Part 18

J. H. Burnham also of "A," recalls, "The march down the Brock Road with the Fifth Corps from the Wilderness, the night of the 7th of May, and our running into Longstreet's corps, then under General Anderson. The rebels were behind, hastily erected breast works and were ready for us. We advanced across an open field and suffered much from the rifle fire. When near the works, I was hit in the abdomen. Throwing down my gun, I made my way back across the field, over the dead and dying, and lay down under a tree in front of a house. As this was early in the morning of the 8th, I don't think there were many other wounded men there then, but later others came. Sometime in the forenoon, a lady came out of the house and asked me if I was badly hurt. She also said that she was from New Jersey. It seems as though she said the place was the Laurel Hill farm, though I understand it is known in history as the Alsop farm. The next day came the ambulances, tents and other outfit of the Fifth Corps. I should like to go there some day and have a look at the place where I expected to give up my life. I carried the ball in my body for months and have it now. I never rejoined the Regiment."

We owe much to Colonel Peirson's recollections of the service of the Regiment, but in this affair at Alsop's he fails to recount a story remembered by McDonald of "B," who says that in the company was a tall Scotchman, Hunter by name, much inclined to stoop and, for this reason was frequently enjoined by the critical Lieut. Colonel to take "the position of a soldier." In the advance of this trying Sunday, Robert was stooping as usual when a bullet went through his cap. When the ball was over and the opportunity came, Hunter sought the officer and, holding up his headgear, remarked, "Now, look at that; if I had ta'en the position of a so'ger, be G-d, that ball wud a gone thru' my heed." R. W. Hall of "F" recites an interesting experience of this 8th of May, "I had penetrated the abatis in front of the Rebs and was unable to extricate myself in time, when our boys fell back, and with about one hundred and fifty others was taken prisoner, but I never saw the inside of a rebel prison, as Sheridan in his great raid overtook us toward evening of the following day at Beaver Dam Station on the Virginia Central Railroad, where we were waiting. How plainly I can see General Custer and another cavalryman in the lead, when they dashed down the road as we were about to take the train for Richmond. Of course we had to keep up with the cavalry during the raid and to dodge the Rebs who, in small squads, contested the way. Their General Stuart was killed or mortally wounded, May 11th, at the Yellow Tavern, in a very hot fight. After several days' rapid marching, we came out at Malvern Hill, on the James. The gunboats took us for Rebs and gave us several shots. City Point, on the other side of the river, was not so very far away and thence we ex-prisoners took a transport for Alexandria, where we were re-equipped and sent to the front as guard for a supply-train of the Ninth Corps. When Nelson and I reported for duty the surprise we gave our comrades may be imagined."

[Sidenote: MAY 8, '64]

The 8th was a bloody day for the Thirty-ninth, the summary of losses revealing ninety-three killed, wounded and missing. Lieutenant Dusseault was wounded in the breast but an army button diverted the bullet. As he wrote in his diary, "I was within thirty feet of the enemy's works, and when I was hit, I was sure I was killed, as the force of the blow caused me to spin round and round like a top, and I fell to the ground. Finding I was not seriously hurt, I jumped up and joined in the retreat. When we got back, we found Captain W. C. Kinsley of Company K in tears; 'Look at my company!' he cried, 'Only seven men left out of eighty-seven!' But he was assured that the woods were full of our men and that his would be in shortly. It proved to be so. We were not called on for the rest of the day, and that night we obtained some sleep."

During the closing hours of the 8th, there was digging for the Fifth Corps and the early hours of the 9th found the hard worked soldiers still using the shovel; the night and the following day showing no less than three distinct efforts in this direction for the Thirty-ninth, a record in which the stories of the Sixteenth Maine and Thirteenth Massachusetts accord. Of the day itself and the new positions of the several corps, Colonel Peirson remarks, "The 9th was another hot and dusty day, and the Fifth and Sixth Corps occupied it in pressing the enemy and developing his position, seeking points of assault. The enemy were still passing down during the morning the Parker's Store Road, in dangerous proximity to our right and rear, and Hancock's Second Corps was at 10 a. m. moved into position on Warren's right, making lines of battle along the crest commanding the valley of the Po, the artillery shelling the rebel trains which were in sight, causing them to take a more sheltered road." The new position of the opposing forces might be stated, briefly: from the northwest to the southeast, a distance of two miles, were Hancock and his Second Corps at the right, next to Warren and the Fifth; then Sedgwick with the Sixth; and at the extreme Union left, Burnside and the Ninth Corps. At the rebel right was Hill's Corps, now under Early; the extreme left was held by Longstreet's men, under Anderson; and the intermediate distance, including the famous Salient, was occupied by Ewell's Corps.

The event of the 9th which emphasized it in the annals of the campaign was the death of Sedgwick, Commander of the Sixth Corps. Since the fall of Reynolds at Gettysburg, no similar misfortune had befallen the army of equal importance; universally respected, all but idolized by his own men, his very presence at any time was worth whole brigades to the cause he loved. "While standing behind an outer line of works, personally superintending and directing, as was his custom, the posting of a battery of artillery at an angle which he regarded of great importance, he was shot through the head by a rebel sharpshooter, and died instantly. Never had such a gloom rested upon the whole army on account of the death of one man as came over it when the heavy tidings passed along the lines that General Sedgwick was killed." He was Connecticut born, West Point, 1837, having as classmates, Hooker, E. D. Townsend, and Wm. H. French, late Commander of the Third Corps, all of the Union Army; while his rebel fellows included Braxton Bragg, Pemberton of Vicksburg fame, and one might wonder whether Jubal Early, over at the rebel right, had a twinge of sadness over the summary taking off of the man who, in earlier times, had stood by his side on the West Point parade ground. Born in 1813, Sedgwick was not yet fifty-one years old when sought by the enemy's bullet.

[Sidenote: MAY 9, '64]

Some of the besetments of army life and duty at this time are well set forth in the story that Lieutenant Dusseault, of Company H, tells of his efforts to replenish the supply of ammunition for the brigade: "That same night--and it was a dark one too--I was detailed to go back to the ordnance train for ammunition. I had sixty men from the five different regiments of our Brigade to help me. I was ordered to bring 25,000 rounds (twenty-five boxes). We had secured the requisite amount and were returning to the brigade in the thick darkness. As it took two men to carry a box, which was supported on a blanket between them, it was impossible to keep the men together, and as I did not know them, many of them dropped their burdens and ran away. When we got back to our camping place, we found that the brigade had moved on a mile and a half further. When I came to my superior officer, I had but seven boxes to deliver to him. Rousing from his sleep, he ordered me to go back immediately and secure the rest, and then turned over and went to sleep again. It had to be done and at about two or three o'clock in the morning I reported the second time, not with the lost boxes, but with enough others that had been obtained in a way which I will not stop to explain."

May 10th adds another day to the long battle list of 1864; while a part of the Spottsylvania encounter, it bears to those who had a part, the sub-title of "Laurel Hill," the location being in the same vicinity as that of Sunday's fight at Alsop's Farm, possibly somewhat further towards the south. While there was fighting along the entire line, of that portion of the same in which we are directly interested, Swinton, in his history of the Army of the Potomac, says:--

"The point against which the attack was designed to be made was a hill held by the enemy in front of Warren's line. This was perhaps the most formidable point along the enemy's whole front. Its densely wooded crest was crowned by earthworks, while the approach, which was swept by artillery and musketry fire, was rendered more difficult and hazardous by a heavy growth of low cedars, mostly dead, the long bayonet-like branches of which, interlaced and pointing in all directions, presented an almost impassable barrier to the advance of a line of battle. The attack of this position had already been essayed during the day by troops of the Second and Fifth Corps, and with most unpromising results. When Hancock's divisions joined the Fifth, an assault was made by the troops of both corps at five o'clock; but it met a bloody repulse. The men struggled bravely against an impossible task, and even entered the enemy's breastworks at one or two points; but they soon wavered and fell back in confusion and great slaughter. Notwithstanding the disastrous upshot of this assault, the experience of which had taught the troops that the work assigned them was really hopeless, a second assault was ordered, an hour after the failure of the first. The repulse of this was even more complete than that of the former effort. The loss in the two attacks was between five and six thousand, while it is doubtful whether the enemy lost as many hundreds. Among the killed was Brigadier General Rice[M] of the Fifth Corps, distinguished for his intrepid bearing on many fields."

This was the day, when at the left of the Fifth Corps a portion of the Sixth was more successful, yet even its fruits were not held. General Emory Upton of the First Division, Second Brigade, in a vigorous charge carried the enemy's first line of intrenchments, capturing nine hundred prisoners and several guns. This attack, however, was unsupported and the advantage could not be maintained, so that at nightfall Upton withdrew and the captured guns were left behind. General Meade ascribed the failure of the movement to the lack of expected support from Mott's Division of the Second Corps on his left. The reports of Generals Meade and Warren add nothing to the foregoing while Lieutenant Colonel Peirson particularizes as follows:--

[Sidenote: MAY 10, '64]

"The ground in front of the Laurel Hill position was swept by the enemy's artillery, and our men suffered severely from it. In our own Regiment, we lost several men, killed by the falling limbs of the huge pine trees cut off by the enemy's artillery fire. One of our men was pinned to the ground by one of these limbs, so near to the enemy's line, that, when we retreated, as we did upon receiving a terrific musketry fire at point blank range, he was the only one who saw that after the volley the enemy ran as fast as we did, but in the opposite direction. They soon returned, however, and captured the observer. At some points our troops even entered the breastworks, but the men though brave were easily discouraged, and the long continued strain and fatigue told upon their spirit; and while they would defend their position to the last, or retire in the face of heavy odds with the utmost coolness, the fact remains that the men of the Second and Fifth Corps were not as ambitious on the 10th, as they had been on the 6th and 8th of May."

While the Ninth Corps, General Burnside, did no severe fighting on the 10th, the day nevertheless was significant in Bay State records through the death of General Thomas G. Stevenson, commanding the First Division of that Corps. Born in Boston, February 3, 1836, he early displayed a bent for military matters and at the outbreak of the Rebellion commanded a battalion of militia in Boston harbor. At the head of the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry, he accompanied the Burnside Expedition to North Carolina, winning laurels everywhere. On the return of Burnside from the Southwest, Stevenson who already had won his star, was made commander as above and like Rice and Sedgwick is supposed to have been the victim of a sharpshooter.

While Colonel Peirson has given us a deal of information concerning the beginning of the Battle Summer, he says nothing of the fact that he had, himself, a narrow escape from death. Colonel Theodore Lyman, in his diary, writes of a visit made by himself and General Peirson to these scenes, and has this to offer on his observations:--

"A few hundred yards to the right of where this attack was made, we visited the patch of pine woods, where, on the 10th, Peirson's brigade again advanced to the attack. The brigade advanced to within about one hundred yards of the works, and then began firing in the thick woods, being exposed to a tremendous artillery enfilade, whose marks still remained in the fallen timber. Peirson said he ordered his men to cease firing, finding few balls coming the other way, but got an order from the brigade commander to open again. Then Peirson was knocked senseless by a shell."

Concerning the injury to Colonel Peirson, Lieut. Dusseault of "H" has this version:--

"On the 10th of May at Laurel Hill, our men were lying flat upon the ground, under the enfilading fire of artillery from the left and the direct fire of musketry from the front. As an officer of Company H, I had been trying to get up into the line a private of that company who was lying forty or fifty yards behind it. I had tired of exposing myself in the endeavor and had left him and taken my place in the line. At about that time, Lieutenant Colonel Peirson, who was walking back and forth, erect, as was his custom, saw him and went back to get him up into his place. I went back to help him. We had succeeded in getting him up to within eight or ten feet of the line. The Lieutenant Colonel who was within two feet of me, had his sword in his hand, both arms extended, and was leaning forward a little, when a piece of a shell came between his arms and his body, ripped out the breast of his coat, smashed his field glasses in their case, and jammed the hilt of his sword. He doubled up, fell forward on his head, and then over sideways. Colonel Davis, who was standing eight or ten feet in our rear, asked, 'Lieutenant, is he dead?' and I answered, 'Yes.' I called two men of my company and told them to take him to the rear. They turned him over upon his back, one taking hold of him near the head, and the other by the feet. When they commenced to raise him, his eyes began to blink and he answered the question which had been asked three or four minutes earlier by Colonel Davis, saying, 'No. I guess it isn't much.' He was sent back to the hospital and was very sick there, but he rejoined the Regiment on the 9th of June. Lieutenant Colonel Peirson was strictly a temperance man, but he carried a flask of brandy for emergencies, and he had requested some of the officers to give some to him if he should be hurt. It happened that the shell cut off the lower half of the flask and it fell in front of Private Richardson of Company A. A few drops remained in the flask which Richardson immediately drained, saying, 'They are throwing good brandy at us.'"

[Sidenote: MAY 10, '64]

Of this same event, one of the men of "A" writes, "One piece of shell wounded Colonel Peirson, ripping off a row of buttons from his coat. I picked them up and divided them with the boys. I have one left now. Salem Richardson got the bottom of the Colonel's brandy flask, which was shot away by the same bit of shell, and I wish you could have seen him empty it." The same incident is called up by S. H. Mitchell, also of Company A, whose members evidently were keeping their commander under observation. The flask was carried against an emergency, when it might be of great utility. It offered no resistance whatever to the Confederate missile but Comrade Richardson always averred that the coming of the drink was most opportune. From the story of the Sixteenth Maine, it is learned that this day the brigade was temporarily assigned to the First Division, General Cutler commanding. The Second brigade was placed in the Third Division, under Crawford, and the Third was made independent to report directly to General Warren, these changes being induced, supposedly, on account of the heavy losses and the wounding of the commanding officer, General Robinson.

Possibly the doings of the 11th can be described no better than by copying the record as made at the time by John S. Beck, "Rested all day to-day, if you can call it rest, for we were in a mudhole, out of the range of Rebel shells. Our brigade looks small; drew rations; raining hard, everything wet through, no blankets or shelter tents. I should have been sick were it not for the excitement of battle. Our position here looks dubious, as we have to fight the enemy behind concealed breastworks and in dense woods. To-night we lay down on the wet ground with an old, wet, woolen blanket which I picked up." Considering that this rain was the first since crossing the Rapidan, it really was a comfort even if it did make some, for the time, unpleasantly wet. The 11th is noteworthy from another fact, viz., that it is on this day that Grant telegraphs to Washington the prominent features of the campaign thus far, that reinforcements would be encouraging, and that he purposes "to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer."

Thursday, the 12th of May, is the day of the dread "Salient" or the "Bloody Angle" of Spottsylvania. Had our Regiment been with Barlow's men of the Second Corps, or with the Vermont Brigade of the Sixth, the mortality record of the Thirty-ninth might have been far different, though all participants in any portion of this bloody field have ever thought their losses severe enough. The vision of that First Division of the Second Corps, in the morning mists emerging from the woods at the Union left centre, and with determined rush, "a narrow front, but extending back as far as the eye could see," seeking the Confederate works, is one that memory needs no assistance in recalling. Through wonderful good fortune for us, the artillery of the enemy had been withdrawn and the guns which might have cut wide swaths through that disordered mass of blue, were hastening back, arriving just in time to be captured, the assault resulting in the capture of General Edward Johnson's Division of Ewell's Corps, including the commander, with twenty pieces of artillery and thirty stands of colors. But this did not end the day. So furious was the foe over the loss of men, munitions and position, that the struggle for reinstatement became possibly the fiercest and most deadly of the entire war. Once at least, the bayonet became a weapon of real contact. Here it was that the large oak tree was actually cut down by bullets from both sides. The ground, at the margin of the works, was covered with piles of the dead, and for twenty hours the battle raged, until the wearied rebels withdrew, unable to retake the lines lost in the morning.

In this rapid survey, no mention is made of the Sixth and Ninth Corps, but each one accomplished the task assigned, nor was the Fifth by any means idle. Inferring from the forces pressing upon Hancock in his endeavor to hold advantage of the early morning, that the enemy must be withdrawing his right and left to assist his centre, both Burnside and Warren were ordered forward. Warren obeying, advanced at something after nine o'clock, but was repulsed, "for Longstreet's corps was holding its intrenchments in force." Of this in his report, Warren says:

[Sidenote: MAY 12, '64]

"The enemy's direct and flank fire was too destructive. Lost very heavily. The enemy continuing to fire on the Second and Sixth Corps, I was compelled to withdraw Griffin's and Cutler's divisions (First and Fourth) and send them to the support where they again became engaged. My whole front was held by Crawford's Division (Third) and Kitching's and the Maryland Brigades, presenting a line of battle not as strong as a single line. The enemy made no serious attempt to force it. My divisions on the left were relieved during the night from their position, and returned to the right in the morning, having been kept awake nearly all the night, which was rainy."

A graphic picture of the work of the Brigade is painted by Adjutant Small of the Sixteenth Maine in his history of the Regiment, and a portion of it is reproduced here:

"The men, thoroughly exhausted, would lie at length on the cool, fresh earth, some of the timid ones hugging the bottom of the trench, painfully expressing the dread of something to come. And yet these timid ones, at the first rebel yell, would over and 'at them,' or draw bead on some venturesome Johnnie, and shout with derision if he was made to dodge. If they dropped him, a grim look of satisfaction, shaded with pity, passed over their dirty faces. The quiet was almost unbearable, the heat in the trenches intolerable, and rain, which commenced falling, was most welcome. Time dragged. We had not the slightest hint of what was developing. The rebels seemed very far off and trouble ominously near. From the right came an aide, and, quietly passing down the line of works, he dropped a word to this and that colonel; only a ripple, and all was again suspiciously still. 'What was it, Colonel?' asked the adjutant. The Colonel made no reply but simply pointed up the hill. Soon he took out his watch and looked anxiously to the right. Suddenly a commotion ran down the line, followed by the command, 'Attention! Forward, double quick!' On went the Brigade with a yell which was echoed by thousands of throats in front and was thrown back by the double columns in our rear. Down from the rebel right thundered shot and shell, making great gaps in our ranks, while on swept the Brigade, until suddenly loomed up in our front, three lines of works--literally a tier, one above another,--bristling with rifles ready aimed for our reception. There was lead enough to still every heart that was present, and yet, when sheets of flame shot out in our faces, scarcely a dozen of the Regiment were hit. Then men tore wildly at the abatis, and rushed on only to fall back or die. Again and again did the Brigade charge, and as often came those terrible sheets of flame in our faces, while solid shot and shell enfiladed our ranks. The crash which followed the fearful blaze swept away men, as the coming wind would sweep away the leaves from the laurel overhead.... Just as the last charge of ammunition was rammed home, relief came, when the Brigade retired to the works in the rear, to learn that it was not expected of the Brigade to carry the works, only to hold a strong force of the enemy, while Hancock carried the lines in his front, which were more favorably situated for a successful attack."

It was in the trying scenes of this exacting effort that Major Leavitt, of the Sixteenth, so endeared by his manly character, received the wound from which he died on the 30th instant in Washington. His was a nature too broad and brave to be confined to the limits of his own Regiment. "None knew him but to love him."