Longstreet was detached from the Army of Lee and sent to Georgia
to help the Confederates whom Rosecrans was pressing hard; sometime
before this, early in 1863, two divisions of the Ninth Corps had
been withdrawn from the Potomac and dispatched to the Department of
the Ohio to aid in the campaign Burnside was then projecting. Both
Confederates and Federals had returned to the East; Longstreet, most
remote of the rebel array, had been striving to reach the field where
his chief was struggling with the Union Army and, by one of the most
wonderful coincidences in all history, Burnside and his following, save
two divisions, were swinging into position between Warren and Hancock,
only a few minutes later than Longstreet when the latter came up to the
help of Hill. Grant in his Memoirs says that Meade wished the hour of
attack on the 6th to be set at 6 a. m., an hour and a half later than
the orders of the night of the 5th. "Deferring to his wishes as far as
I was willing, the order was modified and 5 was fixed as the hour to
move." So then we come to the 6th of May and a resumption of Warren's
report:--
"At precisely five o'clock the fighting began. General Wadsworth I
re-enforced with Colonel Kitching, 2400 strong (an independent brigade
of the Fourth Division). He fought his way entirely across the Second
Corps' front to the south side of the Plank Road, and wheeling round
commenced driving them up the Plank Road toward Orange Court House.
The accumulating force of the enemy staggered his advance, and the
line became confused in the dense woods. In the very van of the fight,
General Wadsworth was killed by a bullet through his head, and General
Baxter was wounded. On our right, the enemy was found to be intrenched
and but little impressions could be made. I then sent another brigade
to sustain General Hancock, who had now two of my divisions and one
of the Sixth Corps, and was defending himself from both Hill and
Longstreet. They charged and took possession of a part of his line but
were driven out again. Late in the evening, the enemy turned General
Sedgwick's right very unexpectedly, and threw most of his line into
confusion. I sent General Crawford at double-quick, and the line was
restored to him.... In most respects, the result of the day's fighting
was a drawn battle."
The report of General Robinson of the Second Division repeats some
of Warren's statements, at the same time mentioning the fact that he
accompanied General Baxter with the Second Brigade, which went with
Wadsworth of the First Division on the 5th, when all hastened to the
relief of Hancock; he names Colonel Lyle, of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania
as commanding the First Brigade. He also mentions the death of his
Assistant Inspector General, Lieut. Colonel David Allen, Jr., of the
Twelfth Massachusetts on the 5th, and mentions the charge of the
First Brigade (ours) late on the 5th, when the Ninetieth Pennsylvania
suffered so severely. In the afternoon of the 6th, he was ordered to
send another brigade to the support of Hancock, and later still one
more which he accompanied, ranging them on the right of the Second
Corps. There he ordered the building of rifle-pits, while he rode to
Hancock's headquarters; the latter telling him that he is ordered to
attack, and requesting Robinson to join in the assault, our Division
Commander returned to his command and made ready to advance, awaiting
orders. Two hours later, heavy firing was heard on his left and he was
visited by General D. B. Birney who stated that the enemy had broken
through our lines and that Hancock was cut off. Robinson at once faced
his second line about and made ready to receive attacks on his left
and rear. Before any further change was effected, General Birney was
summoned by Hancock, and Robinson learned that, instead of breaking
through, the enemy had been repulsed. It seems a little strange that
the General does not mention the death of General Wadsworth, his fellow
division commander, nor the wounding of Baxter of his own command. The
taking off of Wadsworth was a great calamity, representing, as he did,
the vast array of citizen soldiery. Far past the age of military duty,
one of the wealthiest men in the Empire State, he nevertheless threw in
his services and, eventually, his life for the cause he loved.[K]
[Sidenote: MAY 6, '64]
Returning to the meager records of our own Regiment, we glean
certain facts, as that the Brigade was advanced in the morning to
nearly its former position and that it was shortly withdrawn and
sent to the extreme left on the plank-road, where breastworks were
thrown up under active skirmishing. Also on this day, in the various
changes of position, the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, Fifty-eighth
and Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Regiments were met, all of them in
the Ninth Army Corps, and all of them having officers largely drawn
from the older organizations of the Bay State. Private Horton of "E"
says, "We lay all night in the same place, the rebels keeping up the
firing. We are relieved at 4 a. m. and go back and get breakfast.
Travel around almost all day; go to the left where is heavy firing;
throw up some rifle-pits." Beck of "C" in effect coincides with the
foregoing, though he closes the day's account with the words, "Some
of the hardest fighting on record; we build intrenchments on the side
of the road and sleep in them through the night; troops were passing
and repassing all of the evening; we are having nice warm weather for
our operations." Lieutenant Dusseault of "H" relates the incident of
a false alarm, while the men were lying along the road, between that
and the breastworks:--"About midnight, while the boys were trying to
get a little sleep, a great racket was heard not far away, and some in
their alarm thought the whole rebel army was upon us. It proved to be
a stampede of our own cattle, and they came bellowing down the space
between the flanks and the works, and over the prostrate forms of our
men. The choice language of the startled sleepers, when they came to
understand the situation, added not a little to the tumult." During the
day, in one of the several charges made upon us, "A rebel prisoner,
apparently wounded and just able to crawl about, on hearing the shouts
of his compatriots so near, and dreading to fall into their hands,
much to our amusement, jumped up a well man and ran like a deer towards
our rear."
Of the charge made in the afternoon of the 5th, this story is told in
the history of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania whose Colonel, Peter Lyle,
was in command of the Brigade, having succeeded Colonel Leonard of the
Thirteenth Massachusetts:--
"The command was formed in line-of-battle and advanced until it
reached the open ground, beyond which the enemy was intrenched. The
line was established behind a slight rise of ground with small trees
and bushes in front, the right of the Ninetieth being separated from
the rest of the Brigade which it was impossible to occupy, being raked
by the enemy's artillery. We lay in this position for some time when
General Griffin,[L] in command of the First Division, rode up and
commanded a charge. Colonel Lyle promptly led his regiment forward
and, as soon as it had cleared the shrubbery in front, and emerged
upon the open field rebel batteries opened upon it with grape and
canister. The order was given to double-quick and with a shout it
advanced within close range of the rebel lines. When Colonel Lyle
discovered that he was unsupported, he gave the orders to about-face
and what was left rallied around the colors and, under a fierce fire
of infantry and artillery, returned to its original position.... Out
of two hundred and fifty-one men, one hundred and twenty-four were
killed, wounded or captured. From some misunderstanding or not having
received the same peremptory orders from General Griffin that he gave
the Ninetieth the rest of the brigade did not advance any distance,
leaving the Regiment entirely alone in the charge.
[Sidenote: MAY 6, '64]
"In fairness to our Regiment, it should be stated that the left wing
heard the orders which sent the Ninetieth forward and, responding,
suffered with it. The wonder is that, in the confusion of numbers,
noise and misunderstood commands, more errors rather than less, are
not recorded. It is not to the discredit of Colonel Lyle that he is
said to have shed tears over the calamity which befell his brave
followers through no fault of his."
Colonel Peirson in a paper read before the Loyal Legion also has a
fling at these same guns to the following effect:--
"We also left behind two guns which were on the turnpike in front of
Warren's position, which were lost by Griffin on the 5th, and were
between the two armies until we retired. A brigade of Robinson's
division vainly attempted a charge to retake them, but the plain was
swept by canister at 350 yards, and the brigade returned with heavy
loss. It was understood that the sixth Corps was to join in this
attempt but General Upton, whose brigade lay on the right of Robinson,
refused to move, saying, 'It is madness.' So sensitive were the enemy
about the matter, they fired on our stretcher-bearers, who advanced
to bring in the wounded; and the wounded were not brought in, but lay
all night calling for water and help, to the great distress of their
comrades."
Two such days, as were the 5th and 6th of May in the Wilderness,
evidently were as much as even Grant and Lee could endure. The former
is said to have remarked to Meade on the 7th, "Joe Johnston would
have retreated after two such days' punishment." The losses on both
sides were frightful; there was little of the spectacular which will
always characterize Gettysburg, but men, in all their mortal combats,
never grappled in fiercer, more determined struggles than in those of
the dense and tangled Wilderness. In his Memoirs, Grant says, "More
desperate fighting has not been witnessed on this continent than that
of the 5th and 6th of May," and he was at Shiloh and Chattanooga;
evidently the great Westerner was changing his mind as to the
fighting qualities of Eastern armies. The Union force had lost 2,265
killed, 10,220 wounded, and 2,902 missing; an aggregate of 15,387.
While Confederate data as to numbers are frequently questioned, the
Medical and Surgical History of the War makes the Southern losses,
2,000 killed, 6,000 wounded and 3,400 missing; a total of 11,400. The
Confederates also had lost Brigadier Generals Micah Jenkins and John
M. Jones, both gallant officers, but their greatest personal loss
was that of General Longstreet, grievously wounded on the 6th and
immediately carried from the field. Thomas Nelson Page refers to the
event as the fourth similar incident where, seemingly, the loss of one
man ended the hope of rebel victory, as the deaths of A. S. Johnston at
Shiloh, "Stonewall" Jackson at Chancellorsville, the wounding of "Joe"
Johnston at Seven Pines and of Longstreet, "at the critical moment when
victory hovered over his arms."
FOOTNOTES:
[J] General Morris Schaff, who was a member of General Warren's Staff,
says, "Robinson, who brought up the rear of the corps, camped on the
Germanna Road, the middle of his division about where Caton's Run comes
down through the woods from the west." P. 97
[K] Greeley in "The American Conflict" says, "Thousands of the unnamed
and unknown have evinced as fervid and as pure a patriotism, but no one
surrendered more for his country's sake, or gave his life more joyfully
for her deliverance, than did James S. Wadsworth."
[L] In General Schaff's "Wilderness" we may read, "The victorious
Confederates could not pursue beyond the guns, or even stand there, for
Sweitzer's of Griffin's, and the First Brigade of Robinson's division,
under my friend, Charles L. Peirson, a gentleman, together with our
rallied men, now poured such a fire into them from the east side of
the field, that they fled back to their lines on the edge of the
woods.... In an effort to recapture the guns--whose loss, Griffin, the
commander of our West Point battery in my day, felt deeply--the Ninth
Massachusetts and the Ninetieth Pennsylvania suffered frightfully,
adding to the thickly lying dead in the old field." (Page 163.)
THE BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS
BY CHANNING WHITTAKER
Most of the Infantry fighting of the Wilderness, as is well known,
occurred on May 5th and 6th, 1864, in almost impenetrable thickets of
tangled woodland growth, a growth facilitated by warmth of climate, by
a multitude of streamlets and by areas of morass. The Infantry line
of battle may have been from five to seven or eight miles in length.
General Grant said in his "Personal Memoirs," written just before
his death, "More desperate fighting has not been witnessed on this
continent than that of the 5th and 6th of May, 1864." The bloodiest
battlefields of those two days were those of Caton's Run of May 5th
and of the thicket bordered by the Brock and the Orange Plank Roads on
May 5th and 6th. During the battle I was pretty completely occupied
with what was occurring close about me and I had little knowledge of
what was occurring beyond my individual eyesight. Since the war I
have been too completely occupied by daily duties to seriously search
the records to ascertain the contribution which the Thirty-ninth
Massachusetts made to the battle as a whole. Since I received your
letter I have tried to ascertain where the Regiment was and what it
did with relation to the battle as a whole on those two days. It
participated in the Battle of Caton's Run on May 5th and in that of
the Brock and Plank Roads on May 6th, but because I am not at leisure
and my sources of information are limited, I shall attempt no account
of either battle as a whole.
[Sidenote: MAY 5, '64]
It is only recently that I have learned of the trap which the
Confederates had deliberately set for us on the morning of the 5th
of May in the gully of the unwooded valley of Caton's Run, where,
ambushed in the woods on the western edge, they awaited "with fingers
on triggers" the initial charge of our brave men, under the orders of
Grant and Meade and Warren, down the long unwooded slope, across the
roughly shaped gully of a primeval forest stream and up the long and
open slope beyond it; of the brutal and terrible carnage on the slopes
and at and about the battery caught in the gully; and that here,
where at about eight a. m. was killed Charles H. Wilson of Wrentham,
Co. I, Eighteenth Massachusetts, the first Federal infantryman to
fall in the campaign, were controlled and stayed the proud banners of
17,000 Confederates under Lee and Ewell, including those of Walker,
commanding the famous Stonewall Brigade. The first assault in this
murderous trap was made by Griffin's First Division of Warren's Fifth
Corps, while our Brigade, the First of Robinson's Second Division of
the Fifth Corps, was held in reserve in their rear.
What I remember of the Battle of the Wilderness after the lapse of
almost fifty years is a story quickly told. Some of the things which I
saw and experienced made an indelible impression upon my mind. Other
events have been crowded out by intervening occurrences, and of them I
have no memory.
I will now state all that I remember of what occurred within my own
experience on the morning of May 5th, 1864. I suppose these things
occurred during Griffin's assault through the gully, and while the
Thirty-ninth was being held in reserve in Griffin's rear.
We were standing in line of battle in a grove of oaks, the largest
of which were perhaps eight inches in diameter. I was in the front
rank near the right of Company B. First Lieutenant Spear was in his
usual place in the rear of the Company and a little to my left.
Lieutenant Spear turned on his heel and momentarily vacated his place.
Almost instantly a piece of a shell buried itself where he had stood.
Occasional bullets passed over our heads and among the oaks. Captain
W. W. Graham of Company B was at rest in front of the Company, leaning
against an oak but not behind it. A raw recruit in the rear rank who
had joined the Company at Mitchell's Station and who had not yet
learned to await the word of command aimed his rifle at a venture and
planted a bullet in Captain Graham's oak, close to his head. Orderly
Sergeant Allison shook the recruit by the collar and threatened
terrible things if he should fire again without orders.
I can not recall that I knew anything of Griffin's assault while
it was in progress, or of the rout which followed it. I have since
learned from General Robinson's report that at the close of Griffin's
sanguinary assault, Griffin's Division was relieved by Robinson's
First and Second Brigades, ours, the First, taking the line of battle.
[Sidenote: MAY 6, '64]
I remember that the Regiment moved to a new position and that later
in the day we were lying, faces down, on the grass covered slope of a
ridge. Small pines branching from near the ground broke its surface.
Erect, and close behind us, Lieutenant Colonel Peirson walked back
and forth like a sentinel upon his beat, but with his eyes never off
of his ready but prostrate men. Absolutely alert, in quiet and calm
tones, he said to each restless one who sought a dangerous relief from
his unbearable immobility, "That man in ---- Company, lie down," or
whatever would cause the man to safeguard himself. The minie balls
continually showered the green pine needles and pitchy twigs upon
us. No one was in such danger as the Lieutenant Colonel, but he ever
walked back and forth, back and forth, speaking his words of friendly
caution. Still later it was desired that we should lie nearer the top
of the ridge. He said to Colonel Davis, "If you will stand here" (at
the right of the line to be formed) "I will align the men on you."
When we again stretched ourselves upon the slope our heads were close
to its top. Later in the afternoon we were standing in line of battle
on the top of the ridge. The line of battle of a Regiment on our
left made an angle of less than 180 with our own. For a moment I had
a clear, distinct view of its front brilliantly lighted by the rays
of the declining sun. I saw Colonel "Dick" Coulter on his prancing
horse in front of them. The vision though momentary was changeful,
unsteady, as if the men were staggering, falling. Our Brigade charged
down the western slope. A Battery was in the gully at the foot of the
slope, and neither the Federals nor the Confederates could touch it.
The Brigade did not reach the Battery but returned to the ridge. The
cries of the wounded on the slope were heart breaking. They called for
help, for water. I was told, "General Grant says, 'Let no well man
risk himself for his companion. He will need the help of all well men
to-morrow.'" There was a call for volunteers to act as skirmishers
on the slope toward the battery. I volunteered without any personal
request that I should do so. I was located some distance down the
slope and walked back and forth upon a "beat," like a camp guard.
Then I had a genuine surprise. While I walked and watched with fear
in my heart, the sun not having yet gone down, Lieutenant Colonel
Peirson came sauntering along the skirmish line as if he was enjoying
a pleasurable stroll. He made some casual remark and, handing me his
field glass, asked if I would enjoy seeking the battery through it. He
left me after I had had abundant time to look, but all of the fear had
gone and did not return. When I next saw the glass it had been ruined,
smashed by a shell which had nearly taken the life of the Lieutenant
Colonel at Spottsylvania. All night I walked back and forth on the
slope.
When we took our position upon the Brock Road, volunteer skirmishers
were again called for and I responded as before. I was placed perhaps
three hundred feet in front of the Regiment in a typical Wilderness
forest tangle. Here were hardwood trees several inches in diameter,
and in an almost impenetrable mass between them were quickly grown
hardwood saplings of the diameter of one's finger and perhaps twenty
feet in height. These were in the beautiful, tender green, full
foliage of May and often woven all through between their interlacing
branches were strong, green, horse-briar vines in so high and dense
a hedge that had a line of battle been in your front not twenty
feet away you probably could not have seen it. My part was to watch
the thicket in front of my post and to give warning of the first
appearance of the enemy. My fear of the day before did not return. I
had excellent opportunity to hear the rapidly detonating musketry on
my left and front, varied by the deep bass of occasional artillery. As
the firing quickened I could no longer distinguish intervals between
the sounds. I heard only one clear, loud, inspiring, uplifting,
musical sound punctuated by artillery.
Suddenly, upon my left and behind me all was commotion. The Sixteenth
Maine on our left fired volley after volley toward the front. My
regiment, the Thirty-ninth Massachusetts, followed their lead. I threw
myself upon my face until the fusilade had ceased. Then I lost no time
in reaching the Regiment. I saw no wounded in our immediate front, but
a number in butternut clothing crawled toward the Sixteenth Maine or
lay prostrate in their front. One in particular, I remember, he was
crawling upon his hands and knees toward the Sixteenth, while a large,
red stream flowed from his throat as I had seen blood flow from the
throat of a slaughtered pig.
I now saw that a wonderful change had occurred in front of the
Thirty-ninth. A wide belt of the forest had disappeared. Three
parallel lines of breastworks, with an abatis in their front, were
undergoing construction along the Brock Road. Men without axes had
felled large trees with hatchets, and saplings with knives. Bayonets
instead of pickaxes had loosened the sun-baked Virginia clay and tin
plates instead of shovels had transferred the soil. The trees, the
saplings and the clay, under the direction of skilled mechanics and by
the herculean efforts of determined and rapid workmen, had taken and
were taking effective defensive shape. The moment the firing ceased
the constructive, defensive work again began. I saw upon the Brock
Road a mounted officer, riding and swinging his sword. I heard him
say, "General Grant says, 'If you hold this place until night, the
enemy must evacuate Petersburg and Richmond, is ours.'" I began to use
my bayonet and tin plate with the rest in constructing breastworks,
but the call for skirmishers soon came again and I went back to watch
through the night and the following day for the first signs of another
frontal attack, which happily did not come. Before we left this place
I listened to the account of my messmate, George V. Shedd, who, as one
of a squad, had passed on duty through a part of the woods where men
wounded, dying and dead had been blistered, blackened and burned by
ruthless forest fires.
I have learned since that on the morning of May 6th a Confederate
engineer officer reported to General Longstreet that the extreme
left of the Infantry of the Army and of the Second Corps was in the
woods in front of the Brock Road and exposed. A flank attack by
four Brigades was immediately made, following first the unfinished
railroad bed where their march was practically unimpeded and then
advancing north through the woods. Our men, who were cooking coffee,
were completely surprised and routed, and this explains the confusion
which prevailed along the Brock Road when we arrived a little later.
The Brock Road was now almost in the grasp of Longstreet, who hoped
to seize it and to "put the enemy back across the Rapidan before
night." "Longstreet, followed by fresh Brigades at double-quick,"
began to follow up the victory when he and his staff were mistaken
for Federal troops and fired upon by the Sixty-first Virginia of
Mahone's Confederate Brigade. Longstreet was severely wounded. General
Longstreet says, "I immediately made arrangements to follow up the
successes gained and ordered an advance of all my troops for that
purpose."
(Here the hand of our comrade ceased, for fatal illness came upon him
ere his task was ended.--A. S. R.)
[Sidenote: MAY 7, '64]