Part 3

I said to him: "General, the brigade is very much mixed up and ought to be straightened out." He said: "Very well, sir, go straighten it out." And so I went, but I had not gone more than twenty steps before I came to the conclusion that that was too much of a contract for a young man of my age, so I went to Colonel Torbert of the First Regiment and stated the case, just what the General had said, and that I believed that General Taylor was entirely exhausted, and that the job was too big for me. He said: "Never mind, sonny, I will fix it up for you." So we went together and Colonel Torbert arranged the brigade that night. Some of the companies of the Second were mixed up with the Third, and some of the Third were mixed up with the First until we straightened them out. The men were lying down, some of them asleep, all of them cross, and it was no easy job to shift them around, but we finally got it done about eleven o'clock. I got back to my old colored man, James Huggs, who had a blanket for me in the same fence corner where the General was, and I had about two hours' sound sleep. A little before one o'clock an aid of General Slocum's gave us marching orders. We found an entire brigade in the road ready to take our places, and passing through them to the road we continued our march in column going somewhere, we did not know where, but headed, we all knew, towards the James River on the way from Richmond. This last fact was heartbreaking to the men, for from the moment that we landed at West Point in May our faces had been towards the Rebel Capitol. Although the battle of Gaines' Mills had been lost just the day after we were much nearer Richmond than we were now and it was only the night of the battle of Charles City crossroads that our men realized that we were retreating. We marched until about seven o'clock in the morning and then the brigade was given about three hours' rest along the road. The General and I had some coffee which the men of the Provost Guard gave us and I went down into my old Company C, of the Third Regiment, and got from Richard Poole, a private in that company, who was a painter in Burlington, three hard tack, and after he had given them to me, just one-half of all he had, I searched in my pocket and found the silver ten cent piece, that was the last thing I had. Richard refused to accept this in exchange for the hard tack, but I finally pressed it upon him as a souvenir, and he showed it to me many times afterwards. About twelve o'clock the brigade was assembled and marched along the road towards Malvern Hill which we did not then know by that name or any other name, but it was a high and commanding position and we saw a great many of our batteries already in position upon it, and very readily came to the conclusion that our army was going to make a stand there. I think the Jersey Brigade was at that time in the rear guard, and the reason I think so is because after our brigade passed through the pickets which were at the edge of the hill nothing came behind us but some cavalry, and I have a good reason to remember that. Within about a half a mile of the hill on the left hand side of the road was a fine farm and near the fence were two fine cherry trees full of cherries. As we passed along, the General and myself being in the rear of the brigade, he said: "I would like to have some of those very much." So I immediately said: "I will get you some." I got over the fence and climbed up a tree dropping my sword and belt in the clover at the foot of the tree as I went up, I broke off a good many branches and proceeded to fill myself as quickly as possible. A scouting party of some of our cavalry came by going toward the hill and an officer told the General that there were some Rebel scouts not very far behind him, upon which the General recalled me from the tree, and we proceeded to rejoin the brigade which had gone up Malvern Hill. When the brigade was halted and arranged upon the line which had been assigned to us near the top of the hill, I instantly noticed that I had not my sword and belt and remembered that they were in the grass at the foot of the cherry tree a half a mile outside of our lines. I asked the General for permission to go back and get them and he proceeded to read me a lecture on carelessness. Saying, among other things, which I distinctly remember and always have, that "A soldier should lose his head rather than his sword." So I went back to the picket line and very fortunately for me I happened to know the captain very well who commanded a cavalry troop that was on picket on that spot, that is to say, near the base of the hill. He said to me that he had not seen any Rebel scouts for half an hour and that he would send two of his men with me to get the sword which he did, and we all got back safely without seeing anybody, and the cavalry also got a lot of cherries. I mention this incident so particularly, because it has a very particular bearing upon a very extraordinary occurrence that happened that night. There was an immense park of our wagons not very far from the hill the night before the battle of Malvern Hill, and while the brigade was on the hill in line of battle and sleeping behind the breast works which they had made of logs and earth, a very flimsy sort of breast works, but which by reason of the admirable position on the hill would have been very effective if assaulted, General Taylor received an order informing him that the wagon trains of the army would be burnt that night, and he, accompanied by some others and my old servant, James Huggs, went down into the wagon park and took out a small quantity of their personal belongings, among other things a small hand bag of mine containing some underclothing, my mother's letters, and a few other things of that kind. I did not go with them as I was asleep at the root of a tree, and when the order came the General told my man he did not wish to disturb me. I saw the printed order the next morning. It was in the same form and apparently the same type as that which we received from the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. General Taylor returned to where he had placed his headquarters under a great white pine tree, and my old servant, James Huggs, sat at the camp fire, for, although it had been a hot day, the nights were cool and the fire was lighted. Huggs says that about eleven o'clock while the General was walking up and down between the tree and the fire, the orderly on duty came up to the General and said that a messenger from General McClellan's headquarters wanted to see him outside of the rifle pit, and Huggs says that the General walked straight down that way, he, of course, not going with him. The next morning at grey day light, I awoke with the most intense gnawing hunger that I had ever experienced in my life. I had had nothing to eat but three hard tack, two cups of coffee, and some cherries for two days, and I had ridden probably fifty miles in those two days. I had, moreover, been in a pretty severe fight and had an ugly wound in my leg which hurt me every instant I sat in the saddle. As soon as I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes I saw within about twenty-five yards of me a small pig rooting along on the ground, I also saw right close to me a rifle of the orderly's leaning against the tree, it being the custom then for an orderly merely to have the ram rod in his hand while he was on duty. I knew there was a positive order against the discharge of any firearm without permission, but I was very hungry and there was the pig, so I took deliberate and careful aim, and killed that pig dead. Simultaneously with the crack of the rifle came the voice of General Taylor: "If you had missed him, sir, I would have put you under arrest." He was standing on the other side of the tree and had not lain down all night. The pig was cooked and eaten at once. The battle of Malvern Hill which took place that day was a magnificent pageant for those of our brigade who could see it. The coming down of a great mass of the enemy on the open plain to their utter destruction by the awful artillery fire. It was indeed a cruel and bloody sight, but after it was all over, many of us felt that we were avenged for what had happened at Gaines' Mills.

Those of us who can remember can even see today in our mind's eye, knapsack, hats, and even bodies of men thrown up in the air by the explosions of our shells in the serried masses of the enemy. Our brigade was not engaged at all, some men were hit by spent shots and bits of shells, but I think our casualties were twenty-eight in all. During the day on more than one occasion my attention was called to the fact that General Taylor was not wearing his own sword, but the sword that he was wearing belonged to his son, Captain Taylor, who had been partially disabled in the battle of Gaines' Mills. I noticed this because the two swords were not alike at all, and moreover, because I had been the object of a lesson on carelessness the previous afternoon, but of course I did not say anything.

The morning after the battle of Malvern Hill our brigade marched into a great wheat field at Brandon, near Harrison's Landing, and went into camp in the mud. As soon as the wagons were up and our tents were pitched, General Taylor directed me to mount my horse and accompany him. We went straight down to the James River and up along the river bank until we came to Berkley Mansion, which was General McClellan's headquarters. We had an orderly with us and both dismounted and left our horses with the orderly. I accompanied the General into the house and upstairs to the second floor. There were a number of wounded men in the house lying on the floors, and the house was crowded with officers of all grades. General Taylor went into a room on the second floor which I afterwards found was General McClellan's private headquarters and in a few minutes came out and said to me. "I shall be here for some time, you may make yourself comfortable, and when I want you I will call you." So I went out of the house, for it was indeed a grewsome place. It was raining hard, and after telling the orderly to spread an oil cloth blanket, which I had, over my horse, I looked around for a place to make myself comfortable, and found a chicken coop with some bright dry straw on the floor (there were no chickens in it) so I lay down and went to sleep. In about an hour an orderly called me. The General was standing on the porch, mounting our horses we rode off towards camp, I riding, of course, a horse's length behind the General. After going about two or three hundred yards, he checked his horse and said: "Ride up along side of me." Which I did. He then said: "Did you notice that I did not have my sword when I went to General McClellan's headquarters?" I said: "I did, sir, I noticed that you had neither sword nor belt." He said: "You see I have got them now." I said: "I do, sir." He said: "Well, I got them at General McClellan's headquarters." He said: "Last night while you were asleep an orderly told me that a messenger from General McClellan wanted to see me outside the rifle pit, I went there and two men on gray horses met me, one of whom was dismounted. This man presented a pistol at my head and instantly demanded my sword. Believing that I was captured and a prisoner there was nothing else for me to do but give him my sword which I did. Upon taking it he immediately mounted his horse and rode off."

That is all that General Taylor ever told me on the subject, and it is all I know about it. (I may add that General McClellan's body guard always rode gray horses). The fact is that this occurred, on my word as a gentleman and a soldier, exactly as I have stated it.

As the brigade was marching in to the great wheat field at Berkley where the army was then commencing to encamp, suddenly and without any idea that the enemy was in the vicinity, several shells came in and exploded among the wagon trains which were in the road along side of which our men were marching. My recollection is that not more than a dozen shells came. A regiment of Zouaves, which I think were the 55th of New York, went back in double-quick, and I understood captured two guns which the enemy had run up close to our encampment without any supports whatever. The official records will show the circumstances of this. I remember that one of the shells exploded within a few feet of General Taylor's horse.

Some incidents of interest occurred during our encampment at Malvern Hill. It was hot and uncomfortable and sorrowful, for there were many deaths and bands playing the Dead March were continually heard through the day. Deaths from sickness and many wounded.

One night, a few nights after we encamped, we were roused at midnight by a very lively cannonade from the opposite side of the river. Our camp was about a quarter of a mile back from the river, the long roll was beaten throughout the army and the brigade turned out and stood in line. I do not think there were any casualties in the brigade though there were some in our division from its shells. One man I remember as Dr. Oakley asked me to go and see a man in the field hospital who had his entire stomach carried away by shells and lived four days afterwards. This wound is reported among the curiosities of the war. I saw the man twice and strange to say, he appeared to be suffering no pain except through hunger.

A few days after our arrival at the Camp, President Lincoln came down and reviewed the army. I presume by reason of the small space in which it was necessary to hold it each brigade was drawn up on the northern side of its own camp in double columns, closed en masse, and the field officers were dismounted. My clothing, all except the one suit which I had during the seven days' battle, had been lost and it happened that the only coat I had was a short jacket coming to the waist, and the only trousers I had were those which I had worn since the 27th of June. My saddle had been hit twice with pieces of shell, once while I was in it and once when I was not. It was not torn much but the screws were all loosened in it and one of them had worked up and from day to day had torn my trousers to such an extent that I can only say they were not fit to appear in review; so upon seeing my condition General Taylor excused me from going in the review and I sat in the door of my tent next to General Taylor's and within a few feet of it. President Lincoln rode a large bay horse and was dressed in a black frock coat and a high silk hat and rode at the head of the cavalcade with General McClellan and his staff of probably a hundred officers immediately behind him. They passed down from east to west along the front of the army, the President taking off his hat as he passed the colors of each brigade. When they arrived in front of our brigade they halted and General Taylor and the President came up to General Taylor's tent, no others were with them. The President dismounted and my servant, James Huggs, who is still living, brought camp stools and they sat down under the fly of General Taylor's tent; it seems that the President wanted a drink of water, the day being very hot. James Huggs went to the spring a few yards away and got some water and the President drank heartily of it; as he got up to go away he saw me standing in the position of a soldier facing him at my tent door and he said to General Taylor: "I suppose this is one of your staff, I hope that he has not been wounded?" General Taylor called me to them and told him that I was Captain Grubb on his staff, and told one or two very pleasant things about me to the President which caused my cheeks to tingle and then taking me by the shoulder, he said: "He would have been in the review but his clothes were not good enough to allow him." President Lincoln put his hand on my shoulder, I shall never forget the kind expression of his magnificent eyes, as he looked me in the face and said: "My son, I think your country can afford to give you a new pair of breeches." As these were the only words that President Lincoln ever said to me they impressed themselves very deeply on my mind. I have never forgotten them and never shall.

The rest of our stay at Harrison's Landing is filled with unpleasant memories for me. I had contracted typhoid fever although I did not know it and tried to fight it off, and did so until the morning the brigade marched from Harrison's Landing when in the wind and dust of that morning I mounted my brown stallion with great difficulty, fell over the other side of him into the dust and the next thing I remember was awaking up in New York Harbor in the hospital ship some ten days afterwards with two Sisters of Mercy taking care of me and my old servant, James Huggs, standing at the foot of the bed. He had hired a colored man whom he found and helped him carry me down to the water's edge and succeeded in getting me on board the hospital ship "Spaulding" in a little dug out canoe, for the anchor of that ship had been raised and she was the last hospital ship to leave filled with sick and wounded.

I did not know that the brigade had been most dreadfully cut up and General Taylor killed at the Bull Run Bridge until after I had been sent from the hospital ship to my father's house in Burlington, where I found a letter from Colonel Torbert commanding the brigade and asking me to serve on his staff. I joined the brigade just before the Crampton's Pass battle (and my account of that which I delivered at a reunion of the brigade at my place, Edgewater Park, printed at their request I herewith enclose).

We saw the battle of Antietam and were under a terrible artillery fire but we were in the reserve and I am sure that I need only say that it was the opinion of every man and officer in our brigade that if the Sixth Corps had been thrown forward that afternoon over the Burnside bridge after Burnside crossed it and placed across the right flank of the Confederate army, which were all there lying in the wheat field opposite us, the result of that battle would have been far different from what it was.

After Antietam we marched to Bakersville and encamped there and were there joined by the Twenty-third New Jersey Regiment, into which I was promoted as Major a few days before the battle of Fredericksburg. (And I would suggest that as the history of that regiment which, of course, is part of the history of the brigade, has been carefully collected and printed by the Regimental Association of the Twenty-third Regiment, and that regiment was in that brigade until the expiration of its term of service in June, 1863, and in battle with the brigade in the battles of Fredericksburg and Salem Church, that that printed history be received as part of the history of the brigade.)

E. BURD GRUBB.

The Episode of the Surgeon of the Third Regiment

The surgeon of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment was appointed by Governor Olden about ten days after the regiment arrived in Camp Olden. His name was Lorenzo Louis Cox, he was a man about twenty-five years of age. He had a fine appearance, well educated and an excellent surgeon. He was a grandson of Mr. Redmond Cox of Philadelphia, a member of a well known family. Redmond Cox was an intimate friend of my father, but my father had nothing whatever to do with the appointment of Dr. Cox, and did not know of it until after it was made.

After the battle of Bull Run, and during the early autumn the Third Regiment was engaged in erecting Fort Worth, one of the defences of Washington, about a mile west of Alexandria Seminary. Probably the uncovering of so much fresh earth which had to be done in erecting the Fort, which was quite a large one, caused an outbreak of malarial fever, most of it ordinary chills and fever. The sick call was sounded at half-past six every morning and a very large proportion of the regiment filed up to Dr. Cox's tent and received a drink of whiskey and some quinine pills. Those of the Third Regiment who read this will probably remember two very ridiculous occurences in this connection. Dr. Cox had an Irishman who was a private in one of the companies and he was his assistant. The Doctor had a barrel of whiskey in his tent from which he served the rations every morning; he noticed that this whiskey became exhausted more rapidly than in his opinion it should, he therefore poured into the whiskey barrel a very large quantity of quinine, and the consequence was that the next morning his man Patrick was so drunk that he had to be taken down to the creek to be soused to bring him to, and he could not hear for two or three days.

The other occurrence was that one morning on guard mount the Adjutant, whose name was Fairliegh, (an Englishman and the youngest son of Lord Fairliegh), appeared on his horse, which was a light bay and which had been striped with white paint on the ribs during the night and every hair on his tail shaved off. It transpired at the regimental court-martial that Dr. Cox's Patrick was very largely responsible for the damage to the Adjutant's horse. During the months of August and September and also during the whole winter of 1861-1862 the First New Jersey Brigade picketed in front of their lines, and during August and September these pickets were not very far from and in front of Alexandria, not more than three miles at the utmost. The enemy's pickets were very close to ours and a number of skirmishes along the Little River turn pike and the corn fields adjacent thereto occurred. Gradually our picket lines were advanced until, about the latter part of September, we took in Mrs. Fitzhugh's plantation and picketed almost up to Annandale. Dr. Cox and his assistant were out along the picket lines almost every afternoon. Many of the men would be ailing and there was an occasional gun-shot wound that would have to be looked after. Dr. Cox rode a very handsome cream-colored mule, and Patrick had an army horse, Patrick carried the knap-sack of medical stores and surgical instruments strapped on his back. One afternoon Dr. Cox, who had visited Mrs. Fitzhugh's plantation several times, and it was at that time a little outside of our picket lines, started to go there again, when he was pounced upon by six of the Louden scouts, Confederate Cavalry, and, although he tried to make his mule run away from them he could not do so and was captured, Patrick jumped off his horse and ran into the woods and succeeded in getting back into our lines with his medical knap-sack. He reported Dr. Cox killed as there had been several pistol shots fired, Cox was not armed. On the evening of the next day, Dr. Cox returned to the camp of the Third Regiment and reported the facts about as I have related them here to Colonel Taylor, and also to all of the officers of the regiment who were his friends and who were interested in the occurrence. He told us that he had been taken to Mannassas Junction and had been for some time in the tent of General Joseph E. Johnson, the commander of the Rebel Army that then faced us. Everybody was glad of his release which was of course because of his being a non-combattant. He resumed his duties and I do not remember that the incident was spoken of again in the regiment until the following very curious occurrence took place.