Personal Recollections of the Civil War Part 6

September 22. We pa.s.sed through c.u.mberland Gap. Two days' march brought us to the Clinch River, which we forded. Fording rivers and some of them pretty deep ones, was a new experience for us, but before we left East Tennessee we had learned that lesson,--if experience will teach a lesson,--pretty thoroughly.

September 25. We crossed the Clinch range, the descent from which on the south side was dreadfully steep. Ropes were tied to the wagons and they were held back by the boys and prevented from tipping over. Thus they were eased down and reached the foot of the hill safely. Along the foot of the hill lay wagons and dead mules by the dozen, a whole line of them extending all along around the foot of the hill.

September 26. Lunched at the famous and glorious Panther Spring. What a spring! The water is as clear as crystal and enough of it to make a river ten feet wide and three feet deep. We continued our march through Newmarket and Strawberry Plains, reaching the immediate vicinity of Knoxville the 28th.

A word must be said right here about the unpretending, never-flinching army mule. I do not believe we shall ever know how much we owe to that toughest and most patient creature. We had seen the mule at his ordinary army work in Virginia, which was well nigh play compared with the work he was called upon to do, the hardships he was obliged to endure and the sacrifices he was forced to make in that advance over the mountains into Tennessee.

His rations were always short, his load a heavy one, and he was asked to haul it over roads, the wretchedness of which can not be described nor can it be imagined by any one who has not been in a similar place. It is almost literally true that the whole line of march from Camp Nelson to Knoxville was strewn with his dead comrades; what one of the boys said in that connection as we reached Knoxville was not wide of the mark, namely, that he could in the darkest night smell out his way back to Camp Nelson by the odor of the dead mules lying along the way. Granted he had his peculiarities, so had Caesar his. His voice was peculiar, he was very handy with his heels, but he could make a supper out of a rail fence, a breakfast out of a pair of cowhide boots, and pull his load along through the day without a murmur. To me he was as near being the martyr of the Tennessee campaign as the men who fought the battles.

We had been at Knoxville but a few days when news came in that the Rebels were advancing from the northeast from the vicinity of Lynchburg down the valley, thus threatening our communications in the vicinity of Morristown, and c.u.mberland Gap. On the 4th of October we took the train for Morristown. From there we marched to Blue Springs, where we had a little brush with the Johnnies October 10th. They were soon put to rout and we started back to Knoxville. We were sixty miles from Morristown, but in three days we were back there again and took train to Knoxville, where we arrived the 15th. In this campaign we saw plenty of marching but no real fighting, and got well soaked two different times. We remained quietly in camp at Knoxville until October 22nd. Then, however, prospects suddenly became good for an active campaign. Longstreet, with an army of 20,000 men, one of the fine army corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, was approaching Knoxville from Chattanooga and in the evening we took train and went down the valley as far as Loudon to meet him and dispute his advance. We reached Loudon about midnight and bivouacked in a large meadow on the south side of the Holston River. Before morning a cold rain-storm came on, making life for a couple of days about as miserable as it could well be. Our tents arrived the 24th, when we crossed to the north side of the river and went into camp.

The 28th, the Johnnies made a spirited attack on our boys, driving in the pickets. We took up the pontoon bridge and fell back to Lenoir. What a job we had carrying those great heavy boats to the railroad station a good fourth of a mile. Government mule-teams were there by the dozen, still we were called upon to lug those boats such a distance. While we were moving the pontoon boats, an interesting thing occurred. A railroad train that had been captured was run off a wrecked railroad bridge into the Holston River. The bridge was a high one, thirty or forty feet, and it was an interesting sight to see the train make the plunge and disappear entirely from view in the river.

November 10. I commenced building winter quarters. A number of the boys had begun to cut logs for the same purpose, as it was thought we might stay at Lenoir through the winter. The 11th we marched back to Loudon and covered the laying of the pontoon bridge, returning to Lenoir in the evening. At daybreak, the morning of the 14th, we were routed out, struck tents and formed line in the quickest possible time. Our outposts were being driven in and we could hear the crack of the rifles and see the smoke from them out on the meadow as we moved out of camp. The Johnnies'

line of battle came into view directly and we realized we were in for some fighting at short notice; we had not been badly surprised, but dangerously near it.

At this time the climax was reached in an experience we had with a recruit that came to us during the Maryland campaign about the time of the Battle of South Mountain, I think. He was a deacon in the Baptist church. Two or three times during the campaign, when we were in camp, the evening being quiet and favorable, our newcomer would kneel down in his tent and make a prayer. He would pray for the nation, for the cause for which we were fighting, for the President and for all the boys. At such times the boys would keep very quiet and be very respectful. Everything went along all right until the Battle of Fredericksburg, when we did picket duty among our dead the second day after the battle. It was discovered that our friend, the deacon, came off the field that night with his pockets full of watches he had taken from our dead comrades. Now there was an unwritten law in the army that no man should rifle the pockets of our own dead; he might take all he could get from the enemy's dead, but our own dead were sacred, and inviolate, and any man found breaking that law was despised.

The deacon, however, felt himself pretty independent. He was well-to-do; he always had money and received many useful things from home--like gloves, socks, fine high boots, and he had a set of false teeth set in a gold plate. He did not make any prayers for the public benefit for quite a while after the Fredericksburg affair, but when he did make one, the company street for a minute or two was as quiet as death; then all at once the old truck began to arrive on the deacon's tent. Empty tin cans, tin cups, empty whiskey bottles, old shoes, anything in the way of rubbish that could be found, suddenly found its way to the deacon's tent. Well, that prayer was brought to a very sudden close and it was never repeated.

As we moved out at daybreak, the morning of November 14th, things looked about as dark as most of us cared to have them. But some of those boys were never disturbed at anything, and remembering the deacon one of them piped up, "I say, Billy, if old blank should get hit now, what should you go for?" "I should go for his teeth," said Billy. "What should you go for, Tom?" "I should go for his boots." "What should you go for, Gus?" "I should go for his gloves?"--this at a time when most of the boys felt funny if they ever did, the deacon right among the very fellows who were ready to pick his bones. We succeeded in stopping the Johnnies. Indeed, that attack proved to be only a feint and during the day our trains and artillery started towards Knoxville. Not until the evening of the 15th did we start back, then during one of the darkest nights and over one of the muddiest roads imaginable, we floundered along, reaching Campbells Station a little before morning. At dawn we were thrown out on to the Kingston road. We were there none too soon. Within a half hour after we were in position, Longstreet's advance came in sight. Longstreet's feint at Lenoir was evidently made in the hope of holding us there until he could reach Campbell's Station, thus placing himself between Burnside and Knoxville.

We changed position twice during the day, but did little fighting in either. The fighting was done in the beginning by the cavalry and later by the artillery, we falling back from ridge to ridge and keeping pretty well out of it. That night was cold and rainy and as dark as a pocket, and it was a difficult matter to make a thirteen-mile march. However, we reached Knoxville in the early morning of the 17th, and immediately set to work throwing up fortifications.

Knoxville is located on the north bank of the Holston River, on high ground elevated about one hundred feet above the general level of the valley. It was thus easily defended with a small force and our water supply was secure. The location of the 21st during the siege was on the north side of the city. We were a little short of rations; indeed, we were on half rations the whole time. However, I was a very good forager and managed to have enough to eat most of the time. One time I succeeded in picking up a pair of geese out in the country. At another time I got a tub of lard and a fine smoked ham. On another raid I got a barrel of flour. To cook the flour I was obliged to pay $2.00 for a package of baking powder worth ordinarily fifteen or twenty cents. The following story was brought over from the 51st New York one day during the siege.

The regimental teams had been out foraging two or three days before. Some negroes belonging to Miss Palmer had deserted their mistress and followed the teams back to camp. A few days later Miss Palmer rode into camp and inquired for the colonel. The colonel appeared, tipped his hat politely and placed himself at her service. "Colonel," said she, "your men have been over to our town and stole all my n.i.g.g.e.rs and I have just ridden over to camp to see if you will be kind enough to lend me my blacksmith to shoe this horse." The colonel a.s.sisted her in alighting, had her boy hunted up, and set him to work shoeing her horse.

While in a store a day or two ago, buying a pair of gloves, the cry of fire was heard outside on the street, and going to the door there could be seen smoke issuing from the windows on the opposite side of the street and soon the flames burst forth. The fire spread to other buildings and it looked for a short time as if nothing could save the city. A New York regiment chanced to be near by and went to the a.s.sistance of the fire department. That regiment contained a large number of firemen from New York City. They knew how to fight a city fire and in a very short time the fire was under control. In the afternoon as our relief picket, to which I belonged, was on the way to its post, we pa.s.sed through the town, I saw one of our boys who was enjoying General Pope's General Order No. 10 to the full. He was floating along down the street still able to keep his feet, but not his balance. He had on a white masonic ap.r.o.n and a bright red scarf under his belt. As we pa.s.sed him he halted, faced to the front and presented arms with so much swiftness he lost his balance and went sprawling out on the sidewalk. Poor fellow, he meant all right; he wanted to be very respectful and very military, but was a little too top-heavy to carry the thing out well. He had, I expect, been to the fire. When out foraging on the south side of the river one time, I came across in one of the huts of the negro quarters, quite a handsome young mulatto woman with her children. They were all quite well dressed. The children, however, were noticeably lighter in color than their mother. She was evidently the favorite domestic of the house and was as bitter a Yankee hater as any of the white women. She declared the colored people did not want to be n.i.g.g.e.rs for the Yankees. I wondered if I could not understand why she was content with her life there.

There was picket firing most of the time and two hot engagements during the eighteen days of the siege. On November 17th, General Sanders was heavily engaged on the extreme left over next to the river. November 29th, Longstreet attacked Fort Sanders furiously. That fort was only a little way round to our left but we were not engaged. The Johnnies got something of a surprise in that attack. When the siege begun it was all wood in front of the fort; but by the time of the attack the trees had all been cut down, leaving the stumps three to four feet high, then telegraph wire was strung from stump to stump all along the front. When the Johnnies reached that part of the field they were very badly broken up and lost much of their force. That was the first place where telegraph wire was used as an obstruction to an advancing column, so far as I know. Eight or ten months later at Petersburg barbed wire was used extensively, and in the present war in Europe we hear a great deal about its being used.

The night of the 23d, our boys were driven from their rifle pits down in front of the main line of fortifications. The next night about three o'clock we were routed out and went down to the left of the rifle pits, and at daylight made a charge and took them back again. There was another regiment went with us on that charge. The rifle pits had been taken possession of by a regiment of South Carolina sharpshooters, and if they had been able to hold them they could have raked the edge of the city and two or three streets.

December 3. The scouts brought in word that Longstreet had given up the siege and was preparing to withdraw from our front; and the next day it was reported that the Johnnies were really moving off to the right up the valley. On the 5th, a party of us boys went over and took a look at the Johnnies' camp and works. There was a good deal of camp refuse lying around. The weather was getting very cold.

The 7th. We started after Longstreet, going toward Morristown. We marched up to the vicinity of Blaine's cross-roads and stayed there until we re-enlisted. It was a cold, hard time we had those days. My feet were cold all the time. I was not comfortably warm for a number of days, and rations were dreadfully short. Some of the time we had nothing to eat but corn on the cob. We roasted that and eat it and it kept us from starvation. The 9th, I helped to catch a pig, but it was very small. There was not much meat on it.

December 24. The order concerning re-enlistment was read to a part of the regiment, the other part of the regiment was off on picket duty. When the question of re-enlistment was put to the boys there was a good deal of hesitation. A few only put up their hands. The idea of going home on a furlough for thirty days was a strong inducement, but the conditions under which we were living at the time were unfavorable. December 26. Our supply train was captured out in the vicinity of the gap with all our hardtack, sugar and coffee, etc. Re-enlistment was growing popular. I re-enlisted to-day. The temperature hovered around the freezing point. One hour it rained, another hour it snowed or the moisture fell in a sort of sleet. We were camping in a little hollow in the wood sloping towards the south.

December 28. It was reported that two-thirds of the men of the regiment had re-enlisted. That proportion was sufficient to enable the regiment to go home, as a regiment, on veteran furlough. It was reported about camp that the 21st was the first regiment in the 9th Army Corps to report thus re-enlisted.

January 6, 1864. Orders came directing that we be in readiness to start for Camp Nelson and the north at once, and in the afternoon of the 7th we set out. About two hundred Confederate prisoners were to be taken along.

My shoes were in pretty good shape, but those of some of the boys were very poor. The 8th we made an early start. The air was clear and cold and we made a good day's march. The 10th, we reached c.u.mberland Gap--were disappointed not to get any rations, but after pa.s.sing the gap and marching a few miles beyond, we came on to a supply train and drew two full days' rations. What a treat to have a meal of good fresh hardtack and a cup of good coffee again. The 11th, we did not get far, we were delayed by the train. The roads in the mountains were something terrific. In many places we were obliged to cut ruts in the ice for the wheels of the wagons to go in. Forded the c.u.mberland River at c.u.mberland Ford. Pretty cold business fording large rivers in midwinter with the temperature down to 15 degrees above zero.

January 12. Waited until noon for the train to come up. The train has delayed us all along the way. The roads are so very bad. Came upon a supply train and drew two days' rations.

We reached Loudon, Kentucky, January 14. Here, some of the boys were able to get new shoes, to their great relief. It snowed all day the 15th and at night we camped in deep snow. The next day the roads not having been broken out, we lost our way and floundered around all the forenoon.

January 16. The home stretch. Made a long march of twenty-five or thirty miles in the rain, reaching Camp Nelson just before dark. Found our old Adjutant, Theron E. Hall, detailed there in command of the post. He put us in a big empty storehouse where we had a fine night's sleep.

From the 17th of November to January 18th, a period of two months and one day, was a period in which we suffered more from privation and exposure than any other period of the same length during the war. During the siege we were under fire and short of rations all the time. The next period up in the vicinity of Morristown and Blaine cross-roads we were on duty nearly all the time. It was very cold. We were very short of clothes and had almost nothing to eat. Then the tramp over the c.u.mberland mountains through the snow, with almost nothing to keep us warm for eleven days, was something terrific. The fact that we were on our way home was the only thing that buoyed us up during the last part of it. I am writing this at seventy-four years of age, and as I go over that march through the snow, fording great streams in midwinter on that trip across the mountains, I am entirely unable to comprehend how we were able to endure it. We had a very good opportunity to observe the Johnnies we were taking along at short range, and to get their viewpoint of the war. They were from Longstreet's command and while they had nothing but good to say of old Pete, Stonewall Jackson was their idol. He had been killed at Chancellorsville only a little while before and they felt his loss deeply. "Stonewall did a heap of praying--he do 'specially just before a big battle," said one. Another lean old fellow: "'Lowed Stonewall was a general, he war. If you-uns had a general like him, ar reckon you-uns could lick we-uns." One of them lamented that, "It was no use to fight, now old Stonewall war dead." One I asked what he was fighting for. "'Cause I don't want to be licked. What you-all come down here for--to invade our country and run away with our n.i.g.g.e.rs? You-uns must have a powerful spite against we-uns-all." In stature they averaged much smaller than our men, and they were very ignorant; I doubt if one out of ten of them could write his name.

January 19. We remained at Camp Nelson; drew clothing, ate hardtack and drank coffee to our heart's content and were as happy a lot of mortals as ever walked the earth. The next day we marched to Nicholasville and took a train for Covington. There was a hole in one of my teeth that had added measurably to my misery on the trip over the mountains. As we pa.s.sed through Nicholasville, I saw the sign of a dentist. I walked in and sat down in the dentist's chair and told him I wished he would pull that tooth. He pulled it without any ceremony. When he put the forceps on to it, it rebelled fiercely, gave one final gasp and the maddening pain was ended.

We were put into some very comfortable barracks at Covington and stayed there until the 29th while the necessary re-enlistment papers were being made out. I bought a very slick military jacket to wear home. We were paid off, and so started for home with a pocket full of money.

CHAPTER VIII

HOME ON A RE-ENLISTMENT FURLOUGH

The trip home. Reception at Worcester. The Social Whirl. We returned to Annapolis.

We left Cincinnati on our way home to Ma.s.sachusetts in the afternoon of December 29th by train, going through Columbus, Cleveland, Buffalo, Albany and Springfield, arriving in Worcester in the morning of January 31st, and marched over to Camp Lincoln, which was to be regimental headquarters during our stay.

After we left Albany, as we pa.s.sed along through the Berkshire Hills, we realized we were in the old Bay State again and that it was midwinter. The ground was buried deeply under the snow and the air was cold. Wherever we stopped on our way east we were warmly received. At Worcester the reception was enthusiastic. The 21st was the first three years' regiment to re-enlist in the 9th Army Corps. It was the first veteran regiment to return to Worcester County, and if not the first, it was one of the first, to return to the state. The people of Worcester appreciated this and turned out in large numbers to welcome us home. At the railroad station the mayor and a committee of citizens and a throng of people greeted us.

The official reception February 1st, was a most enthusiastic affair. A parade containing every organization of any size in the city was formed, with the mayor and city government at the head. We paraded the streets of the city; Plunkett marching beside the colors. Then in the afternoon there was a meeting in Mechanics Hall with speeches of welcome, etc. Our furloughs were for thirty days and were dated February 1st. The next day we were off for our homes and a glorious vacation. I got as far as Barre the second, stayed all night at the hotel, and the next morning hired a team and drove over to Dana. The place looked natural and every one seemed happy. Riding about, visiting friends, attending reunions, dancing parties and b.a.l.l.s, was now the order of the day and of the night. What a vacation!

What a season of pleasure! It was of its kind the most delightful time of my life. Nehemiah Doubleday invited my sister Jane and I and a few other close personal friends up to his house for an evening. They had music, served refreshments, and we had a most delightful time. My sister, Mrs.

Kent did the same thing, and there we spent another very enjoyable evening. The town of Hardwick gave an entertainment of welcome to the boys from that town in our regiment. I had worked for Mr. Arad Walker of that town and had a lot of friends over there, and so I was invited and went, and had a most royal time. Such cordiality on the part of the people. Such a warmth of welcome was entirely unexpected. Some one of those Hardwick men had his arm around me all the evening. I never got out of the sight of Mr. Walker while there. Every time I met Mr. John Paige he would put both his arms around me and give me a hug. Rev. Mr. Sanger could not have treated a son more cordially than he did me. Every man I met there, and I met a lot of them, treated me as if I was a son or a brother.

As I went home that night I felt I was as much a son of Hardwick in the war as I was of Dana.

When I enlisted and went out in 1861, I did it simply because I could not stay at home. When I went back at the end of my veteran furlough I felt I was one of the representatives at the front of a fine section of Ma.s.sachusetts. On March 1st, our thirty days' furlough was at an end, and I returned to Worcester and to old Camp Lincoln again ready for duty. I was not wanted, however, and was told I could go home again and stay there until sent for, and home I went for another two weeks of pleasure, but all good things come to an end, so did that re-enlistment furlough, and the 14th I was summoned back to Worcester, the 15th found me with the regiment and the 18th we started south again.

On the way back at Philadelphia the 19th we were given a fine supper at the Cooper Shop Saloon and the next morning at Baltimore we were treated to a fine breakfast at the Union Relief a.s.sociation rooms. Proceeding on our way we arrived at Annapolis in the afternoon of March 25th. We went into camp and stayed there until we started to join the Army of the Potomac at the Wilderness. After the fine times we had had at home, ordinary camp life was decidedly dull. Troops were arriving daily and we soon learned the 9th Army Corps was a.s.sembling there preparatory to joining General Grant's army on the Rapidan. Every fellow had left a girl behind him. Writing letters was freely indulged in by all, and the mails were loaded with sweet-scented, delicately addressed notes, and Oh, such longings for home.

CHAPTER IX

WITH GRANT IN VIRGINIA

The Battle of the Wilderness. The Battle of Spottsylvania Courthouse.

Johnnies caught undressed. The Battle of Bethseda Church. The Johnny who wanted to see the sun rise. Life in the trenches during the siege of Petersburg. Wounded.

On the 23d day of April, 1864, we again started for the front, leaving Annapolis with the rest of the 9th Army Corps. We pa.s.sed through Washington on the 25th, and were reviewed by President Lincoln and General Burnside. That night we camped near Alexandria. On the 27th we marched to Fairfax Court House; the 28th to Bristow Station. The 29th took us to near Warrenton Junction. The 30th we moved on a little and camped near Bealton Station. Here we remained until the 4th of May, when we moved forward to Brandy Station. We were then getting into the immediate vicinity of the Army of the Potomac and the report was circulated during the evening that that army had crossed the Rapidan.

May 5. The report that the Army of the Potomac was in motion and had crossed the Rapidan was confirmed early in the morning, and we pressed forward as rapidly as possible to join it. We reached the Rapidan in the evening, crossed over at Germania Ford and went into camp.

May 6. We started before daylight and at eight o'clock reported to General Hanc.o.c.k, who had just been pushing Lee's right flank back. We were placed on the left of Hanc.o.c.k's corps. About ten o'clock, the 21st was sent to make a reconnaissance. We formed a line at right angles to Hanc.o.c.k's line of battle, well out in front of it, and swept clear along past the whole front. This was a hazardous and mighty unpleasant thing to do and we lost some men in doing it. When we got back, we took a position on Hanc.o.c.k's right and were there when Longstreet's corps made the advance in the afternoon. That was a pretty tough reception, the Johnnies got in the part of the line where we were. We had three solid lines of battle to meet them, drawn up on land sloping toward the enemy. At the foot of the slope was the first line of battle; far enough back to shoot over the heads of the men forming line number one was line number two. The 21st was in the second line. Then far enough back to shoot over our heads was line number three. We were all lying flat on the ground. Two or three minutes before the Confederate line of battle came into view, in our immediate front, two or three little gray rabbits came jumping along towards us; at the same time we got glimpses of the Confederate line of battle as it advanced off to our left, the wood being less dense there, we saw the lines cross little openings.

The Johnnies came up with terrific force--three lines of battle deep. They forced back our first line a little, but the second and third lines never moved, but kept pouring the shot into them unmercifully. They stayed there about twenty minutes to half an hour and retreated. After they had fallen back many of us went down to our front earthwork, from which our first line retreated and where the Johnnies formed and where they stayed the few minutes they were in our immediate front. There were a lot of dead and wounded men lying all about there. As I looked about I saw a middle-aged man looking around. He was examining the dead men in a most earnest way, I could not take my eyes off of him. Directly, he found the one he was searching for, it was a young boy, his son. He took hold of the boy's hand, he spoke to him, but his son was cold in death. He sat down beside him and sat there sobbing but motionless for a long time--the tears streaming from his eyes. One of our boys ventured up to him after a while and inquired if he knew the boy; "yes," said he, "that is my Charley, that is my cub; but he is silent now, once so full of life and so active."

May 7. There was no fighting done. We lay quietly near the place where the last fighting was done the day before. Early in the morning of May 8th, we started on the march toward Spottsylvania Court House. We pa.s.sed Chancellorsville during the night and camped a little to the rear of Fredericksburg during the afternoon. We moved forward a little the 9th, and in the afternoon dug intrenchments along beside a small stream,--I think it was the Ny. It was all quiet along our front when we reached that position, but later there was a good deal of sharpshooting. We were within a few hundred yards of Spottsylvania Court House at that time, but neither Burnside or Grant knew it until we had been moved away to the right, and it was too late to profit by the advantage we had gained. We had got clear around on Lee's right flank. The 10th, during the early morning, we moved around to the right into a large pasture partly grown up. Sharpshooters were very active all along our front. General Stevenson was killed by a sharpshooter at that time.

About daylight in the early morning of the 12th we were awakened by the bursting out of a fearful roar of infantry fire just to our right where the second corps was. We were moved along a little nearer to it, to the upper edge of a pasture next to some wood. While we were there a sh.e.l.l burst right among a half dozen of us, a piece of which struck Lawriston Barnes in the side, mortally wounding him. Augustus, his brother, stood near and caught him as he reeled to fall. Volunteers were called for to go up into the wood and make a reconnaissance. Tom Winn offered to go and went, and in a few minutes he returned, bringing with him a Johnny. A little later we moved up through the wood and made an attack on some Johnnies in an entrenched position in an open field, but we did not drive them out; they had the advantage of a strong position and our force was too small to make such an attack with any prospect of success. As we went up through the wood we pa.s.sed a Johnny who was killed while aiming his gun. He was lying flat on the ground behind a stump. His head had dropped forward a little, but otherwise he was in the exact position of aiming his gun; he had been shot through the head and killed instantly. He was evidently one of the sharpshooters who had been annoying us that morning when we were in the edge of the pasture where Lawriston Barnes was killed.