but until noon there was nothing but skirmishing in our vicinity. Then
the storm broke loose on the extreme left of the line, near Little Round
Top, where Sickles's Corps was situated. The place was entirely hidden
from our sight, and from the sounds we could form no opinion as to how
things were going; but we were constantly receiving reports that Sickles
was either holding his own or driving the enemy before him. In the light
of subsequent events, these reports seem to have been purposely colored,
in order to keep up our spirits. Occasional demonstrations along our
front kept us in constant expectation of being attacked, but nothing of
the sort occurred.
About six o'clock we were hurried out of our entrenchments at a
double-quick toward Little Round Top, where it was understood that
Sickles's Third Corps had been driven back with severe loss. But before
we arrived, the enemy had been repulsed, and the firing ceased. We were
now started back to our entrenchments. We found, however, upon our
arrival, that the enemy had in our absence taken possession of them. It
was exasperating to see them benefitting by our labors, but we were
somewhat consoled by the capture of a picket of twenty Confederates, who
in the darkness had wandered into our line as we approached. We were now
obliged to form a new line, connecting with our forces on the left as
before, but swinging back at an angle on the right to Rock Creek. We
thus presented to the enemy a semi-circular front, which they could not
penetrate without being subjected to a cross fire from both sides.
During the night we remained unmolested. At daylight the firing
commenced. The ground occupied by the enemy's skirmishers was a rocky
bit of woodland which furnished abundant cover for sharpshooters. For a
while they annoyed us, but by nine o'clock we had dislodged them, and
driven them back to the cover of their breastworks. On our left the
enemy were making desperate efforts to dislodge from their
entrenchments Greene's Brigade and the troops of the First Corps. Six
times they came up to the assault, and six times were repulsed, leaving
the ground over which they advanced literally covered with their dead.
At about eleven o'clock a portion of our Division followed up these
successes by charging the Confederates in our front and sweeping them
entirely out of our entrenchments. They retired only a short distance,
however, showing that they had not abandoned the contest.
For nearly two hours, complete quiet now succeeded the roar and din of
the battle. Not a cannon was fired. Only an occasional musket shot
disturbed the silence that prevailed from one end of the field to the
other. We all felt, however, that this was but a lull before the final
burst of the storm. The losses in our Regiment had thus far been light,
and our spirits ran high. We felt entire confidence that no force that
the Southerners could bring against us could by direct assault break our
line at any point.
About one o'clock, the first shot was fired in the tremendous artillery
duel that preceded the last desperate attempt to penetrate our center
at Cemetery Ridge. In five minutes three hundred guns were pouring into
one another, their deadly showers of shot and shell, and making fearful
havoc of every thing that was not sheltered. From our position in the
woods we could see nothing of what was going on in other parts of the
line; but the air above was filled with screaming shells, as they flew
back and forth on their deadly errand. In some instances, shells from
the Confederate batteries in front of the Second Corps would pass
entirely over our lines, and land near the enemy in our front; a great
many of them fell in the open space in our rear.
At one time during the progress of the cannonade, a battery was placed
in position on a hill across Rock Creek directly in front of our
Regiment, and began to drop shells unpleasantly close to us. But our
friends of Battery M, of the First New York Artillery, who had been with
us since the Brigade was organized, seemed to get their range at once,
and promptly silenced them. On a trip over the field, the next day, I
found the position where they had been stationed marked by a dozen dead
horses and two exploded caissons.
During the cannonading, I took occasion to go back into the woods a
short distance in order to get a view of what was going on. Everything
in sight gave evidence of the severity of the fire. All those who were
not actively engaged had sought the shelter of rocks and trees or the
inequalities of the ground. Here and there mounted officers and
orderlies were riding across the field, although at first sight it
seemed as though a bird could scarcely fly over it unharmed.
In the course of an hour the terrific artillery fire slackened. Then for
a few minutes it nearly ceased. In the interval of silence, Pickett's
Division of Confederates was marching to the charge. From my position I
could not see them coming on, but I knew that they were charging by the
old familiar Southern yell. Soon that was drowned in the roar of
musketry and artillery. For a time all was turmoil and confusion. At
length the hearty cheers of our comrades rang out, and we knew that the
Confederate tide of invasion had been safely rolled back.
While this assault was being made on the center, constant demonstrations
were being made on our front, and we momentarily expected an attack.
None came, however, although during all the rest of the day the enemy
presented an unshaken line. At night they silently withdrew, and on the
morning of the 4th our reconnoitering parties could find nothing of them
east of Seminary Ridge, save their dead and severely wounded, whom they
had left on the field.
I spent some time that day going over the ground occupied by the enemy
in front of the Twelfth Corps, and that over which Pickett had made his
now famous charge. From what I saw, I felt certain that the enemy's
losses were double our own. Where they had assaulted Geary's Division on
the evening of the 2nd and on the morning of the 3rd, the ground was so
strewn with their dead that it would have been possible to walk for rods
on dead bodies.
On the morning of the 5th the enemy was on the road back to Virginia. We
started the same day following hard after them, on parallel roads to the
east. When they reached Williamsport, however, they turned on us with a
bold front. It had been raining almost constantly for several weeks and
the Potomac was a raging torrent, which could not be forded. We were in
hopes that it might thus continue until our forces could be concentrated
to overwhelm them. On the morning of the 13th, however, when we were
ready to move forward to the attack, they were gone. The river had
fallen during the night, and they had made good their retreat.
For a time our Regiment led in the pursuit to the ford at Falling
Waters. Then we were filed out to the side of the road to make way for
General Kilpatrick's Cavalry Brigade. They had scarcely passed out of
sight through a patch of woods, when the roar of artillery and the sharp
crack of musketry announced that the enemy had been found. We moved
forward as rapidly as possible, but were not in time to take any part in
the conflict. It appeared that when the cavalry had emerged from the
woods they had found a brigade of Confederate infantry posted as a rear
guard, on a ridge overlooking the ford at Falling Waters. They had
immediately charged the enemy's breastworks and had captured over a
thousand prisoners. They had won, besides, as trophies of their
skirmish, two pieces of artillery and four or five colors inscribed with
all the battles of the Army of Northern Virginia. No further pursuit was
made. All of Lee's army, save only this rear guard, had escaped safely
to the south side of the Potomac.
At about this time I sent to my home in Wisconsin the following letter
concerning Lee's invasion:
I have wished a good many times that the rebs could have had a month
more among the people of Pennsylvania. What little sympathy I had
for them is gone now. I cannot appreciate that disposition which
will swindle a friend to compensate for what an enemy has stolen
from you. In some cases the farmers would sell our men provisions at
reasonable rates and even give them something, but the majority
would ask from $.60 to $1.00 a loaf for bread, and $.25 a quart for
milk, and all such things in proportion.
Our Corps now moved down the river to Harpers Ferry, and crossing into
Virginia, marched leisurely along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge.
We found the abandoned fields through which we passed overgrown with
blackberry bushes, and literally black with the ripened fruit. Every
night the men would go out from camp, and within easy range find as many
berries as they could eat. And they were the best medicine we ever used.
I knew of cases of diarrhea that had become almost chronic, soon cured
by this diet.
_On Draft Riot duty_
On July 31 we went into camp near Kelly's Ferry on the Rappahannock,
where for the next two weeks we did guard duty along the river and
rested from the fatigue of the long marches we had made since leaving
Stafford Court House. On August 15 came orders to move. The next morning
we marched down to Rappahannock Station in company with two other old
regiments of the Brigade, and boarded the cars for Alexandria, on our
way to New York. We were joined at the station by five other regiments
from the different brigades, all under command of General Ruger.
It seems that during the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania, the New
York militia regiments had been called off for duty in Washington,
Baltimore, and other places. A riotous mob in New York City had taken
advantage of this circumstance to break out in defiance of the
authorities, and in resistance to the execution of the draft. They had
for several days held the city in a reign of terror, and it had been
necessary to stop all proceedings under the draft.
After a wait of several days, we embarked at Alexandria on the steamer
"Merrimac," and proceeded down the Potomac to the ocean, thence to New
York City. We landed at the foot of Canal Street, and quietly marched to
the City Hall Park, where we arrived at about ten o'clock on Saturday
night. Barracks had been provided for the enlisted men, but the
officers' tents had not arrived. This did not trouble us much, however,
as we had been without tents much of the time during the past two
months. Wrapped in our rubber blankets, we lay on the grass and slept,
as the landlady in _Rob Roy_ says, "like a good sword in its scabbard."
We awoke in the morning to find the sun well up in the heavens, and the
park surrounded by a crowd of curious people, surprised to see a number
of fairly well-dressed officers, sleeping on the ground like a lot of
vagrants.
The next day, tents were pitched and cots prepared, and we were enjoying
the delights of camp life amid all the surroundings of civilization. We
had our dress parades and guard mountings with all the pomp and show
that 300 men can make, to the delight of the great crowds who had come
to see the veterans of Antietam and Gettysburg. Soon after our arrival I
was detailed for duty in the provost marshal's office of the Fifth
District of New York, where the rioting had been most desperate. I had
charge of the guard stationed there to preserve order and see that those
who brought substitutes or recruits were promptly admitted.
There were no disturbances in the city while we were there, except such
as our men made for themselves, at the instigation of the police. We had
plenty of bold fellows in the Regiment, who wanted no better amusement
than to raid a saloon that had been the headquarters of the rioters.
They would get out of camp at night, and gather in such a saloon
pointed out to them by the police. Then they would get up a row on some
pretext, and pitch bartenders and bummers out of doors, and smash
everything breakable about the place. Everyone in the Regiment could
find a way to enjoy himself, and a policeman to help him, and would have
been content to stay in the city much longer than we did.
On September 6 came orders to return to our camp. We marched down to the
Battery in the evening, and were conveyed in small boats to the steamer
"Mississippi." In the morning, when I awoke, we were rolling and
pitching in a manner that I had never before experienced in my limited
travels by water. A few of the officers had become seasick on our way up
to New York, and those of us who escaped had enjoyed the fun of laughing
at them. I did not propose therefore to give up now. So I dressed and
started for breakfast. One smell of the coffee, and I had business on
deck. But after gazing steadily over the side of the vessel for a time,
I felt better, and by noon had recovered my appetite.
We arrived at Alexandria on the 9th. On the 13th we reached our camp at
Kelly's Ferry, and found the Thirteenth New Jersey drawn up in line to
welcome us back to the old Brigade. We did not, however, remain long in
camp. Rumors began to float about, that Lee was sending a part of his
army to reenforce Bragg in northwestern Georgia. Within two days we were
again on the march to the Rapidan, behind which the enemy had retired.
We reached Raccoon Ford on the 16th, and our Regiment and the Second
Massachusetts were detailed to support pickets at the Ford.
We camped in the woods near the river, with sentinels at night down to
the bank, but during the day they were withdrawn to the most convenient
cover in the neighborhood. The enemy were camped just behind the hills
on the other side. Just about this time they appeared to be having a
religious revival. While visiting my sentinels after dark, I could hear
them preaching, praying, and singing, whole regiments apparently being
thus engaged. Under orders from Corps headquarters we refrained from
firing upon their pickets and they reciprocated the courtesy, which made
it much pleasanter for the sentinels on both sides of the river.
_With the Army of the Cumberland_
After two days of this picket duty we were relieved by a Connecticut
regiment and rejoined our Corps. We found that we were under orders to
march the next day to Brandy Station, on the railroad. We did not know
it at the time, but we were about to take our leave from the old Army of
the Potomac, with which we had been associated since its organization.
We had fought side by side in some of the hardest battles in the war;
and had we been consulted in the matter, we would doubtless have voted
to stay where we were, and help it to finish Lee's army. However, we
were not consulted, and the necessities of war now called us to the Army
of the Cumberland at Chattanooga.
On the night of the 24th, we bivouacked at Brandy Station, where the
paymaster worked all night paying off the troops, and where we saw the
Eleventh Corps being loaded for Alexandria. The next morning we marched
to Bealeton Station, where, after a wait of a day, we also loaded up
and started. The cars were ordinary freight trucks, with rough board
benches set crosswise, and the men were crowded in as thick as they
could be seated.
We pulled out of Washington over the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the
trains containing forty or fifty cars each. As we approached the
mountains the size of the trains was reduced to about seven cars; but on
reaching the western slope, the old number was restored. We crossed the
Ohio at Benwood, on a pontoon bridge. Another lot of cars was awaiting
us on the opposite side, and we went on through Columbus, Dayton,
Indianapolis, and Louisville. On this trip through Ohio and Indiana we
were everywhere reminded that we were among friends. Our train stopped
for a time at Columbus, Xenia, and Dayton, and it seemed as though the
citizens of those towns could not do enough for us. At every station
along the road great crowds of people were gathered, and cheered us as
we passed along.
We stopped briefly at Louisville, then went on again through Nashville,
and past the battle-field of Murfreesboro. We debarked from the cars at
Stevenson, Alabama, on Sunday morning, just a week from the time we had
started. We certainly were glad enough to be released after seven days
and nights of railroad travelling, cramped up so tightly that there was
scarce room either to sit up or lie down. Our arrival was none too soon.
The long line of railroad from Nashville southward, had been practically
unguarded, and the enemy's cavalry under General Wheeler succeeded soon
after our arrival in tearing it up in several places.
We now had several weeks of racing up and down the railroad line,
infantry after cavalry, and with the usual result. In the end, however,
the road was cleared, with the whole "Red Star" Division distributed
between Murfreesboro and Stevenson. Our Regiment was stationed at
Wartrace, where there was a junction with a short railroad running to
Shelbyville--the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. It was a curiosity.
The cross-ties were about five feet apart, and the rails were of wood,
surmounted by a running surface of light iron. Frequently the wooden
rails would spread, and then there would be a wreck; in fact, scarcely
a day passed on which there would not be an accident of some kind. Large
details of men from our Regiment were set to work to bring the road in
repair, and by Christmas it was in fairly good condition.
Shortly after we were established at Wartrace, I secured leave of
absence to go to Chattanooga in search of my brother, who had enlisted
in the Tenth Wisconsin. I had not heard of him since the battle of
Chickamauga. My route was by rail to Bridgeport on the Tennessee River,
then in a small captured Confederate steamer called "Paint Rock," up the
Tennessee to Chattanooga.
The "Paint Rock" was loaded to its utmost capacity with hardtack for the
starving Union men who held Chattanooga. The river route to that town
had only recently been opened up by General Hooker, with the Eleventh
Corps and the Second Division of our Corps. Previously it had been
necessary to wheel all supplies sixty miles over a mountain road, where
teams could scarcely haul the forage for their own trip. Even now the
boats could run only to within eight miles of the city.
The fifty-mile river trip brought me at the end of the day to the
landing at Kelly's Ferry. Then I had an eight-mile walk before me to the
camps, where I arrived late in the evening. I soon found the regiment or
the small remnant of it that I was looking for; but then I learned that
my brother was beyond doubt a prisoner in the hands of the enemy.
I spent a day in visiting about Chattanooga. The enemy occupied a line
from the Tennessee River, above town, to the point of Lookout Mountain
below. At no place were they near enough to throw shells into the city,
save from their heavy guns on Lookout Mountain. From these, shells came
over all day at intervals of ten or fifteen minutes and exploded high in
the air over either our camps or the city. So far as I could see,
however, they did little damage.
Shortly after my return to my Regiment, I was detailed to investigate
the killing of a negro by a white man, not far from our post. The
evidence showed that it was a most unprovoked murder, and I so
reported. The man was thereupon arrested and sent to the provost marshal
at Tullahoma. I never learned what was finally done with him. The
curious thing about the affair was the frank astonishment of the man
that anyone should take notice of the killing of a mere "nigger."
Toward the end of November a large number of Confederate prisoners, who
had been captured in the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary
Ridge, were being sent northward over the railroad. We often had
conversation with them while the trains were stopping at our station.
Some were still defiant, but most of them were discouraged, and many
predicted that the Confederacy could not last six months longer. An
unusually large number of deserters of all ranks from colonel downward,
were also coming in, and they likewise professed to believe that the
Confederacy was tottering.
_The Third Veteranizes_
In December a general order was issued from the War Department,
providing for the reenlistment of veteran regiments. It provided for a
liberal bounty for all who reenlisted as veterans after two years'
service; but it offered what was a greater temptation than anything
else, the chance to go home for thirty days as a regiment, with the
opportunity to recruit up to the full standard. I explained to my
Company all the advantages of this arrangement. Their term of service
would not expire until the end of June. By that time the fighting would
probably be well over with. By reenlisting now they would secure the
bounty, the thirty days furlough, and the honorable record of veteran
soldiers, and it would be possible to preserve our organization from the
beginning to the end of the war.
Just about this time I was called away from camp to Tullahoma, to sit on
the court martial of Colonel E. L. Price of the One Hundred Forty-Fifth
New York Regiment, on charges of misbehaviour in battle. When the court
adjourned over the Christmas holidays and I returned to my Regiment, I
was informed by my First Sergeant that the men of my Company had been
talking over the matter of reenlisting, and that more than three-fourths
of them were ready to do so if I would stay with them. The contagion
spread. By Christmas all but two of the officers, and 240 out of 300
enlisted men present with the Regiment, had, in the language of the day,
"veteranized."
On Christmas this surviving remnant of the thousand men of the Third,
who had so gayly left the State two-and-a-half years before, started on
their return. It was a beautiful day, and for us one of perfect
happiness. We were going home with a record that none could surpass and
few commands could equal. We were the first regiment from Wisconsin, and
I believe the first in the army, to reenlist.
At Madison the arms were stored, and the men scattered to their homes to
enjoy their thirty-days' furlough. I was just in time to take part in a
New Year's dance, and go home in the morning on the coldest day ever
known in Wisconsin.
The month of January, 1864, which we spent in Wisconsin, was a season of
continuous festivities. The only drawback was the extreme cold, which to
us who had just come from the South, seemed more severe than it had ever
been before. Everyone seemed to be determined to give the returned
soldiers the best time of their lives. Some of the croakers thought it
too gay for people who were engaged in a death struggle for the life of
the Nation. Those of us, however, who had been at the front, were
disposed to be merry while we could, and leave the future to care for
itself. Recruiting was going on all the time. Our veterans proved the
best recruiting officers in the State. They brought in their brothers
and cousins, schoolmates and friends, so that when we were ready to
return once more to the south, we had added 300 men to our rolls, picked
from the very flower of Wisconsin's citizenry.
On February 2 the veterans of the Regiment assembled at Madison. On the
4th we were again on our way south, and reached Tullahoma the night of
the 9th. On the 12th we started out for Fayetteville, the seat of
Lincoln County, Tennessee, where we arrived at noon on the following
day. On our way we passed through Lynchburg, where there was pointed out
to us the house, or rather the ruins of the house, which was said to
have been the birthplace of Davy Crockett. At Mulberry, a little farther
on, I met a middle-aged citizen who said that he had never known what a
United States flag looked like until he had seen one carried by our
soldiers in this war.
_Reorganizing Lincoln County_
Lincoln County was one of the richest, as well as the most violent of
Secession counties in Tennessee. Its people boasted that it had cast
2,500 votes for Secession, and not one for the Union; the few Union men
in the county had not dared to go to the polls. A few months previous to
our coming a small detachment of Northern troops had been captured there
by guerrillas. The prisoners had been taken to the bank of the Elk River
and three of them deliberately murdered. A fourth had only escaped by
leaping into the river and swimming off in the confusion. When he had
reported the matter to headquarters, Colonel Ketcham of the One Hundred
Fiftieth New York had been sent to collect an assessment of $30,000 from
the citizens of the county for the benefit of the families of the
murdered soldiers.