Part 15

The Cavalry had been even more active, if possible, than the Infantry during the winter and General Sheridan commented on the lean and hungry look of the horses when he reached the army, but in spite of leanness, this branch was the first to move--some said it had not stopped moving,-and on the 23rd, one man wrote, "The Cavalry moved out to-day" and, could he have foreseen the service that the restless "Little Phil" was to exact from the horsemen, doubtless he had written more at length. He also entered in that same journal, "The covering of our chapel was taken off to-day, so I suppose our meetings are over." Dismantling was the order of Sunday, the 24th, and unroofed cabins lost their homelike look. The move of the 26th looked much like an abandonment of our long time camp and the beginning of active warfare, for the whole brigade, leaving the old camp behind, crossed Cedar Run and, at a point a mile away from the former stopping place, pitched its shelter tents in column by companies, the thirty-ninth Regiment being on the right. Some went back to their old quarters to bring thence boards to help out their sleeping facilities. By this change of camp, it was expected to free the men from all surplus stuff and, at the same time, to re-inure them to the hardships of active campaigning. The remaining days of April were uneventful, given to parades, inspections and drills, wherein knapsacks figured largely, thus testing the endurance of the soldiers and on the 30th, Saturday, the Regiment was mustered for two months' pay, March and April.

[Sidenote: APR. 30, '64]

No month in the year among dwellers in northern regions prompts to brighter, happier thoughts than May; in distant Massachusetts, children who had sought the fragrant arbutus through the daylight hours, were repining that Sunday made it impracticable for them to hang May-baskets when the evening shades appeared, a pleasure deferred however only till the following night. To the men and boys, afar from familiar scenes and cherished friends, the pleasures of peace were denied, and being on the eve of departure, much of regular camp life was omitted. Their neighbors, the Sixteenth Maine, formed in hollow square and had religious services, but letter writing was the most serious employment for the men of the Thirty-ninth. Could they have known the horrors through which they were to pass before another Lord's Day returned, with what eloquence had those messages teemed which carried simply the usual words of love and fealty. Hands that wrote tender words on this May day, ere another week had passed, were folded on soldierly breasts, asleep in battle-made graves. For nearly an entire year, with no long rest in winterquarters, no respite from the noise of combat, the men of the North and their brothers from the South are about to engage in a death grapple, and a baptism of blood awaits the tyros of the Lynnfield camp, the cadets of Edward's Ferry and Poolesville, the Capital guardians of Washington, and the admirably equipped soldiers of Colonel Davis' pride.

Though it is the 2d day of May and we are in the supposedly "Sunny South," snow is plainly visible on the tips of the Blue Ridge and where the mountains are high enough, anywhere snow may be found the whole year round. Company E, Somerville, is taking the least bit of pride to itself in that its Captain Kinsley, the senior officer of that rank, commands in the battalion-drill. Keen observers of signs are these soldier boys and, when they learn that the cars have come up for the last time, and when they hear, at dress parade, a letter of praise and patriotic prompting from General George G. Meade, all this on the 3rd, they know full well that the days of winterquarters are all but ended; certainty is added to surety when, at 10 p. m., three days' rations are issued with the not over cheerful information that they must last us six; at midnight, we are awakened and told to be ready to move in fifteen minutes. How many glances are cast towards the Rapidan, during the nearly three hours' wait before the start is made, not of apprehension but of wonder as to what the outcome will be when "brave Northmen shall the Southern meet in bold, defiant manner?" We know full well that our faces are soon to be set towards the south, that once more the stream, so often crossed and recrossed, will soon greet us again as we pass over or through it; remembering the mettle of the man who is now leading, one who never made provisions for retreat, because he never retreated, we realize that in our progress southward there will be no backward turning, that, while "few shall part where many meet," some of our numbers will survive to carry forward the Flag, and everyone had a perfect conviction of the righteousness of his cause and absolute confidence in its eventual triumph.

[Sidenote: MAY 4, '64]

The main incidents of these days in early May are writing themselves deep in the hearts of America; as long as he lives will every participant, whether in blue or gray, recall the impressions that were his as he realized the immensity of the struggle that is impending. Of it, Grant has said in his Memoirs, "The capture of the Confederate capital and the army defending it was not to be accomplished without as desperate fighting as the world has ever witnessed." Lee left no memoirs but his biographer wrote, "He divined Grant's plans, and cutting the latter from the object of his desires, threw himself upon him in a contest whose fury may be gauged by the fact that the musketry fire continued in one unbroken roar for seventeen hours, and trees were shorn down by the musket balls." The outlines of the movement which began with the start of the Second Corps, at 11 p. m. of the 3rd, crossing at Ely's Ford at six o'clock in the morning of the 4th, followed at Germanna's in turn by that of the Fifth and Sixth Corps in order, have been told in hundreds of places by both tongue and pen; they form the a, b, c of 1864 military history, so we must content ourselves with the fact that when, at three o'clock of the 4th of May, the Thirty-ninth hears that ever significant command, "Forward, March!" the Second Corps, under the lead of Hancock the Superb, is nearing Ely's Ford in its all night's march; and the ever-vigilant Sixth Corps, under glorious "Uncle John" Sedgwick, is only awaiting the advance of our Fifth Corps, led by Warren, around whose head must ever wreathe the halo of Little Round Top, before following to take position at our right in the forthcoming battle-line.

FOOTNOTES:

[I] John Newton, like Winfield Scott and George H. Thomas, was a native of Virginia, and was appointed thence to West Point, where he was graduated in 1842, No. 2, in a class that included Rosecrans, Pope, Seth Williams, Doubleday, Sykes and other noted Federal leaders and Longstreet, D. H. Hill, Gustavus W. Smith, McLaws and Van Dorn of the Confederates. In continuous service in the Engineer Corps, he had attained the rank of captain when the war began. He was assistant engineer in the construction of the defenses of Washington; served through the Peninsular campaign; was at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg and followed Reynolds as commander of the First Corps. After leaving the Army of the Potomac, he commanded a division in the Fourth Corps, under O. O. Howard, in the army of the Cumberland having a part in the campaign which culminated in the capture of Atlanta, September 1864. Later he commanded various districts in Florida until his muster-out from the volunteer service, January 1866. His subsequent life was devoted to engineering, among his most notable deeds being the removal of obstructions in Hell Gate, the narrow passage of East River, between Long Island Sound and New York Harbor. Subsequent to his resignation from the army in 1884, he became Commissioner of Public Works in New York City; at the time of his death in his seventy-second year, May 1, 1895, he was president of the Panama Railroad and of the Panama and Columbian Steamship Companies.

THE WILDERNESS

At first our own course is northward, toward Culpeper, then we bear off to the right, passing the headquarters of the Sixth Corps, and those of the Army of the Potomac skirting the base of Pony Mountain and on to Germanna, remembered well in our Mine Run campaign. Though nominally, for several days a part of the Fifth Corps, we do not actually meet any part of the Corps itself till just before reaching the ford. We cross the river at about 11 a. m., nowhere encountering any opposition from the enemy, who evidently is endeavoring to ascertain what Grant's objective may be, catching up with the other portions of the Corps late in the afternoon. After an arduous march of considerably more than twenty miles, burdened by heavy knapsacks, filled in winter quarters, our division bivouaced near the Wilderness Tavern.[J] From this point the almost countless campfires of our army could be seen, always an impressive sight, and never were the soldiers of the Potomac Army in a more impressible mood than after their long period in winter quarters. Of the troop thus in bivouac, Lieut. Porter of Company A wrote, "The men were in the best of spirits. They believed that the supreme effort to bring the rebellion to a close was being made. There were enthusiasm and determination in the minds of everyone." A year ago the word "Wilderness" was frequently heard as the events of Chancellorsville were discussed and now it is to gain even wider mention; it seems a name quite out of place in the midst of the Old Dominion, not so far from the very first settlements in British North America.

General Morris Schaff in his story of the great battle says this of the section, "What is known as the Wilderness begins near Orange Court House on the west and extends almost to Fredericksburg, twenty-five or thirty miles to the east. Its northern bounds are the Rapidan and the Rappahannock and, owing to the winding channels, its width is somewhat irregular. At Spottsylvania, its extreme southern limit, it is some ten miles wide." Considerably more than a hundred years before, there were extensive iron mines worked in this region under the directions of Alexander Spottswood, then governor of Virginia. To feed the furnaces the section was quite denuded of trees and the irregular growth of subsequent years, upon the thin soil, of low-limbed and scraggy pines, stiff and bristling chinkapins, scrub-oaks and hazel bushes gave rise to the appellation so often applied. Hooker and Chancellorsville are already involved in memories of the region and coming days will give equal associations with Grant and Meade, while the Confederates, remembering that within its mazes their own shots killed their peerless leader, Jackson, ere many hours have passed will lament a similar misfortune to Longstreet.

[Sidenote: MAY 4, '64]

Within this tangled thicket, artillery will be of no avail and the vast array of thunderers will stand silent as artillerymen hear the roar of musketry; cavalry will be equally out of the question, but within firing distance more than two hundred thousand men will consume vast quantities of gunpowder in their efforts to destroy each other. It is generally understood that General Grant did not expect an encounter with Lee within the Wilderness itself, as is evident in Meade's orders to Hancock and the Second Corps; indeed on the 5th the latter was recalled from Chancellorsville to the Brock Road at the left of the Fifth Corps, the Confederates having displayed a disposition to attack much earlier than the Union Commanders had thought probable; how Sedgwick and the Sixth Corps held the Union right, Warren and his Fifth the centre and Hancock with the Second were at the left are figures from the past well remembered by participant and student. While every movement of the Union Army has a southern tendency, a disposition to get nearer to Richmond, yet in the Wilderness all of the fighting was along a north and south line, the enemy exhibiting an unwillingness to be outflanked as easily as the new leader of the Potomac Army had evidently expected.

In the morning of the 5th of May, General Richard S. Ewell commands the Confederate left with "Stonewall" Jackson's old army or what may be left of it; next to him, at his right, is A. P. Hill with the divisions of Wilcox, Heth, Scales and Lane; Longstreet has not arrived as yet, the morning finding him as far away as Gordonville, but he is making all the speed possible towards the scene of conflict, and when he arrives his station will be on the rebel right, his lieutenants being Anderson, Mahone, Wofford and Davis. The intricacies of this jungle-infested region are much better known to the Southern soldiers than to those from the North, and this knowledge is a full compensation for any disparity in numbers known to exist. Burnside and the Ninth Corps of the Federal forces are just crossing the Rapidan after a forced march from Rappahannock Station and when they reach the battle line, it will be to occupy some of the thinly covered interval between Warren and Hancock. All of the amenities of the long winter months are now forgotten, and war to the death is confronting every combatant, whether in blue or gray.

In coming days, these men will recount the events of May, 1864, and while the roar of musketry will play a veritable diapason of war for them, they will not forget how readily they dropped the musket and, grasping axe or shovel, felled the trees and, weaving them into earth-covered breastworks, interposed thus much protection from the cruel missiles of the enemy. If the survivors of the Potomac Army in the battle summer had chosen to wear subsequently as under-guards or supports of their respective Corps-badges, whether, trefoil, Greek or Maltese Cross or shield, the semblance of musket and shovel crossed, no one would have questioned its oppositeness. However averse men may have been to the regular use of pick and shovel, experience soon told them that an old fence rail, a small sapling or a shovelful of earth might ward off a hostile bullet and, lacking the intrenching tools, they were known to throw up, in an incredibly brief time, serviceable defenses, using no more effective utensils than their bayonets, case-knives and tin plates. Future archaeologists, in the Wilderness region, will have difficulty in distinguishing between the works of the Eighteenth century miners and their soldier successors more than a hundred years later. Deeply scarred was the battle-riven surface of the Old Dominion and, centuries hence, poets and historians will wax as eloquent over some of these fiercely contested places as did Charles Dickens over the bloody field of Shrewsbury where "the stream ran red, the trodden earth became a quagmire and fertile spots marked the places where heaps of men and horses lay buried indiscriminately, enriching the ground." Macaulay, too, never wrote with more brilliant pen than when he described the poppy-strewn plain of Neerwinden, "fertilized with twenty thousand corpses."

[Sidenote: MAY 5, '64]

If Grant had known as definitely the mind of Lee as the latter appeared to divine the intentions of the Union General, the story of the Wilderness might have been very different. The orders for the morning of the 5th were for Warren to move to Parker's store, towards the southwest; Sedgwick was to follow Warren, ranging up at his right; Hancock with the Second Corps was to advance, also towards the southwest, his left to reach to Shady Grove Church. The enemy was discovered before Warren reached Parker's store and he was ordered to attack; Getty and the Second Division of the Sixth Corps were sent to defend Warren's left flank and Wright with the First Division of the Sixth Corps was ordered up to Warren's right, and at nine o'clock Hancock was ordered to come to the support of Getty, all this happening where Grant had expected, at least had hoped for, an unopposed passage. Instead of a retreating enemy, Warren opened the great battle of the Wilderness by an attack upon a foe ready for the fray; but let the Fifth Corps Commander tell his own story:--

"Set out according to orders, 6. a. m., towards Parker's store--Crawford, Wadsworth, Robinson; enemy reported close at hand in force, and when Crawford had nearly reached Parker's, Generals Meade and Grant arrived and determined to attack the force on the road near Griffin (Warren's right division). Wadsworth was gotten into line immediately on the left of Griffin with one brigade of Crawford, Robinson in support. We attacked with this force impetuously, carried the enemy's line, but being flanked by a whole division of the enemy were compelled to fall back to our first position, leaving two guns on the road between the lines that had been advanced to take advantage of the first success. The horses were shot and the guns removed between our lines. The attack failed because Wright's (Third) division of the Sixth Corps was unable on account of the woods to get up on our right flank and meet the division (Johnson's Ewell's Corps) that had flanked us. Wright became engaged some time afterward. We lost heavily in this attack, and the thick woods caused much confusion in our lines. The enemy did not pursue us in the least. We had encountered the whole of Ewell's Corps. The enemy that moved on past Parker's along the Plank Road was Hill's corps. General Getty's division of the Sixth Corps was sent to the intersection of the Brock Road to check the column, which it did, and General Hancock was ordered up from Todd's tavern, and also engaged Hill's corps. At this time I sent Wadsworth with his division and Baxter's (Second) Brigade (Second Division) to attack Hill's left flank as he engaged Hancock. It was late when this was done, but the attack produced considerable impression. Wadsworth's men slept on their arms where night overtook them. During the night, I sent instructions to Wadsworth to form in line northeast and southwest, and go straight through, and orders were given to attack next morning at 4.30 with the whole army, Burnside being expected up by that time to take part. With the rest of my force I prepared to attack Ewell in conjunction with a part of the Sixth Corps."

During the day, General Alexander Hays, commanding a brigade in the Second Corps was killed, a contemporary of Grant at West Point, he was one of the bravest of the brave; Generals Getty and Carroll were wounded, but remained on the field. The report of General Robinson, commanding the division, does not add any essentials to the report of General Warren. Unfortunately no report of our Brigade nor of the regiments composing it are found. Comrade Beck of Company C has this to say of his observations during the day:--

"Turned out at three o'clock and started at about light; after some delay found the rebels in force; the advance forces of our Corps drove the enemy from his first line of works; we were in reserve till about 12 m., when we were ordered into line-of-battle on the right of the Plank Road; dead and wounded are in evidence and there is hot work ahead. The Rebs have a strong position across a ravine; our artillery could not be placed in position; volley after volley was fired all day from all along, both left and right; we had to lay low, the balls whistled thick around us; at six o'clock were ordered to charge but were ordered back; it would have been madness, since the enemy had a cross fire on us. We lay in line-of-battle all night; many of our wounded could not be reached, and it was awful to hear their cries; when the stretcher-bearers tried to get them, the Rebs opened a battery on them."

[Sidenote: MAY 5, '64]

Readers with memories will recall that, some time after Gettysburg, Longstreet was detached from the Army of Lee and sent to Georgia to help the Confederates whom Rosecrans was pressing hard; sometime before this, early in 1863, two divisions of the Ninth Corps had been withdrawn from the Potomac and dispatched to the Department of the Ohio to aid in the campaign Burnside was then projecting. Both Confederates and Federals had returned to the East; Longstreet, most remote of the rebel array, had been striving to reach the field where his chief was struggling with the Union Army and, by one of the most wonderful coincidences in all history, Burnside and his following, save two divisions, were swinging into position between Warren and Hancock, only a few minutes later than Longstreet when the latter came up to the help of Hill. Grant in his Memoirs says that Meade wished the hour of attack on the 6th to be set at 6 a. m., an hour and a half later than the orders of the night of the 5th. "Deferring to his wishes as far as I was willing, the order was modified and 5 was fixed as the hour to move." So then we come to the 6th of May and a resumption of Warren's report:--

"At precisely five o'clock the fighting began. General Wadsworth I re-enforced with Colonel Kitching, 2400 strong (an independent brigade of the Fourth Division). He fought his way entirely across the Second Corps' front to the south side of the Plank Road, and wheeling round commenced driving them up the Plank Road toward Orange Court House. The accumulating force of the enemy staggered his advance, and the line became confused in the dense woods. In the very van of the fight, General Wadsworth was killed by a bullet through his head, and General Baxter was wounded. On our right, the enemy was found to be intrenched and but little impressions could be made. I then sent another brigade to sustain General Hancock, who had now two of my divisions and one of the Sixth Corps, and was defending himself from both Hill and Longstreet. They charged and took possession of a part of his line but were driven out again. Late in the evening, the enemy turned General Sedgwick's right very unexpectedly, and threw most of his line into confusion. I sent General Crawford at double-quick, and the line was restored to him.... In most respects, the result of the day's fighting was a drawn battle."