Reminiscences of Big I

Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg probably has been the theme of more writing than any other action of the Civil War. Common soldiers, nurses, surgeons, journalists, foreign observers, local residents and generals have all recounted their experiences and impressions. But relatively few company commanders who participated in that grand but futile assault have left a record of what they saw and did. Indeed, and especially on the Confederate side, the role of junior officers as told by themselves, constitutes a major gap in Civil War literature. Because of this fact, William Nathaniel Wood’s reminiscences of Gettysburg and the dozen other major battles in which he participated is of considerably greater value than the usual memoir.

“Wood entered the Monticello Guard of Charlottesville, Co. A, Nineteenth Virginia Regiment, on July 20th, 1861, the evening before the first battle of Manassas, and had his ‘baptism of fire’ the next day. He was soon promoted to a Lieutenancy, and for much of the latter part of the war, was in command of the Company. At the battle of Gettysburg, after Captain Culin was wounded, he commanded the company, and led it to the stone wall, and what is more wonderful, he went back under the most terrific fire from the stone wall and on each flank. His clothing was riddled with shot, but he escaped with a slight scratch under one arm. Wood was, I think, in every encounter in which his company was engaged during the whole war, and he, with what was left of it, was captured at Tailor’s Creek, April 6th, 1865, just three days before Lee’s surrender.”—C. C. Wertenbaker