out of the question. The extended works were like a mammoth keyboard
for an organ, whose dimensions transcended imagination and, seated
thereat, all the gods and goddesses of War played music that rivaled
the thunderbolts of Jove, now the low mutterings of distant lightning,
anon rising to the fierce reverberations of an equinoxial as when, on
the 19th of December, doubly shotted guns told the joy of the Union
that Thomas had annihilated Hood at Nashville or, on the 26th, when
Mars himself seemed to press those keys in token of the termination
of the March to The Sea and that Savannah had fallen. Always catching
up the refrain, the unterrified rebels, aided by their own warlike
deities, hurled it back upon us, sometimes like an echo, immeasurable
augmented, till veritably it seemed that the opposing lines, stretching
away beyond human sight, could not have evoked a greater riot of sound
had they been exits of Aetna and Stromboli. A topmost gallery seat in
this magnificent theatre of war afforded, in the very mildest passages
of Freedom's Oratorio, all the sound, melodious or otherwise, that the
average human ear could appreciate.
[Sidenote: DEC. 25, '64]
Christmas brought nothing more notable than a beautiful day, which in
the midst of a cheerless winter was not unwelcomed, but there were
none of the festivities which untold generations have developed as
essential features of the coming of the Prince of Peace and, for that
matter, what propriety could there be in observing the advent of the
Christ Child in an army, yet the world is full of just such anomalies.
As December nears its end and dies with the old year, careful observers
scan the retrospect, and in the deeds of Grant, Sherman, Thomas
and Sheridan, behold the utmost encouragement. Grierson, with his
cavalry marching from Tennessee to Louisiana, has discovered the
Confederacy to be a "shell with nothing in it." With Grant holding Lee
in his relentless clutches at Petersburg, Thomas looking about for
the scattered remnants of Hood's Army, Price driven out of Missouri,
Sheridan, at the head of his troopers, ready to vault into the
saddle, and Sherman turning his face towards Augusta and Charleston,
seemingly the "last ditch" is very, very near. Yet, that the enemy
is not disposed to yield till forced to do so, on the very last day
of the year, when "Happy New Year" is already ready for utterance by
millions of happy voices, the Union picket line, in the region of Forts
Wadsworth and Howard is surprised by a party of the enemy who charging
furiously, yelling and firing rapidly, drive our men back into their
main works with hardly a chance to exchange a shot. We lose two killed,
three wounded and thirty-five captured, and the Johnnies took back with
them the blankets, knapsacks and whatever other belongings they could
find. So alert and swift were the rebels, so well had they planned
their attack that they were out of range before the men in the forts
could return their compliments. So ends the year.
FOOTNOTES:
[N] It is claimed that the body of Colonel Davis was carried from the
field by Corp. S. H. Mitchell, "A"; Corp. B. F. Prescott and W. S.
Sumner, both of "H"; and Sergt. L. A. Spooner of Company I.
[O] November 14, 1911, when visiting the Robert E. Lee Home for
Confederate Veterans in Richmond, John Maxwell, an ex-confederate,
whose later days were passing in this congenial harborage, was
introduced and requested to tell the Northern visitors how he blew up
the Yankees. Nothing loth, the veteran in gray, holding in his hands
the works of an alarm clock, told the story of his sneaking into
the Union lines and, when opportunity offered, placing his infernal
machine, with his time-wheel for explosion properly set, where it
would do the most execution and then hastening away. His auditors,
so recently from the dedication of a Massachusetts monument on the
edge of the Crater, recalling an even greater explosion, were hardly
in position to find any great amount of fault with his act, since
"Sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander." "Where were you,
Johnnie, when the thing went off?" was a natural question from one of
the hearers. "Oh, I was two miles away, making the best time possible
towards the Confederacy." (Vid. R. R. Serial No. 87. p. 954).
[P] When the rails, thus heated, were grasped at their ends by several
stalwart men and carried so that the red hot middle might hit a
good-sized tree, the extended iron would be bent almost double. The two
ends being somewhat divergent; four rails thus carried and thus applied
and symmetrically placed about a tree made a very good Maltese Cross,
the badge of the Fifth Corps and other army corps were wont to say
when, as at the North Anna, they saw many tokens of this sort, "Well,
the Fifth Corps has been here."
A. S. R.
[Q] At the last reunion, attended by Sergeant McFeeley, he gave the
following version of the day's incident, stating that when the Union
batteries began to play on our lines, the commander of the color guard
sent him back to stop the firing and in so doing, he ran into the
rebel line. At once he tried to hide behind some bushes but a Johnnie
got his eye on him and ordered him to come out, which he did. Walking
along in the ranks, a prisoner, he saw a reb have a stand of colors
and, on account of the rain, they were done up in their case, which
he recognized as one that he had mended, and he also knew the staff
which had been scarred by battle as belonging, both of them, to the
Thirty-ninth. Naturally McFeeley kept as near the colors as possible
and their present holder, who was very happy over his proud possession,
though he had only picked them out of the rut where Adams had thrown
them. When Wheelock's relieving column came charging through, McFeeley
stepped up to the rebel and remarked that he guessed he would hold that
same flag awhile, thus saving the precious token from gracing some
Confederate collection of curios.
[R] Colonel Thomas F. McCoy of Scotch-Irish lineage, was born in
Mifflin County, Penn., 1819. Having served seven years in the Militia,
President Polk made him a first lieutenant in the Eleventh U. S.
Infantry, when the Mexican War began. Participating in the principal
battles of that strife, he came home a captain. A lawyer when the
Rebellion began, he offered his services to Gov. Curtin and was made
deputy quartermaster general of the state. When Col. Thos. A. Zeigle
of the One Hundred and Seventh Penn. died July 16, '62, on the vote of
the line officers of the Regiment, he was made colonel. He had a part
in all of the varied service of the One Hundred and Seventh to the end
and went home a Brevet Brig. General. General Warren was particularly
warm in his appreciative remarks about the colonel. Going home to
Lewistown, Penn., he resumed the practice of law. Marrying May 22d,
'73, Miss Margaret E. Ross of Harrisburg, he led the life of respect
and responsibility, one of the most prominent citizens of his town, for
nearly half a century a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church and
died July 20, 1899. His son, Frank R., a West Pointer, an officer in
the Tenth U. S. Infantry, was wounded at San Juan, Cuba, and is now a
Captain on the General Staff, Washington. Ancestors of the Colonel were
in the Colonial Wars, members of Morgan's Riflemen in the Revolution;
were in the War of 1812, and through father and son, in every National
war since.
[S] Many opinions exist as to what and where the Petersburg Express
was. Some even aver that it was a Confederate institution. General H.
L. Abbot, in his History of the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery, has
the following, "To check an annoying enfilade firing from the left bank
of the Appomattox, a thirteen inch sea coast mortar was mounted on a
curve of the Railroad track by Company G. This novelty was widely known
as the 'Petersburg Express.' The mortar, on a heavy granite foundation,
since Sept. 25, 1902, has stood upon the State House grounds, Hartford,
as a memorial to the First Heavies."
[T] Peter Lyle, Colonel of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania, Bvt. Brig.
General, and for much of the service of the Thirty-ninth in the Fifth
Corps, commander of the Brigade, was born in Philadelphia, Christmas
Day, 1821. Receiving very little education from the schools, he was
apprenticed to the cigar trade while yet a boy. His marked boyish
predelection was love for military matters, and he drilled his boyish
associates, formed into a company, till they became noted for their
proficiency, accomplishing in their juvenile way wonders with their
broomstick guns. When only sixteen years of age, during the absence of
the officers, he commanded and paraded the City Phalanx. While still a
youth he organized an independent company which he commanded until it
was taken into the National Guards. In 1846 he succeeded to the command
of the company which before the war had increased to a battalion,
becoming a regiment in 1860 under the command of Colonel Lyle. His
organization had volunteered for service in the Mexican War but, the
quota being full, it did not go. At the outbreak of the Rebellion, the
Regiment, as the Nineteenth Pennsylvania, volunteered and so served for
three months. Reorganized in August, 1861, it was sworn in for three
years as the Ninetieth Regiment, still commanded by Colonel Lyle. He
never fully recovered from a wound received at Antietam. Subsequent to
the war he was elected sheriff in 1867, being a Democrat in politics,
serving a single term. Much that he had acquired during his term
was absorbed by an agricultural venture in Maryland which, failing
finally, he was thrown entirely upon the outcome of carriage making, a
business to which he gave immediate attention after the discharge of
the Regiment, his associate being his late Adjutant, David P. Weaver.
His last public appearance in a military capacity was during the riots
of 1877 when, though suffering agonies from bodily ills, he sat his
saddle and discharged his duties faithfully. Soon after he declined a
re-election to the command of the Regiment and died in Philadelphia,
July 17, 1879. His burial was attended with all the honors due a full
Brigadier General, his body having lain in state in the armory of his
Regiment that he had led so long and so well; it was buried in Ivy
Hill Cemetery by the side of his brother, David M. Lyle, the last
Chief Engineer of the Philadelphia Volunteer Fire Department. For the
foregoing facts we are indebted to Captain P. Lyle Weaver, a son of
Adjutant D. P. Weaver, himself a Philadelphia journalist.--A. S. R.
1865.
January, the month of good resolutions and merry greetings, finds the
opposing armies in front of Petersburg still grimly plying their guns
and wishing for the end of the war. In the campaign from the Rapidan
southward to the end of the year, Grant has lost in killed, wounded and
captured more men than Lee was reputed to have had under his command
when the fight began, yet the line in blue in front of the beleaguered
city is just as persistent, just as vigorous as when the siege was
started. While the exhaustless resources of the North are indicated by
Lincoln's call for a half million more soldiers and follows that with
a proposition to draft 300,000 more, Lee is writing the Confederate
Secretary of War, "There is nothing within reach of this army to be
impressed. The country is swept clear. Our only reliance is upon the
railroads. We have but two days' supplies." General B. F. Butler, after
the failure of the Fort Fisher attack has been relieved and sent home
to Lowell, and General Terry is organizing a new expedition against
the great fortification and ere the month is over his success will be
heralded the country over. In its snug cabins or huts, the Potomac Army
is gaining strength for the signal which will draw the men from their
repose and send them forward. The winter is unusually severe, but,
well clad and covered, the men in blue wot little of the sufferings of
their adversaries in gray who are passing through all of the anguish
which their fathers knew at Valley Forge. Of the Fifth Corps it need
be said only that it and its many regiments are writing letters home,
reading the matter sent them from those same homes, watching the foe
and looking toward the end. The end of the month was signalized by the
arrival of the so-called Peace Commission, consisting of Vice-President
Alexander H. Stephens of the Confederacy and others who, February 3rd,
met President Lincoln and Secretary Seward at Fortress Monroe, but, as
the President would not enter into any negotiations without assurance
of unconditional acknowledgment of perpetual union and the abolition
of slavery, which the Confederates were not prepared to grant, nothing
came of the meeting.
[Sidenote: JAN. 31, '65]
It is in this same January that Major A. R. Small, in his history of
the Sixteenth Maine[U] has the following very pleasant words about
the Thirty-ninth, words that the members of the Bay State Regiment
thoroughly appreciate and fully reciprocate:
Among the strongest and most lasting attachments formed by the
Sixteenth for other troops during its term of service was that for the
Thirty-ninth Massachusetts, Colonel Davis commanding. I have no record
of the date when it joined the First Brigade, but it was a day which
marked an era of progressive good feeling, which ripened into warm,
personal attachments. The Regiment was splendidly officered, and under
its able commander was an ever present incentive for us to do our very
best. We never reached its precision in the manual of arms. We doubt
if in this particular qualification it had a superior in the army;
certainly it had not an equal in the Corps. Colonel Davis had a quiet
way of coming into our hearts and he came to stay.
Though the men in the ranks knew it not, nor for that matter did the
majority of the officers, yet it is stated that on the last night in
January orders went to the several Corps of the Potomac Army to be
ready to march. From that moment activity was prevalent; increased
firing along the front concealed to some extent the work of the
railroad in bringing up the necessary supplies from City Point. As
early as the 4th of February came orders to the Regiment to be ready
to move at a moment's notice. The 5th brought the order to report
at brigade headquarters where the other regiments of that body were
found, and the Corps was joined at 7 a. m. As usual Gregg's cavalry
had preceded us and as on several former occasions the Fifth Corps
leads the infantry to be followed by the Second and a repetition of the
Hatcher's Run incidents of last October and December. The Fifth Corps
is to pass around the enemy's right flank while the other troops assail
in front; Crawford's Division to which the Thirty-ninth belongs marches
last. Our direction is toward Dinwiddie Court House within two miles
of which we camp for the night. Monday, the 6th, we are detailed for
picket duty; in the afternoon we cross Hatcher's Run and in the first
battle-line we are at the right, the enemy being strongly entrenched
at Dabney's Mills. The first attempt to dislodge the rebels is
unsuccessful, but in a second charge we take the works which, however,
we are compelled to vacate because of lack of support.
The events of this day so far as the Second Brigade is concerned are
effectively told by Major Isaac Hall, historian of the Ninety-seventh
New York, at this time a part of the Brigade:
[Sidenote: FEB. 6, '65]
Early in the afternoon of the following day (6th), Crawford's Division
moved forward into the woods in search of the enemy. He was supported
on the left by Ayers' (Second) Division; Gregg's cavalry being on
the extreme flank. This movement covered the Vaughn and Dabney Mill
roads, and Baxter's Brigade was on the right of the column. The enemy's
skirmishers were soon reached and pressed back upon the main line of
Pegram's Division of Gordon's Corps, which also retired to the ruins of
an old mill, where it made a stand. As the brigade came to an opening,
a formidable fort--as was supposed--presented itself to view, and a
strife occurred between the color bearers of the Sixteenth Maine and
the Ninety-seventh New York as to which should first plant its standard
upon the fort. The contestant of the Ninety-seventh achieved the
victory; but great was his disappointment when instead of a veritable
fort he found only a huge heap of saw-dust. A lively musketry fire
was kept up here for twenty or thirty minutes, when Mahone's heavy
columns came to the support of the line in our front. This was a most
inopportune moment for the Fifth Corps; many of the men were already
out of ammunition and the line surged back in spite of the officers.
General Warren was himself at the front and with his ready glass was
coolly surveying the enemy. He was pointed to by the officers, and
as if ashamed of themselves the men faced about, but this was of no
account since only a few shots were fired; the best of men will not
stand with empty muskets and be shot down, and to charge with empty
cartridge boxes and unloaded pieces was out of the question; hence
the retreat was continued, not precipitately, but the line surged
slowly and sullenly to the rear. The enemy was not eager to follow,
as if doubting the sincerity of our retreat. An ordnance wagon had
been ordered up, and some four or five hundred yards in front of our
works Captain Trembly was met with an ammunition wagon with which, in
the narrow road, he could neither advance nor retreat and was about
to destroy it. The wagon was caught by the men and quickly changed
ends, and when our trenches were reached the ammunition was quickly
distributed. A part of the Sixth Corps had arrived, and as the Fifth
emerged from the woods it was fired into by the former, which seemed
inclined to dispute our passage to the rear, some raw troops mistaking
our line for that of the enemy. The latter did not press heavily upon
our fortified position but seemed satisfied to know that our forces
were well up. Our men lay upon their arms through the long, cold night.
The morning of the 7th was cold and rainy; the rain soon turned to
sleet which covered the ground and rendered the movements of troops
difficult and somewhat dangerous. Our hands became so benumbed that it
was difficult to handle our pieces, still we held our positions and
occasionally advanced upon the enemy, which seemed to consist of a
thin, gray line covering itself in the woods.
The foregoing wagon incident is told in quite a different manner by a
survivor of our Regiment who believes in giving credit to him to whom
credit is due:
At the battle of Hatcher's Run, Feb. 6th, 1865, our forces made a
charge on the rebels, driving them back quite a distance; four of our
ammunition wagons followed in through a cart path, when all at once
our line broke and began falling back. The Captain of the ordnance
wagons became rattled and ordered Sergeant W. P. Brown of Company K,
Thirty-ninth, who was ordnance sergeant under him, to have the drivers
unhitch the mules and burn the wagons, he himself taking the first two
wagons and destroying them. Sergeant Brown kept his head, turned his
two wagons around and saved one of them, the other, breaking a pole,
had to be abandoned; the Captain in the meantime lost his horse, which
was caught by Sergeant Brown, who went back in search of the officer,
whom he found wandering about like a crazy man. Brown managed to get
him on his horse and piloted him to the rear. Now comes the injustice,
the Captain was complimented very highly on his bravery, a picture
came out in the New York papers showing him destroying the wagons
to keep them out of the hands of the rebels, while Brown was never
mentioned or noticed in any way. Brown said that if he had had full
charge, he could have saved three of the wagons at least, for he would
have been perfectly sober--"To him that hath shall be given."
The particular part borne by the Thirty-ninth was to form in line at 8
a. m. and then to be deployed as skirmishers in front of the Brigade.
Thus advancing, the skirmishers of the enemy were driven from three
lines of rifle pits back into their main works which were near. At
5 p. m. our line was ordered to advance upon them, but the assault
proving unsuccessful the line fell back to its original position where
it remained exposed to a galling fire till late at night, when it was
relieved. Wednesday, the 8th, was spent in bivouac, a couple of miles
back of the scene of Tuesday's activities. The next day (9th), the
Regiment went on picket and, when relieved on Friday, the 10th, it
moved back to its old camp, near the Jerusalem Plank Road to get the
men's baggage that had been stored there. After this ebulition, which
cost the Fifth Corps 1,165 killed and wounded and 154 missing, quiet
again fell on the army, and on the 11th, moving out to the extreme
Union left near Hatcher's Run, camp was again pitched and winter
quarters were once more prepared. One writer says that the Brigade was
camped near the Goshen House, the Fifth Corps being massed in rear of
the Second. However disagreeable such variations in what many would
have made a peaceful winter may have been to the soldiers, there is
not a doubt that the lesson of constant watchfulness was thoroughly
impressed upon everyone, officers as well as men. Here, subjected to
the accustomed routine of camp and picket duty, February wore away.
[Sidenote: MAR., '65]
The beginning of March brought little if any variation on the ending
of the preceding month, yet there was a feeling in most minds that the
month would bring on the commencement of active hostilities. Everybody
knew that Sherman had reached North Carolina, and that General Joe
Johnston, with such forces as he could secure, was trying to prevent
the further advance of the triumphant army northward. The line whose
beginning we heard announced amid the thunders of Spottsylvania had
encompassed Petersburg and was slowly but surely extending towards
that never ending left. Though the army did not know it, General Lee
in these March days had sought an interview with Grant with reference
to some solution of the problem so long under consideration. The
latter had wisely referred the matter to Washington, whence Lincoln
warned the Lieutenant General against having any conference with Lee
unless to accept his surrender. Save for just a little vigor shown by
Sheridan and his cavalry there was practically nothing doing in the
Old Dominion till away past the middle of the month when, on the 25th,
the Confederates made their charge upon Fort Steadman, in front of
the Ninth Corps, the very last aggressive movement on the part of the
Army of Northern Virginia, effectually demonstrating to the exacting
Confederacy that its soldiery had fired its last charge of ammunition
in attack and that hopeless resistance and flight were the only
resources left.
As side lights to the story of a single regiment in the great struggle,
it might be said that United States Senator E. B. Washburn of Minnesota
came down from Washington, arriving at City Point March 10th, the
bearer of the medal which Congress had voted to General Grant for his
distinguished services; the presentation was made in the main cabin
of the steamer which brought the Senator, the evening of the 11th,
the day itself having been given to a ride through the army and a
review of some of the troops. General Meade and staff were present
at the presentation, which was made in eloquent words by Washburn, a
personal friend of Grant, and the latter received his honor with all
the modesty that ever characterized all of his acts. While all this was
taking place and the infantry of the great army was gaining strength
for the coming ordeal, Sheridan and his ever untiring cavalry were
continuing the raid on which, with 10,000 riders, he had started from
Winchester, February 27th and, like a cloudy pillar by day and one
of fire by night, he had ridden southward, once more administering
severe punishment to Early and his followers; between Staunton and
Charlottesville, had destroyed mills and factories, a considerable
portion of the James River Canal, railroad bridges and tracks; and now,
with his wearied horsemen, is approaching White House on the Pamunkey
River.