Amazing Account: Pvt. Oliver W. Norton, 83rd Pennsylvania Infantry at the Battle of Gaines' Mill

While preparing to give a recent tour of the Seven Days Battles (June 25-July 1, 1862), I came across an account by Pvt. Oliver W. Norton, 83rd Pennsylvania Infantry, describing his experience during the Battle of Gaines' Mill, which was fought on June 27, 1862. Norton, a bugler, had just come back from a serious bout with dysentery a day before the battle. After what he went through in the fight, he might have wished he stayed sick just a bit longer.

"Suddenly I saw two men on the bank in front of us gesticulating violently and pointing in 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 the 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 retuned to the fight, and our boys were dropping on all sides of me. I was blazing away at the rascals not ten rods [55 yards] 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 of it 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 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 of the muzzle of this gun. I snatched another form 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."

Norton, indeed, miraculously survived the Battle of Gaines' Mill, the Seven Days Battles, and, in 1863 started serving as a 1st lieutenant in the 8th United States Colored Infantry. He mustered out of service in November 1865 with the 8th USCI. 

Norton's experiences are captured in Army Letters, 1861-1865, published in 1903. It contains loads of letters that Norton wrote home. One of the recorded excepts has received quite a bit of attention in Civil War soldier's studies. On Oct. 9, 1861, Norton wrote: "I commenced writing yesterday, but was obliged to stop to attend drill, a very common incident in soldier life. The first thing in the morning is drill, then drill, then drill again. Then drill, drill, and a little more drill. Then drill, and lastly, drill. Between drills, we drill, and stop to eat a little and have a roll call."

However, Norton has gone down in history for a more significant contribution. He is credited as the first soldier to have played "Taps." Written by his brigadier general, Daniel Butterfield, in July 1862 at Harrison's Landing on the James River after the repulse from Richmond's environs during the Seven Days Battles, Butterfield had Norton play the tune for the first time for "lights out." It caught on quickly and has remained a mainstay since. 

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.