Combatants' Stories

The Battle of Big Bethel was, for most of the participants, their first experience with warfare. Officers and enlisted men on both sides often wrote of details that in fights to come would not merit a mention.
Union Gen. Ebenezer W. Pierce, the excursion's commander, prefaced his report with extracts from his notes taken at the planning meeting—apparently an exercise in micromanagement: "Duryea to push out two pickets ... on the county road, but not so far as to alarm the enemy. This is important. ... March to be rapid, but not hurried. ... If we capture the Little Bethel men, push on to Big Bethel and similarly capture them. Burn up both the Bethels. Blow up, if brick."
Confederate Maj. George W. Randolph, Richmond Howitzers, complained of "serious defects" in his fuses: "The shell of the Parrott gun have a fixed wooden fuse ... the shortest being cut for four seconds. ... The shells burst far in the rear of the enemy and served merely as solid shot."
Union Capt. H. Judson Kilpatrick, 5th New York Infantry, wrote that a grapeshot "tore off a portion of the rectangle on Colonel Duryea's left shoulder, passed through my leg, and killed a soldier in my rear."
Confederate Capt. William H. Werth, Virginia Volunteers, reported that a Federal wandered over to him in the dark, and "I had