On a
muddy South Carolina battlefield, a sergeant sat propped up against a hedge and
tried to focus on the spot where he thought his leg should be. There was
nothing – only the tattered remains of his trousers and a pool of blood that
grew ever larger. The whistle of artillery shells had stopped, and the sudden
quiet was as jarring as the previous battle noises had been. Shock had deadened
the pain, so that all he felt was exhaustion as he closed his eyes. Sgt.
James McCaskey had fought and lost his only battle.
"From
behind a hedge on that battlefield, a young private picked his way through the
bodies, following orders to gather up the abandoned weapons and tend to the
wounded. Pvt. Augustine T. Smythe was stunned by the mayhem that met his
eyes, particularly the sight of a soldier who lay with his leg shot entirely
away. He whispered a silent prayer, as was fitting for the son of a
Presbyterian minister, that he would never again have to witness such horrors.
They
were just two soldiers, alike in many ways but different in the one trait that
mattered on that battlefield. One was North; the other, South. Sgt.
James McCaskey belonged to the 100th Pennsylvania Regiment, known to their
comrades as “The Roundheads.” They came from the farms of western
Pennsylvania, determined to defend for all men the Calvinist principles they
most valued – self-reliance, industriousness, and liberty. Gus Smythe
served in the Washington Light Infantry, part of the 24th South Carolina
Volunteers. He was a college student from a well-to-do Charleston family
and an ardent supporter of the Confederate right to secede from a political
union that did not serve the needs of its people. This is the story of how they
came to their opposing positions, and how the Battle of Secessionville altered
not only their own lives, but the lives of those who shared their experiences.
