The Black Phalanx Part 46

On the same day Sheridan reached Dinwiddie, and the next morning he encountered the confederates near the Court House. Here were W. H. F.

Lee's Cavalry, Picket's and Bushrod Johnson's divisions of Infantry, and Wise's brigade. Sheridan made the attack. His men, on account of the marshy ground, had to dismount. The confederates fought desperately, but Sheridan's men contested every inch of ground, and at night fell back to Dinwiddie Court House and bivouacked. The 5th Corps came up during the night to attack the confederates in the rear; but at daylight it was found that they had fallen back to Five Forks. Here was found the cavalry of W. H. F. Lee and Fitzhugh Lee, with Ross', Picket's, Wise's and Johnson's divisions of infantry. On the morning of the 1st of April, Sheridan advanced the 5th Corps toward Five Forks. That afternoon it fell upon Picket's rear, and now began the decisive battle. The roar was deafening. Night was coming on, and Sheridan was anxious to carry out Grant's order and "end the matter if possible to do so." He gave the order, "Charge bayonets!" In five minutes Picket's outer line was in possession of the federals. Crawford's division struck them in the flank, and, with McKenzie's brigade, routed and sent the confederates flying. The 5th Corps rallied and captured the enemy's entire force in their front. General Sheridan says in report:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU MUST THROW AWAY THAT CIGAR, SIR!"

A Phalanx guard refusing to allow General U. S. Grant to pa.s.s by the commissary store-house till he had thrown away his cigar.]

"The enemy were driven from their strong line of works, completely routed, the Fifth Corps doubling up their left flank in confusion, and the cavalry of General Merritt dashing on to the White Oak Road, capturing their artillery, turning it upon them, and riding into their broken ranks, so demoralized them that they made no serious stand after their line was carried, but took flight in disorder."

The writer well remembers the eagerness of the Phalanx brigade of Colonel Shaw, composed of the 109th, 116th and 7th Regiments, as they waited orders near Hatcher's Run. The sound of distant guns fell upon their ears; Colonel Shaw was impatient; all seemed to feel the end was near, and wanted to lend a hand in the consummation. Oh, what suspense!

The brigade lay upon their arms in a state of great agitation, all that night, waiting for orders to advance upon the foe. Who can tell the thoughts of those brave black soldiers as thus they lay upon the rumbling earth. Fathers, mothers, sisters, wives and children, yet slaves, behind the enemy's guns: precious property they are, and guarded like dearest treasure and even life itself, by an army of slave-holders--Lee's men, who, with the desperation of demons, vainly attempted to check the advance of the men of the North, who, with their lives, defended the Union. The black brigade wanted to strike one more blow for freedom--for the freedom of their wives and children--to make one more charge, and the confederate banner should go down; one more charge, and the light of Liberty's stars should blazon over the ramparts of the confederate forts. At length, with the dawning of day, came the order; then the black brigade went forward, but to find the enemy gone and their works deserted.

The confederate lines were broken, and Sheridan's troopers, McKenzie and Merritt, with their cavalry, although it was night, had followed up the fleeing foe, capturing them by thousands. The brigade pushed on along the captured works. The federal batteries, from every mound and hill, were showering shot and sh.e.l.l into the enemy's inner works; while the gleaming bayonets of the thousands of infantry could be seen as far as the eye could reach, their proud banners kissing the stifling air, and the bugles sounding the "forward march," leaving in their rear smoking camps and blazing dwellings. What a Sunday morning was that, with its thunders of terrific war, instead of the mellow chimes of church bells and the repose of peace.

It was late in the afternoon, and huge, black clouds of smoke rolled up out of the city of Petersburg, and then a loud report, told that the confederates had evacuated it. Away to the left, the huzzas of Colonel Doubleday's Phalanx brigade (2nd) were heard. Now came a race to reach the city, between the 7th and 8th Phalanx regiments. No matter which was first, they were among the troops which took possession of the city, and gladdened the hearts of the negro population, as they marched through the streets singing their battle song:

"We will hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple-tree as we go marching on."

It was a glorious victory, bringing freedom to thousands of slaves, though it cost as many lives and millions of treasure. It was the beginning of the end. The confederates deserted their army by thousands.

The South Side Railroad was in the hands of the federals, and starvation threatened the enemy. Lee, says a historian, was no longer himself: he rode wildly through his camps. .h.i.ther, and thither, trying to save his shattered and routed soldiers from annihilation.

The defeat at Five Forks settled the fate of the Army of North Virginia.

Grant had almost the entire federal army actively engaged; he stopped the exchange of prisoners, invited President Lincoln, then at City Point, to come out and see the army advance, which he did. He met Grant in the city of Petersburg, amid the exultations of the troops and the joyous demonstrations of the negro population. General Lee made no stop at Richmond; he had informed Jefferson Davis that he must give up the city. The latter, with his aids and all the money he could collect,--not the confederate paper, but the gold of the United States,--stampeded.

General Weitzel, with Kautz's division of the 24th Corps and Thomas' and Ashborne's division of the 25th Corps, on the north side of the James river, lay quietly upon their arms during the fight on the south side.

Grant kept Weitzel informed as to the results of the attack, and warned him to be on the alert and take every advantage offered, to press the confederates. General Longstreet's forces had been in Weitzel's front, but were partly withdrawn to defend Petersburg; therefore the latter kept unceasing vigil upon the fortifications before him.

Sunday evening the bands were ordered out to play, and it was late into the night when their melodious strains ceased to float through the air.

It was a night long to be remembered, the hearts of the black soldiers of the 25th Corps, gladdened by the reports of the victories of the troops before Petersburg, were jubilant, and with vigilant watch each looked for morning. They were impatient for the light, and ere it dawned they were ready for the onset which they believed must come with it. The enemy whom they supposed were preparing to give them battle, was silently stealing away to the enchanting strains of the Federal musicians. It was near the morning hours when a sudden report startled the sleeping soldiers; an explosion, another, and yet another followed in rapid succession.

General Weitzel soon became satisfied that the enemy was moving, the continuous sound of distant cannonading away to the south, told that the combat still raged. From the signal tower bright lights were discernable at Richmond. The city appeared to be on fire; a confederate picket was captured, but he knew nothing; he had got astray from his comrades and command. A deserter came in with intelligence that the city was being evacuated, and half an hour later a negro drove into camp and gave information that the enemy was flying.

The ground in front was thickly set with torpedoes, and the troops dared not move. Day came and Colonel Draper's black brigade of the 25th Corps went forward. The road was lumbered with all manner and sort of military gear and munitions of war. Keeping clear of the red flags which marked the torpedoes, the troops pushed on; they soon reached the defences of the city to find them untenanted; the negro had told the truth and the Phalanx brigade entered the city welcomed by thousands of happy kinsfolks. Badeau says:

"The sun was an hour up, when suddenly there rose in the streets the cry of 'Yankees! Yankees!' and the ma.s.s of plunderers and rioters, cursing, screaming, trampling on each other, alarmed by an enemy not yet in sight, madly strove to extricate themselves and make an opening for the troops. Soon about forty men of the Fourth Ma.s.sachusetts Cavalry rode into the crowd, and, trotting straight to the public square, planted their guidons on the Capitol.

Lieutenant De Peyster, of Weitzel's staff, a New Yorker eighteen years of age, was the first to raise the national colors, and then, in the morning light of the 3d of April, the flag of the United States once more floated over Richmond.

"The command of Weitzel followed--a long blue line--with gun-barrels gleaming, and bands playing 'Hail Columbia' and 'John Brown's Soul Goes Marching On.' One regiment was black.[33] The magistrates formally surrendered the city to Weitzel at the Capitol, which stands on a hill in the centre of the town, and overlooks the whole country for miles. The national commander at once set about restoring order and extinguishing the flames. Guards were established, plundering was stopped, the negroes were organized into a fire corps, and by night the force of the conflagration was subdued, the rioting was at an end, and the conquered city was rescued by the efforts of its captors from the evils which its own authorities had allowed, and its own population had perpetrated."

[Ill.u.s.tration: RECEIVING THE PRESIDENT.

Abraham Lincoln riding through Richmond, April 4th, 1865, after the evacuation of the city by the Confederates.]

Lee and his famishing host were fleeing towards Danville, hotly pursued by the Federal Army. Resting there until the 5th they resumed the march, fighting and running, until, at Appomattox they gave up and surrendered.

Major Alexandria S. Johnson of the 116th Phalanx Regiment thus relates the story in part which the Phalanx brigade took in the memorable movement of the two armies to Appomattox. He says:

"As a partic.i.p.ant in these events I will speak merely of what came under my own observation. The One Hundred and Sixteenth (colored) Infantry, in which I commanded a company, belonged to the Third Brigade, Second Division of the Twenty-fifth Army Corps, and during the winter of 1864-65 held the lines on Chapin's farm, the left resting on Fort Burnham. The division was commanded by Major-General Birney. The winter was pa.s.sed in endeavoring to get the troops in as high a state of discipline as possible by constant drill and watchful training. When the spring opened we had the satisfaction of feeling that they were the equal, as soldiers, of most of the white troops. They were a contented body, being well fed and clothed, and they took delight in their various duties. The news of the capture of Savannah by Sherman and the defeat of Hood at Nashville had a cheering effect upon the whole command, and we looked forward with confidence that the end was drawing near.

"On the night of the 26th of March our division silently left the lines on Chapin's farm, and marching to the rear some three miles went into bivouac. On the night of the 27th we crossed the James on m.u.f.fled pontoons, and after a weary march arrived at Hatcher's Run at daybreak of the 28th.

Crossing the original lines of breastworks we built new breastworks some two hundred yards in advance and bivouacked in the pine woods awaiting events. Sheridan at this time was operating on the Confederate right flank. The news of his decisive victory at Five Forks and of the complete turning of the enemy's flank was the immediate cause of a verbal order, given to company commanders by our colonel on the afternoon of April 1st, to advance on the lines in our front at dawn on the following day. That night the Union artillery opened along the whole line. Hissing and bursting sh.e.l.ls from Appomattox river to Hatcher's Run filled in a scene never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. It was as if demons incarnate were holding a jubilee. As far as the eye could reach there was one blaze of fiery shot. The world has seldom seen its like. Where our brigade was to operate was a dense wilderness of pines with matted underbrush, but in the morning it looked as though a sirocco had kissed it.

"With the dawn of day the brigade was in line of battle. Not a breath of air was stirring. A misty vapor shed its gloom and hung like a pall among the tree-tops. The silk covers were taken from our flags, but their folds hung lazily along the staff when the command, 'Forward! guide centre! march!'

was given. At first slashed timber and brush obstructed our way, but as the obstruction began to cease an obstacle in the shape of a long line of abattis met our gaze. The dusky line broke through the abattis, however, as if the stakes had been so many reeds, and charged over the breastworks and into the Confederate camp. The rush must have been a surprise, as the enemy offered little resistance. In front of one of the tents a Federal sergeant (white) lay dead, his right arm extended to the full length, and firmly clenched in his hand was a piece of fancy soap. A bullet had entered his forehead, the blood from the wound was trickling down his face, but the hue of health was still on his cheek. How he came to be there is to me a mystery, as that part of the line was forced by colored troops. Swinging by the right flank we kept our way along the Boydton road. A Confederate light battery in position alongside of a cottage, which stood in a hollow, sh.e.l.led the column as it advanced, and so accurate had the gunners got the range that almost every sh.e.l.l did damage. A couple of sh.e.l.ls burst together above my company. The flash blinded me for a few seconds. I heard a scream of pain and just then was ordered to lie down. Not twenty yards from me was a wounded soldier. His leg was shattered badly. He prayed and sang hymns alternately, but his voice gradually grew weaker until it ended in death. One of our batteries was brought into position, and engaging the Confederate battery, the latter was silenced, when the column again resumed the march, arriving in front of Petersburg about noon.

"It was the intention of General Birney to carry by a.s.sault the main fort which commanded the city, and he deployed the division in line of battle for that purpose, but General Ord, coming up in time, ordered him to retire his division out of range and await further orders. We went into bivouac for the night, and at early dawn of the 3d we entered the city, the Confederates having evacuated the forts during the night. The field music played "John Brown's Body," and a tiny Union flag in the hands of a girl of ten years waved us a welcome. Resting an hour in the city the division started in pursuit of the Confederates. For a mile or two outside of the city the road was strewn with plug tobacco. Blood could be seen also at intervals in patches along the road. We bivouacked some fifteen miles from the city. A few of our officers took supper in a house close to our camping ground.

Our fare was "corn pone," sc.r.a.ps of bacon, sorghum mola.s.ses, and a solution of something called coffee, for which we each gave our host, a middle-aged Virginian, one dollar. The colored troops being encamped on his farm his indignation was stirred and he exclaimed, while the tears trickled down his cheeks, 'Poor old Virginia! poor old Virginia! that I should have lived to see this day!'

"At dawn of the 4th the column resumed the pursuit. It is needless for me to tell in detail how our cavalry destroyed and burned over five hundred Confederate wagons on the 5th and 6th, and how Ewell's command was defeated and captured at Sailor's creek on the 6th. Our brigade having arrived at Farmville on the afternoon of the 6th and encamped for the night, some of the citizens poured forth pitiful tales to our officers. They told how our cavalry had entered their houses and ripped open their feather beds, how the rude troopers had broken open bureaus and chests in search of valuables, and how they had carried away with them what they could find. Nothing of interest took place until the 8th, which was noted for the forced march made by the brigade, starting at daybreak and going into bivouac at twelve midnight. The morning of the 9th broke calm and serene. It was a lovely morning, the sun had not yet gotten above the horizon when the brigade was on the march again, but it went only a short distance when it was halted. To the right of the road, in a clearing, was a portion of the Twenty-fourth Corps, with arms stacked and the men cooking breakfast.

Sides of bacon at intervals hung from their bayonets.

Although the woods were full of our cavalry and three divisions of our infantry were in close proximity, all was as quiet as a Sabbath morning. One of our batteries, some six hundred yards to the right, broke the stillness by fitfully throwing a sh.e.l.l once in a while, but to a looker-on all seemed inaction. Such was the situation at Appomattox at sunrise on the morning of the 9th.

"Our brigade, after resting some thirty minutes, resumed the march. It soon filed to the right. In a few minutes the command was given--'Right shoulder, shift arms! double quick, march!' Onward we went, the objective point being the Lynchburg pike. Dismounted cavalry retreating from the front broke through the column, saying as they pa.s.sed us, 'Give it to them, boys! they are too many for us!' In a few minutes the head of the column reached the pike, when it halted and faced to the front. The command--'Unsling knapsacks!'--was given, and then we knew we were stripping for a fight.

Skirmishers were deployed on our front, and as we advanced the Confederate skirmishers retired before us. After advancing some eight hundred yards the brigade was ordered to halt and form in line of battle. It formed into column of companies. Some eight hundred yards away was the Army of Northern Virginia, with its three lines of battle awaiting us.

"We had not been at a halt more than twenty minutes when the news of Lee's surrender reached us. Our brigade celebrated the event by firing volleys of musketry in the air. Officers hugged each other with joy. About four hundred yards to the rear was a portion of the Twenty-fourth Corps, which had been marching to our support. The men in that long line threw their caps upwards until they looked like a flock of crows. From wood and dale came the sound of cheers from thousands of throats. Appomattox will never hear the like again. The brigade moved forward a short distance and went into camp some three hundred yards from the Confederate camp. In the afternoon I strolled over the ground we had traversed in the morning. I came across the body of a dead Confederate soldier, covered with a blanket. Some one had taken the shoes from his feet. Uncovering him I found that a shot had pierced his right breast. His white cotton shirt was matted with blood. A small bag was attached to the b.u.t.ton-hole of his jacket. Undoing the bag I found it contained sixty ounces of corn meal. He was not over twenty-six years of age, and was of fair complexion. Who knows but he was the last soldier who fell belonging to the Army of Northern Virginia?"

It was Palm Sunday, celebrated by many of the followers of Christ as the day of his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, a day of great rejoicing among Christians, known in our annual calendar as the 9th day of April, 1865. The morning broke clear and bright in the neighborhood of Appomattox Court House, and there was every evidence of spring. The birds chirped in the trees half clad with the early foliage, which trembled in the soft breeze. Along the roadside yet untrod by the hostile feet of man or steed, the tiny floweret buds had begun to open to the warmth of genial nature, and the larger roses, red and white, cast their fragrance to the lingering winds. Here the half clad, sore footed soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia, were trembling with dread impatience for the onset,--the inevitable--which would decide their fate and their prospect of reaching the mountains just beyond. In front of them the federal cavalry awaited their coming.

It was yet grey in the morning when General Lee sent word to his Lieutenant Gordon to cut his "_way through at all hazards_." With the impetuosity of a cyclone, his shattered corps rushed upon the dismounted cavalry in their front, the Federal line quivered, and bent to the gale.

On and on they came, pressing closer and closer upon the cavalry. The struggle was becoming desperate, it was the last hope of the confederates they must go through the lines, or perish in the attempt.

Again the confederate yell rose above the din of the battle's roar, and soon the cavalry fell back. Where was their leader Sheridan? He came, galloping at break-neck speed, his men cheering him as he rode to the front. He had been to the rear some five miles away. He saw at a glance the daring object of the foe, and ordered his men to fall back slowly.

The confederates followed up the wavering line with brightened hopes, but hopes that were to be dissipated; soon the bristling bayonets, and glistening musket barrels of the Army of the James gleamed in their front; then the pressure ceased, and Sheridan's bugle sounded the order to mount, and his troopers dashed themselves against the enemy's left flank. Then, one bearing a white flag--a flag of truce, rode to the front of the confederate lines. Capt. J. D. Cook of General Mile's staff went forward to meet him. It was Colonel Taylor of General Lee's staff; he bore a note from Lee, asking a suspension of hostilities, and an interview with General Grant. Now let us go back to the night of the 6th, and trace the flying columns to this point. Badeau says:

"That night once more the rebels evacuated their works, this time in front of Meade, and when morning dawned were far on their way, as they fondly thought, to Lynchburg, and Lee defiantly informed his pursuer that the emergency for the surrender had not yet arrived. But he reckoned without his host. He was stretching, with the terrific haste that precedes despair, to Appomattox for supplies. He need hardly have hastened to that spot, destined to be so fatal to himself and his cause. Grant's legions were making more haste than he. The marvelous marching, not only of Sheridan, but of the men of the Fifth and Twenty-Fourth Corps, was doing as much as a battle to bring the rebellion to a close.

Twenty-eight, thirty-two, thirty-five miles a day in succession these infantry soldiers marched, all day and all night. From daylight until daylight again, after more than a week of labor and fatigue almost unexampled, they pushed on to intercept their ancient adversary, while the remainder of the Army of the Potomac was at his heels.

"Finally Lee, still defiant, and refusing to treat with any view of surrender, came up to his goal, but found the national cavalry had reached the point before him, and that the supplies were gone. Still he determined to push his way through, and with no suspicion that men on foot could have marched from Rice's Station to his front in thirty hours, he made his last charge, and discovered a force of infantry greater than his own before him, besides cavalry, while two corps of the Army of the Potomac were close in his rear. He had run straight into the national lines. He was enclosed, walled in, on every side, with imminent instant destruction impending over him. He instantly offered to submit to Grant, and in the agony of alarm, lest the blow should fall, he applied to Meade and Sheridan also for a cessation of hostilities. Thus in three directions at once he was appealing to be allowed to yield. At the same moment he had messengers out to Sheridan, Meade, and Grant. The emergency, whose existence he had denied, had arrived. He was out-marched, out-fought, out-witted, out-generaled--defeated in every possible way. He and his army, every man, numbering 27,516, surrendered. He and his army, every man, was fed by the conqueror."

From the date of Lee's surrender, the confederates, from Virginia to the Mississippi, began to lay down their arms. Howell Cobb surrendered at Macon, Ga., on the 21st; Johnston surrendered to General Sherman on the 26th, in North Carolina; d.i.c.k Taylor, east of the Mississippi, on the 4th of May, and on the 26th Kirby Smith surrendered his forces west of the Mississippi. Jeff. Davis had been captured, disguised as a woman, and thus the cause, which originated in treason, based on the enslavement of a race, and which derived its only chance of success from men who were false to their oaths, collapsed. The mightiest blow given the confederacy was struck by the immortal Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation, giving freedom to four millions of slaves; more than two hundred thousand of whom, with dash and gallantry excelled by no other race, tore down the traitor's banner from their deemed impregnable breastworks and planted in its stead the national flag. That emblem, whose crimson folds, re-baptised in the blood of liberty's martyrs, invited all men, of all races, who would be free, to gather beneath the effulgent glare of its heaven-lighted stars, regardless of color, creed or condition.

The Phalanx n.o.bly bore their part all through the long night of war, and at last they occupied Charleston,--the traitors'

nest,--Petersburg,--their eastern Gibraltar,--and Richmond--their Capitol. They marched proudly through the streets of these once impregnable fortresses, in all of which many of the soldiers of the Phalanx had been slaves. Oh! what a realization of the power of right over might. What a picture for the historian's immortal pen to paint of the freemen of America, whose sufferings were long, whose struggle was gigantic, and whose achievement was a glorious personal and political freedom!

At the close of the war, the government, antic.i.p.ating trouble in Texas, ordered General Steele to the command of the Rio Grande, under these instructions:

"WASHINGTON, May 21st, 1865.

"MAJ. GEN. F. STEELE, Commanding Rio Grande Expedition.

"By a.s.signment of the President, Gen. Sheridan takes general command west of the Arkansas. It is the intention to prosecute a vigorous campaign in that country, until the whole of Texas is re-occupied by people acknowledging allegiance to the Government of the United States. Sheridan will probably act offensively from the Red river. But it is highly important that we should have a strong foothold upon the Rio Grande. You have been selected to take that part of the command. In addition to the force you take from Mobile Bay, you will have the 25th Corps and the few troops already in Southern Texas.

"Any directions you may receive from Gen. Sheridan, you will obey. But in the absence of instructions from him you will proceed without delay to the mouth of the Rio Grande and occupy as high up that river as your force and means of supplying will admit of.

"Your landing will probably have to be made at Brazos, but you will learn more fully upon that matter on your arrival.

We will have to observe a strict neutrality towards Mexico, in the French and English sense of the word. Your own good sense and knowledge of international law, and experience of policy pursued towards us in this war teaches you what will be proper.

"Signed, U. S. GRANT, _Lieutenant-General._

"Official: Signed, GEO. K. LEET, A. A. G."