alarm that the enemy was advancing, while the truth was that Johnny Reb
was quite as tired as the Yankees. Even soldiers must rest sometime,
and early in the morning of the 13th the division was withdrawn to the
rear, and for a short time laid aside responsibility, but it was not
a long rest, since those rifle-pits must be filled with someone, and
all too soon "we were moved up to the right, into works along with the
One Hundred and Forty-sixth New York. Nothing here but water and mud.
Showery all day, though the men are in good spirits, notwithstanding.
About 8 p. m. when we were beginning to arrange to stretch out for the
night, orders came to move, and we fell in, following the rest of the
corps to the left. The mud was dreadful, the night dark, we forded
streams up to our knees, and the mud all the time was over shoes."
Grant had not yet found the spot through which he could force his way,
so the Fifth Corps once more essays the part of pioneers, and leads
the move towards the inevitable left, seeking in vain for some point
not bristling with rebel bayonets, or threatening with black throated
cannon. Truly our Lieutenant General is finding out, not only how
strenuous is the Eastern Union soldier, but his eyes are opening wide
as to the resourcefulness of the Eastern Confederate and his eternal
vigilance.
It is another flank movement, and the men of Warren's Corps are moving
to Burnside's left with orders to assault with that Corps at four
o'clock in the morning of the 14th. Very likely the difficulties of
this night, with its more than Egyptian darkness, had not been reckoned
upon by the Commander and the appointed hour found the would-be
assailants a long way from the point of expected advance. The route
was past the Landrum House to the Ny River, which had to be waded, and
beyond the route did not follow any road, traversing the fields, and
a track was cut through the woods. Then came a fog, so dense that not
even the fires built to light the way could be seen. Men exhausted by
the difficulties of the move and previous exactions fell asleep all
along the way. The new locality was quite unknown and by daylight when
the expected attack was to take place, only Griffin with his First
Division, having only twelve hundred "fagged-out men" had arrived. It
was seven o'clock before General Cutler got thirteen hundred of his men
together. Naturally the four o'clock charge was not made.
Wright and the Sixth Corps moved still further to the left, but had
to do some fighting to get just the position wanted. All observers,
whether of Regiment or Brigade, agree that the day was wet and
comparatively quiet, though the enemy's shells passed harmlessly over
the heads of the tired men, many of whom slept the sleep of utter
exhaustion, the waking ones thankful that the fuses in said shells were
long enough to keep up their hissing until a considerable distance
beyond us before bursting. In the mutations of fighting and moving
about, all the regular contents of knapsacks had disappeared, the most
of the men retaining, in addition to canteen and haversack, rubber
blankets only; besides, rations were scarce, yet men were content to
rest without food, so trying had been the ordeal of the preceding
ten days. After all, the average Yankee is ever anxious to know just
where he is, and several entries of the 14th are to the effect that
the Regiment is near the Fredericksburg turnpike, about eight miles
from the city itself and, from a mile and a half to two miles from
Spottsylvania Court House. With only the canopy of the sky as a
covering, a large part of the Thirty-ninth slept through the night of
the 14th-15th.
[Sidenote: MAY 15, '64]
The 15th is Sunday, and just a week away from the sad experience of
Alsop's farm. These men of the First Brigade are fast becoming hardened
veterans, and they have the privilege of greeting as such the comrades
who had been home on re-enlistment furloughs and who, this day, got
back again. There are many comparisons between the spic-and-span attire
of the just-returned, and the "of-the-earth, earthy" apparel of men
who, for ten long days and nights have fought and marched, at intervals
hugging muddy mother-earth, till all semblance of cleanliness has
disappeared, and dress parades have faded out of the recollections of
all concerned. Then too the ravages of the hotly contested field have
torn great gaps in the erstwhile well-filled ranks so that only squads
of men constitute what have been long company lines. Some boys remark
on the quiet of Sunday and think it properly kept; three days' rations
are drawn, including fresh beef, and, with returning vitality and
spirits, learning that the Eleventh Massachusetts Battery, in the Ninth
Corps, is hard by, men of the Thirty-ninth make friendly visits to
their acquaintances therein. Colonel Davis comes back to the Regiment
to-day, looking much better than when he dropped out. Towards night,
six o'clock, the troops are formed in line with expectation of an
attack; four lines deep, our right rests on the top of a hill whence,
as far as the eye can reach, armed men are seen awaiting the attack
which is not made. It is a sight to remember!
Monday, the 16th, is also a quiet day for this campaign. Beginning
foggy and damp, with the rising sun the mists clear away and it is very
warm. On some sort of an alarm we are deployed, in line with the One
Hundred and Seventh Pennsylvania, Colonel McCoy, that has just got back
from its home trip on account of re-enlistment. On being recalled to
our former station, we are set to work entrenching, introducing heavy
timbers into our lines of works, three deep. About 9 p. m., we have to
stop work, because the tools are needed elsewhere. Though there are
showers in the evening, the moon finally shines through and, under her
benign light, the Regiment sleeps. Nor does the record of the 17th
differ essentially from that of yesterday. Foggy in the morning, then
clearing and warm; picket or skirmish line duty for some and, about
4 p. m., our lines are moved to the right, nearer those of the Ninth
Corps where there is more digging to render safe our position in case
of attack. It is about this time that General Grant finds the army
encumbered with an excess of artillery and, accordingly, sends back to
Washington over a hundred guns; how the Johnnies would like to have
some of these same weapons! All of them will come back again before the
Petersburg siege is over.
Those who remember clearly the events of the 18th will agree that the
most important one was the arrival, at 5 p. m., of the first mail
since leaving camp at Mitchell's Station. What joy its contents gave
those loyal hearts! Yet there were missives, in that coming of the
postman, for faithful lovers whose eyes, many hours before, had closed
in dreamless sleep, and in this life could never know how fondly they
were remembered. The enemy, as if to make amends for continued quiet,
began to shell the Ninth Corps just after our early breakfast, which we
had soon after four o'clock. For some reason, General Warren wanted our
Brigade nearer him, so at seven o'clock we were moved over towards the
left and, under a shelling fire, lay till well along in the afternoon.
Though there were six regiments in the Brigade it numbered, all told,
less than a thousand men. About two o'clock, we returned to the right
and, at eleven o'clock, reoccupied the works on which we had labored
the night before. General Warren in his report for this day states
that General Richard Coulter, commanding our Brigade, is severely
wounded. This, too, is the day of the arrival at the Front of the First
Massachusetts Heavy Artillery from its long service in the defenses
of Washington. It is assigned to the Second Brigade, Third Division,
Second Corps, though at present it is with the Second Brigade of
General Robert O. Tyler's Artillery Division.
For the greater part of the Potomac Army, the 19th is a quiet day,
though the men in their breastworks notice some sort of change on their
left. Of the day, General Warren says, "All our forces took up position
on my left. This brought out General Ewell's Corps, who attempted
to turn our right. He was repulsed, etc.... Rained in afternoon."
Regimental note-takers remark on the drawing of rations, including
fresh beef, and the fierce attack on their right, well along in the
afternoon and of the fact that their friends in the First Massachusetts
Heavy Artillery had a severe experience.
[Sidenote: MAY 18, '64]
The hot reception accorded the First Heavies is worthy of more than
passing mention. Recruited to the maximum of such organizations, the
Regiment was a wonder to the men who had been long in the field, for
it numbered about 1800 men, as large as two brigades of those who had
been in the thickest of the fray. The Confederates of Ewell's command,
desirous of ascertaining whether the Union forces were moving and,
incidentally, to capture if possible a tempting wagon train, in the
afternoon of the 19th, undertook to steal around the Union right,
bearing down thus about 5 p. m. along the Fredericksburg Pike on the
line of Federal supplies. Whatever the expectations of the enemy,
the point of attack was by no means unguarded, and in history, the
engagement is known as that of the Heavies, since not only were our
First men there, but the First Heavy of Maine was in line, and the
Second, Seventh and Eighth of New York as well. Swinton says that
the artillerists had not been in battle before, but under fire they
displayed an audacity surpassing even that of the experienced troops.
"In these murderous wood-fights, the veterans had learned to employ
all of the Indian devices that afford shelter to the person; but these
green battalions, unused to this kind of shelter-craft, pushed boldly
on, firing furiously. Their loss was heavy, but the honor of the
enemy's repulse belongs to them." Excellent evidence of the sturdiness
and steadiness of the men, with crossed cannon on their caps, is found
in the words of an old Confederate, spoken in 1901 at the dedication of
the regimental monument on the scene of the fight, known in the annals
of the First as Harris Farm:
"I saw your men march on this field, not deployed, but like soldiers
on parade, take aim and fire a volley straight from the shoulder.
You seemed to me the biggest men I had ever seen. You were so near
that I noticed that all wore clean shirts. There was the most perfect
discipline and indifference to danger I ever saw. It was the talk of
our men."
In Fox's book of Regimental Losses, he puts the killed and mortally
wounded of our friends, in this engagement, as one hundred and twenty
men.
FOOTNOTES:
[M] James Clay Rice was born in Worthington, Mass., December 27,
1829, and was graduated from Yale in 1854; after a period spent in
teaching in Natchez, Miss., he came to New York, studied law, began
its practice in 1856, and thus the war found him. He enlisted as a
private in the Thirty-ninth (Garabaldi Guards) New York Infantry, was
soon commissioned First Lieutenant, and Adjutant, and as a Captain,
was present at Bull Run. On the organization of the Forty-fourth New
York, or the Ellsworth Avengers, he was made Lieutenant Colonel, later
Colonel, and saw all of the active service of that regiment, winning
distinction at Gettysburg. At the time of his death he was in command
of the Second Brigade, Fourth (Wadsworth's) Division of the Fifth
Corps. Like Sedgwick, he was shot by a sharpshooter. His last words
were, "Turn me over towards the enemy; let me die with my face to the
foe."
NORTH ANNA RIVER
All agree that the 20th was a quiet day, though signalized by the
arrival of a mail with so many letters and papers that for a while the
general appearance was one of an out-of-door reading expanse, rather
than a vast army under fire from a vigilant foe, though the latter also
appeared to be quite good natured, and the bands of both armies made
the air resound with music. Even the evening following the torrid heat
of the day is described as moonlit and beautiful. General Meade says
of the 21st, 22nd and 23rd, that they were employed in moving the army
from Spottsylvania Court House to the North Anna River, and General
Warren states that his artillery began to move at 10 a. m. of the
21st, that the enemy did some artillery firing and that the men stood
to arms. His headquarters set out at noon. Local observers chronicle
some activity on the part of the foe with certain changes in regimental
positions and the actual starting at about noon, leaving pickets on
their stations to shift for themselves. They march through a part of
the country hitherto untouched by Union soldiers, and the people are
seemingly badly scared. The stop for the night is at Guinea Station,
covering a distance, someone says, of eleven miles. Though the men
turn out at three o'clock in the morning of Sunday, the 22nd, they do
not advance until almost noon, and then under a hot sun they marched
ten miles to a certain Bull's church (St. Margaret's) where are seen a
number of Confederate prisoners, and it is said that Lee passed through
in the morning. The worst feature of the march is the fact that it is
made on empty stomachs, for the rations have not come up.
[Sidenote: MAY 22, '64]
Of the country through which Grant and his soldiers are making
another flank movement, many remarks are made because of its improved
appearance over that of the region about Fredericksburg and northward,
where war had been raging for three years, and it had become a
veritable land of desolation. To the eyes of the soldiers it was
a delightful sight, and one writer in the Thirty-ninth pays it the
highest compliment possible by saying, "It looks like New England,"
and the same chronicler says he can't bear to see the men foraging for
pigs, hens and everything edible, somewhat forced thereto, on account
of the wagons being so far behind, and the tender hearted fellow
continues, much to the credit of his bringing up, "Many of the people
are poor and they need all they have for their own keeping." In army
annals, the 23rd is known as the day of the North Anna River. In his
report, General Warren states:
"General Cutler's division leading got off promptly at 5. a. m.
Reached forks, where one road goes to the ford and one to the bridge,
at 9. a. m. Cavalry skirmishing a little in advance. A deserter
says it is Rosser's cavalry; says there is artillery and infantry
on the other side. Turned back to give that road to Hancock and
got possession of a crossing at a mill at 1 p. m. By 3.10 p. m.,
General Griffin's division had nearly all forded, and at 3.10 p.
m. bridge-train began to arrive. About 4.30, bridge (pontoon) was
completed and last of General Cutler's division crossed. About 6 a. m.
enemy assaulted us. My right gave way, and the artillery drove back
the enemy. We repulsed them everywhere."
From internal sources, we learn that the Thirty-ninth was started out
before 5 a. m., and marched rapidly towards the North Anna. Getting
on the wrong road a halt was had for an hour, and certain portions of
the Second Corps passed by, including the Tenth Massachusetts Battery,
the old friends of Poolesville, and later we got the right road and
reached Jericho Ford, though it was pretty deep for men of ordinary
stature. However, the crossing had been effected by others and the
pontoon bridge laid so that we went over dry shod. An attack was made
upon us soon after reaching the south side, the fight continuing until
after dark. The enemy had expected to drive us back to the steep banks
of the river, and possibly into it, but they made the error of letting
over too many of us, and our artillery was quite too effectual for
them. The high banks of the North Anna, would have made matters very
bad for us had not the rebel calculations miscarried. While there was
some loss, one killed in Company H, and several wounded, the loss of
the Confederates was considerable. We lay very quietly on our arms
throughout the night, no lights being tolerated lest we might reveal
our location to the foe.
While the Second Corps is doing considerable fighting on the Union
left and though the Thirty-ninth shifts its position, relatively the
24th is a quiet day. The enemy has fallen back a mile or so and he is
followed up, advantage being taken of the opportunity to tear up some
long stretches of the railroad and to bend the rails around trees, thus
rendering them quite useless for the future. The wagon train having
crossed the river, rations for four days are distributed and, as one
man states, "They are badly needed." Large numbers of the enemy keep
coming in, and they appear, for the most part, very glad to reach a
point where food is possible, even if the wagons are sometimes slow
in reaching us. As a variant on the unusual quiet of the day, a heavy
thunder storm imparts noise and moisture to the scene. It is on this
day that the Ninth Corps is formally incorporated with the Army of
the Potomac, General Burnside generously waiving any rights possessed
by the priority of his commission over that of General Meade. General
Warren speaks of spending all of the 25th in getting into position in
front of the enemy's line and driving in his (the enemy's) light troops
to his main force. "Found Hill's Corps intrenched between the North
Anna and the Little River. Lost about one hundred and fifty men and
officers during the day." During this day, some of the men had severe
experience on the skirmish line, fully nine hours of tedious duty, with
incessant firing along the line. A severe thunder shower marked this
day also, and it was a wet earth upon which the men undertook at last
to sleep.
[Sidenote: MAY 25, '64]
Again the flank movement had failed to discover an assailable point
in the confederate lines. They had been thoroughly reconnoitered and
"so great was the natural strength of the ground, so well were the
intrenchments traversed, so tenacious was the Southern infantry, that
it seemed impossible to produce any serious impression upon them. To
have attacked the army of Northern Virginia across intrenchment of the
kind found here, would have involved a useless slaughter." The Corps
Commander reports for the 26th, "Hard rain in morning at seven o'clock.
Remained in position all day. Rained in afternoon. At dark, began
to recross the North Anna River at Quarles' Mills. Roads heavy and
slippery with mud and approaches to stream bad. All not over till near
daylight." The day proves to be more than usually wet and disagreeable,
but in the forenoon many are surprised and pleased at the return of the
men, captured on the 8th at Alsop's farm, and retaken by Custer the
next day at Beaver Dam Station, who now rejoin the Regiment ready for
duty.
Skirmishing continues all day and the pickets are active, yet there is
no set engagement, the head officers having decided on still another
movement towards the inevitable left. At nine o'clock in the evening,
we move out of our works, under orders to not speak above a whisper, so
that our departure may not be suspected and the end of the 26th of the
month beholds us approaching the recrossing of the North Anna.
Early in the morning of the 27th, we recross the river and at 2.30 a.
m., some distance beyond the stream must halt and draw three days'
rations, which we are told must last us six. An hour later we are on
the march and struggle on through characteristic Virginia mud, so thick
and adhesive that many a footgear is left in its tenacious clutches.
There is very little halting for us, since we are trying to interpose
ourselves between Lee and Richmond, and we must move more rapidly
than the latter since he, being on the arc of an inner circle, has a
less distance to overcome than we. At eight o'clock comes a welcome
halt for breakfast, the pause being protracted for rest until nearly
noon, when we are up and off again, with very little cessation till
seven in the evening, having marched almost continuously twenty-two
hours and covering twenty-five miles. We had not had our clothes off
in twenty-four days; not a man thought of washing his face, much less
of taking a bath; nor is the strain over yet. In what condition men,
gently reared, found themselves may be imagined. Camp is pitched
near Mangohick Church. The 28th begins as early as four o'clock, and
following breakfast the march is resumed at six, and the Pamunkey
River is crossed at Newcastle. Halting some three miles beyond the
river, breastworks are built, the men proclaiming the digging easy, and
here we halt for the night, being about fifteen miles from Richmond,
the nearest point to the confederate capital as yet reached by the
Thirty-ninth.
[Sidenote: MAY 31, '64]
The record for the 29th is one of marching, waiting and digging. Though
ordered out at four o'clock in the morning with the further direction
to be ready to start at five, we wait till nearly noon, in the meantime
seeing the arrival of the Ninth Corps, after an all night's march. On
starting we find great masses of troops assembled in every direction,
our Regiment halting near the Fifth Corps' headquarters, where we
remain till near seven o'clock, when we proceed to the left, some
two and a half miles, where the Brigade throws up breastworks; the
Thirty-ninth going on picket later, the night proving a quiet one. It
would have been enjoyable if our haversacks had not been empty, the
injunction to make our last rations hold out six days not having been
found practicable. Though we find roses in full bloom considerably
earlier than at home, this does not offset hungry stomachs. About 7 a.
m., we retire from the picket line and join the other troops of our
Corps, and after a short march of about one mile, we draw rations of
fresh beef, which help out somewhat, and later still came the rations
we so much needed. The wagons could not come up so one hundred men
were detailed to go back to the train and bring the food with them,
this being after a day given to efforts to repel attacks that did
not seriously affect our Regiment. Beck of "E" Company records that
this day the old Second Division got together again under the command
of Brigadier General Henry H. Lockwood, though the fact is stated
elsewhere as provisional.
COLD HARBOR
The sun of May 31st rose red and torrid and the day proved to be
terribly hot. Fortunately the exegencies of the campaign did not
require any considerable activity, and the men had the privilege of
"sweltering" in the breastworks or of "lolling" under their shelter
tents, just back of the trenches. General Warren records of the day
that the skirmishers were pushed forward about one mile, without
opposition, beyond Bethesda Church. While there is the sound of
cannonading on both the right and left, the last day of May, so far
as our Regiment is concerned, is the safest seen since crossing the
Rapidan. The day is the prelude to the opening of the Cold Harbor
fight, one which will cover June 1-12, and it closes with the Union
forces extending nearly North and South. White House on the Pamunkey
has become the new base of supplies and here the Eighteenth Corps,
under General W. F. Smith, landed on the 30th, and by forced marches
will be able to take position between the Fifth and Sixth Corps on the
1st of June. The section now harried by the opposing armies was the
scene of active warfare two years ago, for Fair Oaks began on the 31st
of May and to-morrow's Cold Harbor will begin to repeat the horrors of
the Seven Days' Fight.