Me: You do look right smart.
Prodigal: I am trying to impress
This is from the book Angels Beside You by James Pruitt
The date is May 5, 1864. The place is a dark woodland south of the Rapidan River, ten miles west of Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania.
On the morning of the fifth, Generals Ulysses S. Grant and George Gordon Meade were notified that Confederate forces under General Richard Stoddert Ewell were moving on the Orange Turnpike, thinking the force to be only a division, Grant ordered an attack. Union forces under General Governor Warren engaged the Confederate force, an encounter that soon escalated into a full-fledged battle. Grant soon realized that the Confederate troops were not a minor element of General Robert E. Lee’s army, but the main force itself.
Because of the thick woods, the men were often firing at one another at point blank range. Battle lines became confused in the smoke-filled woods; regiments lost contact with one another. Commanders led their men by following the sounds of firing, often finding themselves shooting at each other or at the muzzle flashes of an enemy they could not see.
To add to the confusion, Confederate General A.P. Hill began to advance with his forces up the Orange Plank Road to the south. There he was met by Union General Winfield Scott Hancock, and a separate and equally desperate battle ensued. Again the battle was fought at close quarters, often hand-to-hand, with bayonets and rifles used as clubs. All day the fighting surged back and forth, with ground being taken, held for an hour, lost in a counterattack, then retaken. As evening fell, nothing significant had been gained by either side, and the forces retired to whatever makeshift lines they could form before darkness fell.
Grateful for the opportunity at last to get some rest, men from both sides of the bloody conflict soon found that even darkness would not allow them to escape the suffering and misery that had marked the day’s terrible events. A new enemy now unleashed its wrath upon the wounded and dying who lay in the tangles and wood-chocked gullies of the confusing battlefield. The new enemy was fire.
In the bitter fighting just before dark, the musket flashes had started a number of small fires that now erupted into a full-fledged forest fire. Caught in the path of the blaze were the dead and wounded of both armies who were strewn all through the woods. Soon the magnitude of the situation became fully known as men screamed in agonizing pain when the flames began to consume the wounded. Piercing cries and pleas for death echoed through the darkness. The air began to fill with the smell of burning flesh. It was more than even these hardened veterans could stand.
Sergeant William Neil of the 27th Virginia Regiment of the famed Stonewall Brigade went to his commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles L. Haynes, and requested that the colonel attempt to arrange a truce so that both sides might join to remove the wounded from the path of the fire. The colonel agreed and told the sergeant to organize volunteers for the dangerous task while he made arrangements with Union forces holding the positions across from them.
Among the Virginia volunteers was a young Rebel soldier named Joshua Bates, the son of a Baptist minister who had disowned his only son for engaging in this awful war.
The truce arranged, Sergeant Neil and ten volunteers put their weapons aside and went to meet a Union sergeant and ten of his unarmed men in a clearing between the lines. The two squads braved the heat and the flames of the fores fire to bring out their wounded brothers in arms, without regard to the color of their uniforms.
The mission of mercy continued for over an hour, with the wounded hastily carried back to the clearing, where others tended them and moved them farther back behind the lines. But even with this effort, not all could be rescued. The screams of the less fortunate carried on the night air filled with smoke, heat, and the smell of burning meat. Still the rescuers returned time after time in an effort to save as many possible from such a terrible death.
Weary from running back and forth and suffering from near heat exhaustion, Private Bates and three others returned once more into the flames to retrieve a soldier screaming this his pants were on fire. Locating the man, Bates dropped to his knees and threw dirt onto the burning pants to put out the fire.
As the rescuers prepared to pick up the wounded man, they heard a loud cracking sound and saw a towering tree in all its fiery glory crash down between them and the only way out of the fire. The rescuers themselves were now surrounded by the roaring blaze that quickly began to close in on them. There were no avenues of escape, and any hope of rescue was impossible. One of the soldiers cried out, “My God….we’re all going to die!”
Kneeling beside the wounded soldier, Private Bates encouraged those around him to join hands as he prayed.
“Oh Lord, our task this night has been a mighty one. We have risked all to save our fellow man. Would you now reward us for showing compassion by committing us to this fiery furnace? We beseech you, Almighty God….come to our aid in this time of great need. In your name, we ask. Amen.”
From their tightly knit group within the surrounding flames, the four men saw a lone figure appear beyond the fire. It was a figure of unusual height, dressed not in a uniform but in what appeared to be a white sackcloth robe. The figure raised a hand and called to the men surrounded by the flames, “Come out, hurry! Come this way and bring your wounded brother.”
Hesitant at first, the men looked at one another, then back to the figure who now seemed to move directly into the flames, yet was unharmed by the fire. Again the calm and gentle voice told them to follow him. Still uncertain, but having little to lose, the four men picked up the wounded soldier and began moving toward the figure in the fire. As they neared the flames the figure turned and walked away. As it did, a sudden wind swept over the men and the wall of flame seem to split apart, leaving an opening of some twenty feet. Without delay, Bates and the others hurried through the exit. Within seconds they were free of the raging fire that immediately consumed the very area in which had been kneeling only minutes before.
Scurrying clear of the heat and flames, the men placed the wounded man on the ground and looked around for the figure who had encouraged them to escape certain death, but no one was there. They were the only ones in the immediate area. The mysterious figure had vanished.
Bates survived the Civil War and returned home, where he became a Baptist preacher and was often requested to relate his story of the miracle that had occurred in the bloody battle of the Wilderness.
Psalm 103:1
Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
