Narrow Escape 56 - William G. Lambert

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Narrow Escapes
Interesting War Experiences No. 56

Submitted by Barbara Madden

IRONTON REGISTER Thursday Dec 8 1887

William G. LAMBERT was a member of Co. H 6th Ohio Cavalry, and fought through the war. We asked him for a “narrow escape,” and he told us of getting into a close hitch one time when his horse was shot from under him. “But don’t tell that-that was the horse’s narrow escape.” Then he told of “another incident that made a great impression on his mind; and that was in June 1863, when Lee was driving our army out of Virginia. The cavalry then was kept going in all sorts of dangerous places. One night after a hard day’s ride, and we had drunk our coffee and felt a little rested, four of us took a little recreation in a game of euchre. You know a little game of cards in the army was really an opportunity for rest; it helped the mind to rest and dispelled the anxiety that is certain to torture a fellow if he sits down only to rest.

Well, there were four of us-Wilson BRUCE, Gus RECKARD, Tom LAMBERT, and myself. An hour had pleasantly gone thus, for they were all brave soldiers and good company, when Tom Lambert looked up and saw the new moon through the trees. Tom being a little superstitious said, ‘Boys that’s a bad sign seeing the moon through the trees. Something is going to happen to some of us before long.’ Of course we paid no attention to it, but when I think that before a week ended I was the only one of the four left, you won’t wonder that I remember the remark. Two were killed the next day in battle, fighting bravely, and the other died in a week.”

“But now, said Mr. Lambert “ I am coming to my ‘naarrow escape.’ You might not think it was a real regulation escape, but then it was one that scared me worse than ever I was scared in my life. It was in 1862, shortly after the battle of Cross Keys. We were moving, I think, from Mt. Jackson towards Strasburg. On that march was the first time I ever stood picket. They stood me out in a little gap of the mountain, half a mile from anybody else, all alone. It was the custom to relieve a picket every two hours, but they didn’t relieve me all night. There I sat on my old horse through that long night, thinking every moment I was being surrounded by rebels. The reb army was at that time coming down the valley and I didn’t know how soon they would strike that gap and scoop me. Consequently, I sat there motionless and as silent as a tombstone. The voice of the owl resounded in my soul. I thought I could hear the bugs crawling over the old logs in the woods. The note of the cricket was as a bugle note of battle. It was a season of intense anxiety and alarm to me. It continued every minute. Now there was a rebel sure, and it turned out to be only a night bird hopping through the branches. I could every once in a while see the form of a man dodging across the road just ahead of me, but it soon resolved itself into a mere image of the brain. I was certain a bushwhacker was creeping through the woods to nab me but the sound of his footsteps turned out to be the heavy dew that had gathered in drops and fell from the leaves. In times of awful silence I could hear the beat of my horse’s heart which would thump the louder as strange noises rose around him. Every cavalry man knows what a splendid guard his horse is. He can trust it better than he can himself. As the silence is broken by the sounds of approaching danger, the heart of the horse beats stronger. Suddenly the animal’s heart thumped like a bass drum and he jumped square about, and faced to the rear, planted his feet firmly, quivered throughout his whole frame and breathed heavily. Then I thought my time had come. I jerked up my old carbine and cocked it ready to fire and peered into the darkness for the approaching foe. I could hear him coming. The poor horse seemed almost dying from fright. He had caught the spirit of his bold rider, and quivered in every fiber. I held my old carbine at aim ready to shoot at the first faint appearance of the fellow who had thus surrounded me. It was a moment of almost fatal alarm. I could now hear a step plainly, and then a deep moaning breath, and then came a ball but it was the bawl of an old cow. My carbine dropped from my nerveless grasp, my old horse grew limber again, and the old cow passed in triumph down the road. That was the narrowest escape I ever had on picket.”