sound of artillery and musketry on our left was very distinctly heard.
At dawn next morning, Friday, August 29th, we marched toward Manassas
Junction. Rapid and fierce fighting on our left, in the direction of
Bull Run. At the Junction, what had been a long train of luggage cars,
loaded with army equipments, clothing, and supplies, was found a heap
of smouldering ruins, and the track and bridges had been destroyed and
were yet burning. Looking to the north the smoke of battle could be
plainly discerned, marked by white puffs of bursting shells, and the
sound of artillery was faintly heard; a long line of dust extended from
Thoroughfare Gap into and apparently beyond the field of battle.
After a brief halt on the heights of Manassas, we countermarched and
took the road to Gainesville, which here is nearly parallel to the
Manassas Gap Railroad; we passed McDowell’s corps, lying along the
roadside a mile or so from the Junction. They cheered and told us to
“go in” and said that they had enough of it, etc. All this time we
had had no chance to eat or drink, and nobody seemed to understand
our movements. The wildest rumors were afloat; now that Pope was cut
off and captured--now that Jackson was surrounded, pressed by Siegel,
and trying to escape by Aldie--now that there was a large force in
our rear, and that we were cut off from Washington. Then, and this
seemed true, that Lee or Longstreet was bringing up reinforcements to
Jackson by Thoroughfare Gap, and that Siegel, or McDowell, or Banks, or
somebody unknown, was trying to prevent this movement.
After passing McDowell’s men we marched rapidly, and when five and a
half or six miles out from Manassas Junction, came to a bold elevation
of cleared land, extending from the road to the railway, and on a line
nearly parallel could see a long line of dust marking the line upon
which the enemy was moving; and when there were openings in the wood,
which for the most part masked the moving column, we could with a good
glass see their artillery, infantry, and trains.
The cloud of dust which revealed the march of the enemy along our front
was lost on the right, where it passed over a low wooded ridge, beyond
which was seen the battle smoke. The guns could be heard only faintly
by us in our high position, and must have been inaudible in the woods
of the valley below.
Upon this hill we were deployed, and guns were brought up and placed
in position. Our brigade (Griffin’s) started out on the right flank,
moved over the railroad track and for some distance into the woods,
with skirmishers thrown out in the front and on the flank, but finding
no practicable way through the woods returned and drew up on the hill.
Two or three regiments were deployed to the front as skirmishers and
sent down the hill and across the valley, as if to feel of the enemy,
whose column continued to pour down from Thoroughfare, turning to the
northeast at a point about two miles away--at or near Gainesville.
Generals Porter and McDowell, with other generals and their staff,
stood in a group; the infantry was closed in mass and the batteries
ready for action when, from a corn-field in the flank of the marching
column in the valley, there suddenly curled a wreath of smoke, and
then another and another. A round shot buried itself in the face of
the hill, throwing up a cloud of dust; then one after the other two
shells burst close to the general officers, killing two men of our
brigade. Our own batteries promptly replied and silenced the guns in
front, but they opened again further to the right with such a rake upon
our infantry as to make it prudent to withdraw them to the cover of
the ground. Evidently our General intended an attack, and everything
was ready; but the remonstrances of Morell and Marshall prevailed upon
Porter to countermand the order, and we finally bivouacked upon the
hill.
On the 30th, before day-break, we took the road with orders to proceed
to Centreville. Our brigade was to cover the rear in this movement, and
of course was preceded in the march by the supply train of the corps.
Before breakfast we had crossed Bull Run at Blackburn’s Ford. It seems
that orders had been sent to change the destination of our corps,
but the officer charged with their delivery having followed back the
column until he reached the trains, gave orders to the quartermaster
in charge of them to continue on to Centreville, and either did not
know or entirely forgot that our Brigade was beyond the wagons; whence
it happened that while the rest of our corps was in battle on the
Gainesville road, we were waiting at Centreville, wondering where they
were, hearing the roar of battle as it drew nearer and nearer to our
hillside, and constantly expecting orders.
At about four o’clock we started for the field of battle. Almost
immediately we came upon swarms of stragglers, who had left their
ranks, and who were full of stories of regiments all cut up, as
well as of their individual prowess. Then came crowds of wounded
men, ambulances, wagons, empty caissons, until at last the road was
fairly blocked with officers and men in no order, horses, wagons, and
batteries. Men were running, panting, cursing, and some worn out and
exhausted had thrown themselves upon the ground by the roadside utterly
indifferent to their fate; and now we knew that this was the route of
an exhausted army, and that our duty was to guard their rear.
Forcing our way through all, just as we came to the well-ordered but
retreating lines, night came on; and although there were yet sounds of
desultory firing, and occasional shot or shells plunging and exploding
about us, the fight was over, and in the gloom of night we marched
slowly back with the throng of troops to the heights of Centreville.
Next morning, Sunday, August 31st, 1862, it was raining hard. The scene
of confusion about us beggars description, and everybody was hungry,
wet, and dispirited. Before noon, however, order began to come out
of chaos. Men found their colors, and regiments and brigades their
appointed stations, and our Brigade moved out upon the Gainesville Pike
to receive the first onset of the enemy. Our position was on the right
of the turnpike, and the line extended north and east toward Fairfax,
with a strong picket two or three hundred yards in front, and here we
passed the afternoon in quiet.
All day Monday, September 1st, trains of ambulances, under flags of
truce, were going out to the field of battle and returning loaded with
wounded men. The weather continued cold and rainy, with a northeast
wind. Toward evening the sound of fighting was heard in the direction
of Chantilly. The men were wet to the skin, rations exhausted, no fires
allowed. Surgeons coming in from the battle-field reported the enemy
in great force a very short distance out on the turnpike, and on the
old Warrenton Road, waiting the order to attack. The night was passed
in misery; the hazard of our position forbade sleep, and comfort was
impossible. The army had moved from Centreville, in our rear, and at 3
A. M. we drew in our pickets and moved quietly away.
Looking back as we left Centreville, we saw the enemy coming into the
town in great numbers, but they made no attack. At Fairfax Court House
we met large bodies of troops; thence, taking a northeast course, we
passed Vienna, and toward evening struck the Leesburg Turnpike. Beyond
Levinsville we were met by General McClellan, who was enthusiastically
greeted by the troops, and at 11 P. M. we bivouacked at Langley’s,
after a march of twenty-eight miles.
Wednesday, September 3d, we encamped on Miners Hill, near Falls Church,
which was the locality of Porter’s command previous to the Peninsula
campaign.
Our active campaign with the army of Virginia comprised only ten days
as almanacs count time, but these were days so full of excitement and
of incident that memory recalls a whirl of occurrences and events,
succeeding so rapidly one to another that it is with difficulty one
can separate them. There are pictures, but they are changing with the
rapidity of those of the kaleidoscope.
One scene constantly recurring, not only on this, but on many another
march, presents to us again the array of sick or exhausted men, who
strewed the route of the hurried columns--their pinched and worn
faces--their eyes half closed, gazing into space--their bodies crouched
or cramped with pain, supported against trees or fences, or lying prone
upon the ground; the men almost always clinging to their rifles. “If
one had told me yesterday,” said an officer on his first march with
the army, “that I could pass one man so stricken, and not stop to aid
or console him, I should have resented the charge as a slander, and
already I have passed hundreds.” Many, many such, necessarily abandoned
to their fate, crept into the woods and died. Under repeated orders,
all men absent and not accounted for, should have been reported as
deserters, but Captains were more merciful than the orders, and few
were found to brand as ignominious the names of men who deserved rather
to be canonized as martyrs.
Another memory is of a gallant Captain of artillery, whose battery
marched just in advance of our Regiment--of an aide galloping back
and wheeling to the Captain’s side to communicate an order--the quick
question, “where?” a short answer, a note of a bugle, and the Captain
dashes off to our left, followed by his battery--the thunderous rumble
of caissons and gun-carriages dying away as they pass out of our sight
over a swell of land. It is strange that as this scene is recalled
where a fellow-soldier rushed to immediate death, a prominent feature
of the picture is the vivid color of the mass of blue flowers which
clothed the entire field through which his battery dashed away from our
column.
Another turn of the mnemonic glass, and we see the country about
Manassas trodden into a vast highway. Just there Stuart had captured
a train laden with quartermaster’s stores, and the ground all about
was strewn with broken cases and what had been their contents--new
uniforms, underclothing, hats and shoes, from which men helped
themselves at will, leaving the old where they found the new. Near
by, on the railroad track, waited a long train loaded with sick and
wounded--the cars packed full, and many lying on the top unsheltered in
the sun.
Yet again, and we are in sight of Thoroughfare, and see the long lines
of dust revealing the march of Lee’s army down towards us from the
Gap, and we remember the applause we gave when the first shell from
Hazlitt’s parrot guns exploded exactly in a line of rebel infantry
(scattering them as is rarely done except in cheap engravings), and how
little we appreciated the like accuracy of aim by which an enemy’s shot
killed two men in one of our own regiments.
And again there comes a mental photograph, date and locality
indistinct, which represents nineteen officers gathered about a
sumptuous repast, comprising three loaves of old bread, a fragment of
cheese and a half canteen of water, almost as stale as the bread, and
the careful watch of Field upon Staff and Staff upon Line, to see that
only one swallow of water is taken by each in his turn.
And finally, we stand blocking the way to gaze upon a wrecked omnibus,
inscribed--“Georgetown and Navy Yard”--one of many vehicles impressed
in Washington and sent out as ambulances, and which, after reviving in
us memories of civilization, was to become a trophy in the hands of the
enemy.
V.
_OUR THIRD BATTALION._
When the 32d Regiment left Massachusetts in May, the war fever was
raging, and it was supposed that it would be the work but of a few days
to recruit the four companies required to complete the Regiment, and it
was clearly understood that the first recruits were to be assigned to
us. But being out of sight we were indeed out of mind, and the pressure
of officers interested in constructing new regiments constantly delayed
our claims to consideration.
In two months over three thousand volunteers had been accepted, of
whom only one hundred (our Company G) had been assigned to us. The
rendezvous for the Eastern part of the State was the camp at Lynnfield,
which was placed under the command of Colonel Maggi, of the 33d. His
own regiment occupied the chief part of the camp, and the only entrance
to it was through his regimental guard. Both he and his Lieutenant
Colonel, a young and handsome officer named Underwood, had a quick eye
for a promising recruit, and as the constantly arriving volunteers
passed within the lines, the best were drafted into the 33d, and the
remainder were passed into the command of Major Wilde, whose camp was
just beyond.
Dr. Edward A. Wilde, afterward Colonel of the 35th Massachusetts, and
yet later Brigadier General of Volunteers, was commissioned, July
24th, 1862, to fill the then vacant majority in the 32d, and had been
temporarily placed in charge of the unattached volunteers at Lynnfield,
three hundred of whom had been roughly fashioned into companies, and
were to be assigned to us.
Upon Colonel Parker’s return to Massachusetts, Governor Andrew gave
to our matters his willing attention. Upon inspection of the three
companies, the Colonel thought that he could do better than to
take Colonel Maggi’s rejected recruits, and they were accordingly
transferred to the 35th.
At the urgent request of the authorities of Newton, supported by the
Honorable J. Wiley Edmands, a company raised entirely in that town was
regimented in the 32d. A company from Charlestown was made the basis
of Company I, and taking a lesson from Colonel Maggi, whose regiment
happily was now filled, a third company was organized at the camp by
selecting from the town quotas the choicest material, and passing
over the remainder to the 35th. We were able to accomplish this by
the active aid of our Major Wilde. If the Major had known that he was
to be the first Colonel of the 35th, that regiment might perhaps have
been benefited, but the 32d undoubtedly owed to his want of prophetic
vision the fact that its 3d Battalion was composed of men in every
respect equal to those of its First.
On the 2d of August the companies were detached from Major Wilde’s
recruits and ordered to report to Colonel Parker, who at once moved
them some eight hundred yards away, where they encamped in a charming
spot, between the pond and the highway, until they should be provided
with clothing, arms, and equipments.
The beauty and convenience of that camp has impressed its memory upon
every soldier of the Battalion; but the proprietor of the land did not
seem to be equally pleased with an arrangement to which very possibly
his previous consent was not obtained; but if he expected to drive us
away by removing the rope and bucket from the well near by, he was
sadly disappointed. He presented to the Colonel a huge bill for the
use of the premises, and for damages caused by the cutting down of a
sapling elm, and the removal of a rod or two of stone wall. If he never
collected it he should have been comforted by the fact that we never
charged him for the construction of two good wells on the ground, and
the stones of his fence may yet be found in the walls of those wells.
On the 6th Colonel Parker left to rejoin the regiment, leaving the
Battalion to follow under Major Wilde, but the Major was promoted to
the 35th, and it was not until the 20th that the three companies,
commanded by the senior Captain (Moulton), left Lynnfield by railroad
to Somerville, thence marching to Charlestown, where a generous
entertainment had been provided for them by the citizens. That evening
they left by the Providence Railroad--the entire route through the
cities of Charlestown and Boston being one ovation. At Stonington they
took the steamer, landing the next morning at Jersey City, and taking
a train for Philadelphia. Through that good city they marched to the
Cooper Refreshment Rooms, and being well fed and otherwise refreshed,
moved thence to the Baltimore Station. It was well into the next day
before they arrived in that town of doubtful loyalty, and it was
morning on the 22d when they landed in Washington, and took up quarters
at the railroad barracks.
While the commanding officer was endeavoring to find somebody to
give him orders, several hours of liberty were allowed to the men,
few of whom had ever seen Washington. It was not the quiet place
that it had been when the right wing arrived there months before,
but was again astir with signs of active war. The movement to effect
a junction between the armies of Generals McClellan and Pope was in
progress, and long trains of wagons were moving between Alexandria and
the various depots of supplies, and ambulances loaded with sick and
wounded streamed to and from the hospitals, while on the walks, men in
uniforms, some brand new and some ragged and dirty, jostled each other;
new recruits from the North--garrison men from the forts--stragglers
and convalescents from the armies in the field.
If at the word hospital there is presented to the mind’s eye of the
reader a spacious structure in stone or brick, covered with a dome and
expanding into wings, all embosomed in a park-like enclosure, with
verdant lawns shaded by trees and mottled with shrubbery, that reader
did not go to muster in Virginia in ‘62. Provision thought to be ample
had been made in Washington, by the construction in several unoccupied
squares, of rows of detached wooden sheds, each of which was the ward
of a hospital. Rough and unattractive as these appeared set down among
the dusty streets, upon a plot of land from which every green thing was
trodden out, their interiors were in fact models of neatness, and in
some sort, of comfort. But the battles of the Peninsula had soon filled
these, and when there were added to them the sick from McClellan’s
army and the invalids from Pope’s, every available building was taken,
and finally when within ten days, eight thousand patients were added
from the James River, vacant house-lots were occupied, and for want of
tents, awnings of sails or boards were laid over rough frames, and the
passer-by could see the patients stretched upon the straw. The happy
result of this, and other enforced experiments, was to prove that even
these wretched makeshifts were better than close-walled houses, for
hospital purposes.
On the 23d the Battalion marched over Long Bridge to the town of
Alexandria--preferring at night the outside of the building designated
to shelter them. The next day tents and wagons were obtained, and on
the 25th their first camp was made on the hillside, near the Seminary.
Everything in that neighborhood was in confusion. During the week that
the command remained encamped, Franklin’s and Sumner’s corps arrived at
Alexandria, and not only was the town crowded with soldiers, but the
woods were full of them, and all the energies of the authorities were
devoted to endeavors to supply them, and push them out to the rescue of
General Pope’s army.
Considering that nobody, not even the General-in-chief, knew where
Pope’s army was, it is not surprising that all the efforts made by
officers to find our Regiment were fruitless; indeed it mattered
little that they were, for the wagons were taken away for the pressing
service of more experienced troops, who were unable to move for want of
transportation.
At last, on the 3d of September, the locality of Porter’s Corps was
ascertained, and the Battalion joined the rest of the Regiment. There
was a striking contrast in the appearance of the old and new companies.
The three new companies outnumbered all the other seven. The veterans
looked with wonder upon the fresh northern faces and the bright new
uniforms, while the recruits scanned with at least equal surprise the
mud-stained, worn, and weary men who were to be their comrades. So long
were the new platoons, that the detachment was christened “Moulton’s
Brigade,” but the superiority of numbers was not long with them, and
two weeks of campaigning amalgamated the command.
The three companies comprising our “3d Battalion” were--
Company H, recruited at the Lynnfield Camp, commanded by Captain
Henry W. Moulton; its Lieutenants were John H. Whidden and Joseph W.
Wheelwright.
Company I, recruited in Charlestown, Captain Hannibal D. Norton;
Lieutenants, Chas. H. Hurd and Lucius H. Warren, since Brevet
Brigadier-General.
Company K, recruited in Newton, Captain J. Cushing Edmands, afterwards
Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General; Lieutenants, Ambrose Bancroft and
John F. Boyd.
At Upton’s Hill the complete organization of the Regiment was published
in the orders. The Lieutenant Colonel was promoted to be Colonel,
Captain Prescott to be Lieutenant Colonel, and Captain Stephenson to be
Major. The medical staff consisted of Z. Boylston Adams, Surgeon, with
the rank of Major; William Lyman Faxon and W. H. Bigelow, Assistant
Surgeons, ranking as First Lieutenants; W. T. M. Odiorne, Hospital
Steward. The non-commissioned staff consisted of James P. Wade,
Sergeant Major; James A. White, Quartermaster Sergeant; Charles E.
Madden, Commissary Sergeant; and Freeman Field, Principal Musician.
Dr. Bigelow, Steward Odiorne, and Sergeant Madden, were new
appointments. All the rest had been with the Regiment through all its
experience in the field.
No chaplain was ever commissioned in the 32d, no application having
ever been made on the part of the line officers, to whom belonged the
initiative, and none being desired, so far as was known by any officer
or man.
In an army composed of men of many different religious beliefs, as was
the case in ours, the chaplains should constitute a staff corps, its
members proportioned as to faith, in some degree to the requirements
of the army, so that from the headquarters of an army or corps details
might be made of the proper men for any required duty. Attached to
regimental headquarters, they were very generally utterly inefficient
for good professionally. It was the rule with us that, when any of the
sick were near death, the fact should be reported to the commanding
officer, who was often the first to communicate the tidings, and
who invariably enquired of the dying man if he desired the service
of a chaplain. When this was desired, an orderly was sent with the
compliments of the Colonel, to some chaplain near by, to ask his
attendance. With only rare exceptions such services were cheerfully and
promptly rendered.
The burial service was usually read by the commanding officer over the
bodies of our dead; but in one case, where the man had been a Roman
Catholic, it was thought better to ask the attendance of a chaplain of
that faith. It happened that the orderly could not readily find one,
and could find only one, and returned with the unusual reply that the
chaplain could not come.
Upon further inquiry it appeared that the orderly had presented the
message, with the compliments of the Colonel, to the chaplain, who was
reposing after dinner. “Was he a good Catholic?” enquired the priest.
The orderly assured him that he was. “My compliments to the Colonel,
then, and tell him he can bury him. It is all right.” With which reply
the messenger was compelled to return. Failing the orderly’s assurance
of the man’s good and regular standing, of course the chaplain would
have escaped the duty too.
In November, 1862, our camp hospital offered merely a canvas tent for
shelter, and some straw spread upon the frosty ground for bedding.
One of the patients, in view of approaching death, expressed to the
Adjutant his wish to be baptized, and of course a messenger was sent
forth to seek a chaplain, with the customary compliments, and to ask
his attendance on a dying man.