war, at any rate that I had seen, and my ideal genius developed by
the great Civil War--Sheridan was to lead us; and the valor of the
renowned Sixth Corps, his pet of all the splendid corps of as grand
and valiant an army as ever existed--the Army of the Potomac--was
about being placed by him at the most important point in line of
battle ready to do and die for him, the Vermont troops or "Green
Mountain Boys," as we were called through every city we passed, and
especially our regiment being one of two to occupy the keystone
position or place of honor on the famous historic Berryville and
Winchester pike in the great assaulting line on a battlefield
slightly rolling but level in places as a house floor when once
fairly on it, to take another stitch out of rebellion, and to
help immortalize our hero, and we did both. Aye! we shall glorify
Sheridan continually as a military genius, even as he has honored us
as his ideal soldiers and fighters heretofore, now and probably will
evermore, the grand old Sixth Army Corps which fights everything
everywhere, and rarely gives up fighting till called off, but, alas!
which will soon only be a hallowed, glorified memory; and--still--I
like to think of it in reflective moments as in a celebrated
painting of a bivouacked army at night asleep watched over by an
army of hovering angels in midair; that it as a hallowed spiritual
body finally at peace in a heavenly paradise, will go marching on
throughout the boundless everlasting realms of eternity ever to
hover approvingly when occasion shall require over other mortal
armies of dauntless valor and constancy such as it has been in the
great Civil War--_one of God's instruments for the betterment of
humanity and civil liberty_--the most admired, honored, trusted and
beloved by military geniuses of its period.
[Illustration: No. 2.
Straight view of about 800 yards of the pike looking easterly
towards Opequan Creek from the top of the divide about midway to the
enemy's line of battle in the ravine, from where Sheridan formed
line of battle. The narrow belt of timber has been cut away behind
which we formed.]
After passing Sheridan about two hundred yards we arrived at the
height of the land westerly from Opequan Creek where the Sixth and
Nineteenth Corps were finally formed in lines of battle running
about North and South behind a narrow belt of timber, except a
little in front of the reserve, facing nearly west toward Winchester
about two miles away. The formation of the ground at this point
occupied by the Tenth Vermont and Second Brigade was unusually
peculiar.[15] The turnpike from this place virtually runs along the
divide westerly towards Winchester between the nameless Creek we
came up after crossing the Opequan and Abraham Creek, now on our
right and north and the latter on our left to the south for a goodly
distance the reason for which is obvious as in all such cases where
streams have abrupt banks, while at the point where we debouched
from the gulch we came up and formed line of battle was another
little divide running north and south the east slope of which is
partially an easterly watershed for Opequan Creek, and the west
slope for the ravine or nameless rivulet running south about two
hundred and fifty yards in front of where we first formed line of
battle in which was the enemy's infantry in strong force--probably
two divisions or more--in front of our Third Division but not
shown on any map of this battlefield I have ever seen, not even
the official government one used in Haynes' "History of the Tenth
Vermont Volunteer Infantry." (See No. 3, 6, 7 and 8 illustrations).
It is the ravine through which the little short rivulet runs shown
on said map just in front of our "First position" running southerly
into a tributary of Abraham Creek. I am _emphatic_ in this statement
as having been on the battlefield twice since the fight occurred
within a year (1908) for the purpose of trying to correct false
history and maps, I know whereof I write. I desire to impress this
on all historians for I know of no one living who, owing to my
elevated advanced position on the battlefield knows more of it.
These two small divides before mentioned meet each other at right
angles forming a letter T. The pike crosses the horizontal part
of the T on leaving the gulch we came up from the Opequan in, and
virtually runs along the first mentioned divide slightly to the left
of all rivulet sources running southerly, forming the perpendicular
part of the T towards Winchester.
[15] For nearly a score of years after the Civil War while in the
Sixth U. S. Cavalry, I, as well as all other officers, had to map
the wild country over which we scouted for hostile Indians on the
plains between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. We
used the prismatic compass bearings and odometer measurements,
at the same time sketching the country passed over, showing all
springs, rivulets and streams, their bank formations, all divides,
buttes, mountains, etc., with elaborate notes, and sent the same
to the Engineer Officer of the Department, from which all public
maps have since been made of that country now largely in use. This
in a measure had made me expert in treating such matters as well
as battlefields. Never having seen a map that was correct of the
locality about Winchester regarding Sheridan's battlefield in the
first assault on Sept. 19, 1864, or the position of the enemy's
infantry, artillery, etc., and as so many writers wrongly describe
this assault, I concluded before having my diary typewritten for
publication to visit this part of the battlefield in order to give a
fairly correct description of it; and the one herein is as accurate
as can be given without the use of the prismatic compass, odometer,
etc.
[Illustration: No. 3.
Sheridan's Sept. 19, 1864, Winchester, Va. battle-field looking
southerly from the hill just north of the pike running along the
east side of the ravine occupied by the enemy's infantry. The sunk
pike borders the edge of the wood from left to right. The foreground
was assaulted over by the Tenth Vermont. The distant open field
through the gap in the trees was charged over by the Vermont Brigade
and Second Division, Sixth Corps.]
About a half mile to the right or north of the pike and about two
hundred and fifty yards in front of our line of battle before
advancing, a little to my right, the rivulet before mentioned, where
the enemy was, heads, running in a partial semicircle the slightly
convex side towards the right half of the Tenth Vermont and the
concave side caused by a bend in the rivulet virtually at its source
was largely in front of the Second brigade; (See No. 8 illustration)
the stream runs southerly and drops rapidly after crossing the pike
thus forming a gulch similar to the one we came up from the Opequan
in, but apparently deeper and narrower near the left front of the
Second Division. This sudden drop to the left of the turnpike made
the divide here running north and south quite decided being fully
ninety feet high or more which will probably partly account for
the enemy's mostly being to the right of the pike there being no
protection immediately west from the divide running North and South.
In my front on the right of the pike this divide was about fifty
feet high running out rapidly on to almost level ground in front of
the right of the Second Brigade of our division to my right,[16]
which made its position untenable as the ground was swept by both
the enemy's artillery and infantry.
[16] In my letter about this battle to Chaplain E. M. Haynes, our
regimental historian, which he used in his history of the Tenth
Vermont, I stated that this ravine headed near my front towards
the pike and ran northerly, the bottom spreading out fan-shaped to
my right in front of the Nineteenth Corps. I got this impression
from the fact that the pike is considerably raised where it crosses
this ravine to my left, and looked so much higher than the source
of the rivulet to my right that I supposed it headed there and ran
northerly. The stress of circumstances or conditions were such when
I was advancing under a scorching fire and twice wounded, and the
divide is so very flat at the point where the creek first starts,
that a hasty glance such as one would get in assaulting, will easily
account for such an optical illusion. Under such conditions, too,
distances seemed greater than they really were.
[Illustration: No. 4.
Sheridan's Winchester, Va. battle-field looking northerly from near
the pike showing the height of the divide running east and west:
also the infantry and artillery swept flat ground in front of the
Tenth Vermont and Second Brigade, Third Division, Sixth Corps; also
the open distant ground over which the Nineteenth Corps charged with
virtually no enemy's infantry in its front, but a little artillery
in its distant front. Its unbroken advance over the open distant
field was a beautiful sight. Numbers 3 and 4 illustrations show the
ground over which our entire infantry line of battle swept in the
first assault. The Nineteenth Corps was beyond the first timber on
the ravine running centrally across the picture its left resting
about on the extreme right of the ravine. Russell assaulted largely
over the foreground in No. 4.]
The formation in front of the Nineteenth Corps which was our
infantry right in the noon or first assault of the day was entirely
different. (See Nos. 4 and 5 illustrations). Its whole front
after about three hundred yards down a gentle slope was broad and
comparatively level with slight breaks several hundred yards across,
but not probably impassable for infantry at any point, where three
or more small rivulets apparently headed with banks so undefined and
flat as to give no defensive protection in a military sense so the
enemy had no men or infantry there so far as I could see, but did
have at least a small showing of artillery which I could see far
across the breaks. These rivulets run northerly probably into the
rivulet we came up from the Opequan or the Red Bud, but I do not
know this. They help to form a morass it is said, probably about a
mile more or less from where I was about fifty feet wide in front of
where Crook's Corps was later in the day and it was probably here
that Colonel R. B. Hayes (Nineteenth President, U. S. A.) later in
the day, at the head of his brigade plunged in on his horse which
at once mired when he dismounted and waded across alone under fire
followed as soon as he waved his hat to them to join him, by about
forty of his men to try and capture a battery which, led by him,
they did after a hand-to-hand fight with the gunners, the enemy
having deemed the battery so secure that no infantry support had
been placed near it,[17] which indicates that in this assault the
bulk of the enemy's infantry force confronting our infantry was at
first largely in front of our division on the pike. The trees in
number 4 illustration along the breaks in 1864 were not there then.
The open foreground is the divide running east and west in this
illustration so it can be easily seen why the Nineteenth Corps had
no considerable fighting to do here.
[17] See "Descendants of George Abbott of Rowley, Mass.," p. 37.
The left of the enemy's line of infantry in the ravine in my front,
so far as I could see, ended about nine hundred yards to my right at
the head of the ravine as there was no cover further north except
beyond the divide running east and west a good distance away to
the north in front of the Nineteenth Corps, and its line was bent
to conform to the ravine's direction in my right front; (See No.
8 illustration) the head of the rivulet had quite flat banks the
convex side of the creek and its near and most abrupt bank being
toward us in my front, but the reverse at the head of the ravine.
This was the point in the enemy's line where the gap in our lines
occurred mentioned further on which owing to the flat artillery and
musketry-swept ground was untenable for the Second Brigade or any
force except large enough to drive the enemy's infantry from its
cover as was Russell's. (See Nos. 4 and 5 illustrations). If the
historian hereafter accuses the Third Division of breaking in this
assault, it will be but fair to state extenuating circumstances,
for a portion of the First Brigade was similarly situated and we
got no direct effective flank help from our critics on either flank
during the fight. The pike from our line of battle ran in an _air
line about nine hundred yards directly towards Winchester_ (See
Nos. 2 and 9 illustrations) and was practically level except where
it crossed the divide and little rivulet near my front where in
the ravine the enemy had such a strong force in front of us about
a regiment of which moved there across the pike from in front of
the left of our First Brigade, (See No. 6 illustration) the Second
Division having nothing in its immediate front in the ravine and the
Vermont Brigade only a weak force in its distant left front beyond,
but what a regiment could probably have easily handled and probably
less than that did; but, nevertheless, that part of the Second
Division next to us obliqued to the left to attack it which was what
caused that Division to pull away from the Third Division's left
at the same time the Nineteenth Corps pulled away from our right
causing wide gaps--as the position which should have been occupied
by the Second Brigade was vacant, too--thus leaving our brigade and
especially our regiment, alone at a critical time when the gallant
General Russell with his magnificent Division so grandly marched
in and filled the gap on my right and lost his life in the act.
(See No. 5 illustration). Our colors were on the pike thus bringing
the right half of our regiment to the north or right side of it on
open ground (See Nos. 3 and 5 illustrations) and leaving only about
three regiments of our Division to the left of it on the wooded side
hill (as shown in Nos. 3 and 7 illustrations) soon sloping abruptly
towards the ravine in front which gave all our troops to the left
of our colors on the pike some welcome cover but the right of our
regiment and the Second Brigade, none. (See Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 6
illustrations).
[Illustration: No. 5.
Sheridan's Sept. 19, 1864, Winchester, Va. battle-field looking
westerly showing the source of the ravine in which was the enemy's
infantry in front of the right of the Tenth Vermont and the Second
Brigade, Third Division, Sixth Corps. The enemy's artillery was on
the further side of the smooth mid-ground to the left beyond the
corn-field and ravine; also on the left mid-ground not shown in the
illustration. It was opposite the barn, pool and trees on the right
where the Second Brigade collapsed but 200 yards before reaching
where they now are. Who wonders! Still the Tenth Vermont didn't
collapse, nor did it when it advanced over the ground where the
corn-field now is in the illustration. We preferred death instead,
many of whom accepted it, including Gen. Russell, Majors Dillingham,
Vredenburg, and Lieut. Hill. Russell's command assaulted over the
ground where the barn, pool and trees now are.]
The distance locally from where we crossed the Opequan to Winchester
is called five miles; and to where we formed line of battle three
miles, and from thence to Winchester two miles. The local distance
from Winchester to Stephenson's Station by the railroad is six miles
and to Summit Station twelve miles. There is no map in existence
known to me giving the correct position of the enemy's infantry in
the ravine in front of the Third Division, Sixth Corps; it is placed
nearly a half mile too far back or west, and nearer where the second
assault of the day was. The illustrations which of course must be
correct herein place the enemy right in front of the Third Division
and I can make oath to it, in the first assault when I was twice
wounded. But I will now return a little and endeavor to describe
this brilliant battle.
[Illustration: No. 6.
View of the ravine occupied by the enemy's infantry looking north
from the pike where it crosses the ravine. Maj. Abbott was twice
wounded at the top of the hill looking under the long limb of the
first tree where the horizon shows so plainly. On the brow of the
hill was a line of rebel rail breast-works. The ravine was alive
with the enemy, to its head confronted by the Third Division, Sixth
Corps. The enemy's artillery stationed on higher ground in rear
of its infantry, firing over it together with its rapid firing
literally swept, singed and scalped, the flat ground over which we
charged; it was practically untenable. The continuation of this
ravine south is shown in No. 7 illustration.]
We were drawn up as before stated, in two lines of battle at the
west entrance of the canyon facing west on an open field about
midway between Abraham Creek on the south and Red Bud Creek on the
north just in rear of a long narrow strip of woods which served as
a great curtain to a grand, broad, slightly rolling plain several
miles in extent in every direction in our front, which was to be the
stage that day with the city of Winchester in the background, of
one of the most dashing, picturesque battles probably ever fought
in ancient or modern times at first with beautiful, silent nature
about the only witness. The Third Division, Sixth Corps, was in the
left and most important center of the line in two lines, the Tenth
Vermont on the Berryville-Winchester pike, the most important,
dangerous and stubbornly contested point in the whole line; the
Nineteenth Corps was on our right in two lines; the intrepid Second
Division, Sixth Corps in which was the gallant First Vermont
Brigade, was on our left, one of the easiest places in the line;
General Russell's valiant First Division, Sixth Corps, as reserve
was stationed en masse a short distance in rear of where the right
flank of the Third Division, Sixth Corps, and the left flank of
the Nineteenth Corps joined, which was within a short distance and
in plain sight of where I was, and our three Divisions of dashing,
picturesque cavalry--including Wilson on our left along Abraham
Creek running south of Winchester and Senseny Road, and Merritt
and Averill on our right along the railroad and the Martinsburg
pike--was massed on either flank for assault at the right moment on
the enemy's flanks or as occasion might demand, while Crook's Eighth
Corps was about a quarter of a mile en masse about in rear of the
right flank of the Nineteenth Corps.
At noon in the midst of a perfect bedlam caused by the roar of
artillery, shrieking, bursting, hurtling shells, and the voices of
many officers pitched high so as to be heard above the din, giving
orders, the assault was made through the thin strip of timber in
our front toward Winchester when we briefly halted and laid on the
ground, and then across an open field beyond the woods in all about
two hundred and fifty yards where I was, midst a perfect storm of
solid shot and shell, rattling musketry on my right and front, and
whizzing minie balls without being able to fire a rifle at first so
well was the enemy in my front protected by the lay of the ground
and its rail breast-works. We persistently advanced, though, but it
took a great deal of nerve and will power to do it in an open field
without the slightest cover, all the time midst a perfect storm of
iron and leaden hail and the cries of the wounded and dying which
were disconcerting, until we drove the enemy back pell mell from
its works in my front in the utmost confusion--yes, in a perfect
stampede for they were old soldiers and knew when they were whipped,
and when it was necessary to run with all their might to save
themselves from slaughter and ignominious capture. (See Nos. 3
foreground and Nos. 5 and 6 illustrations).
[Illustration: No. 7.
Ravine looking southerly from where the pike crosses it in front
of most of the First Brigade, Third Division, and the right of the
Second Division, Sixth Corps, mentioned by Col. A. F. Walker. Only
about a regiment of the enemy was here which crossed the pike to the
front of the right of the Tenth Vermont, early.]
The Tenth Vermont, Fourteenth New Jersey and the rest of our brigade
as usual, not only proudly led the Division at first by a good deal
in the advance through the woods but in this instance the whole
army. It was therefore not only the most aggressive and conspicuous
part of--being on high ground where I could see our line of battle
each way--but the most important point in the line; was first seen
when through the wood and the most dreaded by the enemy being on
the pike, and in consequence its artillery fire within reach was
concentrated on us, _and it was a hot place_. But soon, after
recovering from the collapse of the Second Brigade on my right which
wholly disappeared and nothing more was seen of it by me, with the
valor of the old-time "Green Mountain Boys" on we went undaunted
until, after we had advanced about seventy-five yards beyond the
woods now extinct behind which we had formed in the open field
where I was, being then on a high point where I could see the whole
battlefield, I glanced to my right and left and was appalled to see
that the troops on both flanks of my Brigade were obliquing rapidly
away from us, the whole Nineteenth Corps in perfect lines of battle
by an oblique movement to the right having pulled away from the
right of our Division until there was a gap big enough including
that made by the Second Brigade, to more than admit a Brigade line
of battle although it is said that Corps had been directed to guide
on our Division and that a similar state of affairs existed on our
left flank where the Vermont brigade was.[18] (See No. 3 through
opening in woods showing No. 7; also see No. 5 where I was in the
foreground). With a feeling of dismay I slackened my pace and nearly
halted for I saw that through the gap in the very center and most
vital point in our line on my right towards the Nineteenth Corps
opposite which point was a strong force of the enemy's infantry
awaiting us behind its works on the near edge of a little valley
which protected it from our fire until right on it, it would throw
its force so situated opposite the gap on our right and left flanks
caused by the gap and have us completely at its mercy; but glancing
almost immediately again to my right and rear, hearing loud military
commands there, my spirits rose as I saw the gallant Russell leading
his splendid Division en masse through the opening in the timber
in his front, magnificently forward as though at drill to fill
the gap. The appearance of his column greatly relieved us, as it
drew the concentrated artillery fire from our column by the enemy
largely to his. The whole battle scene at this moment at this point
was one of appalling grandeur, one which no beholders could ever
forget, provided they could keep their nerve well enough to preserve
their presence of mind sufficiently to take in the situation midst
the screeching shells and appalling musketry fire. The splendid
appearance of General Russell's Division elicited a cry of
admiration from all who saw it. It was the supreme moment or turning
point in the great tide of battle, and as Russell's men rapidly
deployed latterly under a galling fire on the march either way in
perfect order enough to fill the gap, it was magnificent--beyond
description--the grandest, best and most welcome sight I ever saw
in a tight place in battle, and so inspired me--seeing the danger
of a flank movement had passed--I again pushed forward to be in
front and was there when the intrepid General Russell, one of the
best fighters in the army, was twice shot and soon died a short
distance to my right rear just about the time I was also twice hit;
(see Nos. 5 and 6 illustrations) but when the enemy in my front and
all along the little valley caught sight of our reserve coming at
them so majestically and in such solid phalanx and splendid order,
it seemed to me the rebs couldn't run fast enough apparently to
get away. It was the most sudden transformation on a battlefield I
ever saw, as well as the most perfect stampede and rout; and it was
the enemy's last volley when it saw our reserve coming at them so
determinedly that put a stop to my fighting for several months; and
but for our reserve coming on the field just as it did I would have
been worse riddled than I was by the enemy and killed even lying on
the ground wounded, as I was wholly exposed where I lay close on
their works not a rod away, the ground sloping towards them.