned
that Denny had been released from Confederate custody and discharged on account
of his wound. “Dennison T. has got home discharged,” Norton wrote. “I wish I
could have seen his mother’s greeting. I warrant you it was a joyful meeting.
But Mrs. B. [Henry’s mother] writes her sorrow. She cannot forget that though
he went from home with a companion, he returned alone. Henry, I am afraid, will
never return to receive such a greeting. They have never heard a word from him
since the news of his arrival in Richmond severely wounded. I think he must be
dead. Still they have no direct intelligence of his death, nothing but dreadful
uncertainty.”
Finally, in January 1863, word reached Norton that Henry had
died in Richmond, and his friend’s watch was sent to him. When Norton tried to mail Henry’s watch back to Erie, it got lost in the
mail. The loss of the watch, the last memento of his friend, broke his heart.
Writing to his sister, Norton lamented, “I think some of my letters must
have been lost. Did you never get the one that told of Henry’s watch being
lost? I felt so bad about that. I would have bought a dozen rather than lost
that. I kept it till we got to Antietam, waiting for a chance to send it by
express, but finally after getting Mary’s permission, sent it by mail, and it
was never heard from. I took all the precautions I could to make it safe, did
it up in a little box like an ambrotype, but the last I heard it had not
arrived, and if it had, they would have told me.”
Ever since my National Park Service days, I’ve always
wondered about those two friends, Henry and Denny. Their wounding caused Norton
to become a madman in battle. When I embarked upon this post, I thought I might
want to focus exclusively upon Norton’s berserker rage. However, as I put the
story together, I believed that part of what I should say should be about them. I
ran into a problem: I had no idea who Henry and Denny were. Although Norton’s
letters have been available to Civil War historians since their publication in
1903, no one had ever thought to identify these two men. Would you believe it? Indeed,
I was even surprised to see that, last year, a Virginia-based opera company
performed an show about Norton’s letters, entitled: “Norton: A Civil War
Opera.” Henry and Denny were both characters in it, but the opera didn’t
provide them last names.
Well, I’ve decided it’s high time to identify these two men.
Who are Henry and Denny, you ask? Luckily, Norton gave me some clues. Both men
were wounded at Gaines’s Mill. Henry’s last name began with “B.” Denny’s last
name began with “T.” A quick survey of the roster of Company K, 83rd
Pennsylvania, gave me the answers I needed.
“Henry” was Henry J. Bushnell, age 22. He enlisted on August
28, 1861, in Springfield, Pennsylvania. He died of wounds at Richmond, date
unknown. “Denny” was Ebenezer Denison Tyler, age 24, enlisted August 28, 1861, also
at Springfield. He was on discharged on September 1, 1862.
Beyond that, I know little else. I wish I had more
information. Obviously, they must have been wonderful friends. Their
wounding induced a berserker rage in Norton. Only great fondness can produce such
terrible wrath.
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Private Oliver Willcox Norton (1839-1920) served with the 83rd Pennsylvania. He is pictured here in late 1863 as lieutenant, 8th U.S.C.T.
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This Alfred Waud sketch depicts the 5th Corps line at Gaines's Mill. |
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This is an image of me performing "Life of the Civil War Soldier," an interpretive program at Gettysburg NMP, circa 2004. I regularly quoted Oliver Norton. Perhaps I am doing it here.
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