USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Cornwall > Historical records of the town of Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut; > Part 47
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When there was a vacancy in the command of a
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division upon the Upper Potomac by the strange and un- accountable arrest, never explained, of Gen. Charles P. Stone, Sedgwick was sent to the command of this division, then described as a corps of observation. But when at last the Army of the Potomac was completed and took the field in organized corps, Sedgwick's division became a part of the Second Army Corps.
Down the broad waters of the Potomac in that early day in spring, amid the thunders of artillery from fleet to fort, with waving flags and streamers gaily decked, hun- dreds of vessels sailed day after day, conveying the great Army of the Potomac to its destination at Fort Monroe, to begin the grand advance on Richmond.
Sedgwick's connection with these important events re- veals one magnificent episode.
At Fair Oaks, on the 30th of May, when the treacher- ous river rose and seemed to sweep all hope of succor from the left wing of the Army of the Potomac, on which the whole force of the rebellion was suddenly hurled ; when bridge after bridge so carefully constructed had given way, and there remained but one, over which the water poured in a mighty torrent, and which was held in place by ropes attached to the trees upon either bank, Sedgwick's great will and iron nerve rose to the occasion higher than the waves, stronger than the mad river; and over the trem- bling bridge, through the surging waters, he led his men, dragged his artillery, and accomplished a passage marvelous in its achievement, magnificent in its results.
With his arrival on that field all danger to the army and the cause for that day was removed. The enemy were re- pulsed and driven back at all points, and the following day defeated on every portion of the field. This affair illus- trated one peculiar trait of Sedgwick's character and life. He was always at the right spot at the right time, and he seemed to get there or be there with such quiet precision that there appeared nothing strange in it until you criti- cally examined the obstacles overcome. This feature fitted him peculiarly for the command of the Sixth Corps, which he attained somewhat later, for throughout the history of that corps repeated instances on important occasions are to
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be found when its prompt and timely arrival accomplished decisive results. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that when such a commander succeeded to such a corps, that the reputation of both should stand high through the army.
At Antietam, under the blue September sky in the early dawn, the reorganized Army of the Potomac, under its old commander, confronted upon a single field its old opponent. Hitherto all our great battles had been fought upon one side or the other in detail. Sedgwick commanded his division under the gallant Sumner, pushed forward on the right, leading his men with that earnest determination which always implied that the thing that he set out to do must be accomplished in spite of human resistance. His men melted away under the steady and destructive fire, yet he pressed the enemy back through the woods and the cornfield, beyond the memorable Dunker Church. He was bleeding from a painful wound, to which he referred petu- lantly as being merely an annoyance and awkward just at that time. At last, again struck by an enemy's bullet, he fell from loss of blood and exhaustion, and was carried from the field. His Adjutant-General, the gallant Major WVm. D. Sedgwick, fell mortally wounded at his side. The contest at this point had been severe beyond description, and when Sedgwick's bleeding body was borne away, and the hearts of the men were drooping, it was the old Sixth Corps that pressed forward under Franklin and Smith and Slocum to restore our broken ranks, to save the remnant of Sedgwick's division, and assist in completing the glorious work of the day, and one of the greatest victories of the war. Sedgwick's wounds were very painful, but long be- fore they were fully healed he was back in the field, and assigned to the command of the Ninth Corps. Referring to the pain and annoyance of his wounds, he once said laughingly : "If I am ever hit again, I hope it will settle me at once. I want no more wounds."
When the customary and expected change was made in the command of the Army of the Potomac after the first Fredericksburg, an interchange of commanders was ordered between the Ninth and Sixth Corps, which placed
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General " Baldy " Smith in command of the one and Gen- eral Sedgwick as the chief of the other. He joined the corps at the camp on the Rappahannock known as White Oak Church. When he came he was kindly received, even enthusiastically, notwithstanding the corps greatly mourned its late commanders, both Franklin and Smith.
The winter passed monotonously enough. It was a dismal camp, and the days went by right heavily until at the opening of spring our ancient labor was resumed, and once more the faithful old Army of the Potomac found itself upon the hated pontoons, crossing the river of death preliminary to the battles which made up the sad record of the Chancellorsville campaign. Inasmuch as this cam- paign and the events connected with it constitute perhaps the most important part of Sedgwick's history, I shall de- vote more of my time to it than to any other of the actions in which he was engaged.
The movements of General Hooker at that time were singularly well planned. Our army occupying the Fal- mouth Heights and the left bank of the Rappahannock was confronted by the army of General Lee occupying the opposite bank, the city of Fredericksburg, Marye's Heights, and the river above and below the city, a distance of some miles.
Hooker's plan consisted of transferring the greater part of the army rapidly and secretly some twenty miles above Lee's position, crossing the river in force, marching to the flank and rear of the rebel line, and compelling the enemy to evacuate a strongly fortified position, and come out and give battle outside his works in order to save his communication with Richmond.
While the movement was in progress Sedgwick was left near his original camp a few miles below Fredericksburg in command of three corps of the army composing the left wing. These were his own, the Sixth Corps, the First, under command of General John F. Reynolds, and the Third, under command of General Daniel E. Sickles. With this strong force he was to cross the river, threaten the enemy's fortified position below Fredericksburg and, with- out bringing on, if he could avoid it, a general engagement,
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so conditet himself as to make the enemy believe that it was his intention to do so at any moment. In other words, he was left to create a formidable diversion, but still strong enough to fight if necessary. The crossing of the river was accomplished in the night time. The enemy's pickets occu- pied the opposite bank and were within easy talking dis- tance of our men. The rumble of heavy wagons carrying the pontoon boats could be heard across the river, and it was therefore determined that the boats should be carried down upon the shoulders of the men. The light brigade under Gen. Calvin E. Pratt was assigned to this important duty. After much delay, trouble, and vexation, the boats were at last launched before the enemy had any full realization of what was about to occur. The night was dark and foggy, but sounds could be heard at an unusual distance. Two or three times from the opposite bank the rebel pickets hailed with the usual "Hallo there, Yank, what's going on over there ? What are you doing ?" Our pickets occasionally replied, "Johnnie, we're coming over after you." This style of conversation occurred at intervals during the night as some unusual sound attracted the enemy's attention. When the boats were launched and manned by soldiers of the engineer brigade as oarsmen, the troops of General David A. Russell were embarked, sixty men in a boat, and in silence, the oars no more than making a ripple in the water, forty boat loads slowly pushed from the shore side by side, and were lost in the fog before they had gone twenty feet from land. The dead silence still continued while those upon the shore watched with beating hearts, and listened with anxiety not to be described. It seemed an everlasting time while each one peered through the fog which fell like a pall upon the gallant band that had left us for the other shore. The river is not more than eighty or one hundred yards wide at this point, but the progress of the boats, owing probably to the necessity of going with great silence, was unusually slow. There was ominous still- ness on the other bank. There seemed to be no movement of troops ; we could hear no rumbling of artillery.
Suddenly upon the night air there rang from the enemy one single clear word distinctly heard in all the boats, and
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across upon our bank and well understood, "Fire !" The blaze of musketry in the fog along the whole river bank for two hundred yards seemed like the sudden opening of one great mouth of flame. The crash that followed took away some of the scenic effect of this brilliant display, and was of itself robbed of its effectiveness by the uncomfortable accompaniment of rattling bullets which, fortunately for those in the boats, were aimed too high to do much harm, except upon the innocent spectators who had not yet em- barked. The rebel yell, familiar as it was to all of 11s, never seemed so ominous and disagreeable. Nothing was heard from the boats except here and there a word of com- mand or encouragement, and afterwards as the fire from the farther bank continued and grew after the first volley more straggling, the anxiety for one word from Russell became grave and great. In a few seconds a boat was seen returning, and our hearts grew chilled, believing that the attempt to land had been abandoned. As the boat, how- ever, came out of the fog, it was seen that it was empty except as to the oarsmen. Then in another instant a clear, loud, exultant cheer, followed by another and another, told us that the works on the other bank were ours. The boats made another trip, carrying other regiments, and then the bridges were rapidly laid down and completed soon after daylight. In the meantime, a second crossing was effected about one mile further below on the river where Reynolds threw across one of his divisions. For three days we remained in this position skirmishing every day, keeping two divisions on the enemy's side of the river, the rest of the command in readiness to cross. Meanwhile Hooker with the rest of the army had rapidly and admirably accom- plished the crossing of the river and the great flank march which formed the essential feature of his plan of action. With Slocum in advance he was sweeping down upon the enemy's flank, capturing even their outlying pickets. Upon Hooker's arrival on the field, for reasons never fully explained or understood, he checked Slocum's further advance in the direction of Fredericksburg, contracted his own lines and seemed to assume the defensive, and main- tained it during the rest of those unfortunate operations.
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Meanwhile he withdrew from Sedgwick's command first Sickles' corps and then Reynolds', which had to march to join him by way of one of the upper fords; and Sedgwick was left at Franklin's crossing three miles below Fredericks- burg with the Sixth Corps alone, which numbered at that time about twenty-two thousand men. On Saturday night Sedgwick had one division of his command across the river deployed in front of the enemy's work extending about four miles below the city.
An order from General Hooker received at half-past eleven at night directed him to take up his bridges, march to Fredericksburg upon our side of the river, relay the bridges, cross with his command, take the heights which dominated the town known as Marye's Heights, capture the city, march out on the plank road in the direction of Chan- cellorsville and join General Hooker's command at daylight. The distance of Chancellorsville from Fredericksburg is about eleven miles, the distance to be accomplished by withdrawing to our side of the river and marching by the Falmouth Heights to Fredericksburg, about five miles. Inasmuch as it would have been totally impossible in the time allowed for the whole march, to take up the bridges, transport them to Fredericksburg and relay them there, General Sedgwick decided not to remove them, but to cross with his whole corps on the bridges as constructed and move by the flank on the enemy's side of the river into Fredericksburg. By doing this he would save some hours of time. He moved at once to cross the river with his remaining division.
Brooks, who was in position, fronting the enemy's works, was sharply pressed by their pickets in the darkness, as if they desired to know whether we were withdrawing. Newton's and Howe's division, with the light brigade, marched in the direction of Fredericksburg. They were pressed as they advanced by the enemy's skirmishers, who were on the alert, and their progress, resisted in this manner, was necessarily cautious and slow.
It was the opening dawn, therefore, when the first bri- gade of Newton's command reached the town of Fredericks- burg, moved out, and as soon as the deployment could be
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effected assaulted the stone wall made memorable by the slaughter of our troops, under Burnside, in the previous December. This stone wall or line of rifle pits, presented to us at the beginning of the slope which led up to Marye's Heights a smooth face of solid rock, about six feet high, behind which, but on higher ground, was a strong line of the enemy's infantry. As our men advanced gallantly to the attack, supported by one or two batteries, the first in position, the enemy reserved their fire until our line was close at hand. The batteries at Marye's Heights crowning the crest behind the stone wall opened with terrible effect. It was impossible to withstand the fire; the men were ordered to fall back, and did so in good order, and without panic. When they reached favoring ground affording shelter, the line was ordered to lie down, and did so without confusion. Sedgwick rode out near the left of the line, and as he witnessed the repulse he remained watching the enemy's position with an expression on his face that I had never observed before. All the merry lines about his eyes had disappeared ; his lips had settled into a fixed expression of determination, and the genial face, which I had never seen before except in camp, seemed at that moment to be made of iron. A few of his staff were scattered in the vicin- ity ; the others were along the line of the retiring troops, to indicate the position where the line was to halt, re-form, and lie down. When this was accomplished the enemy from the rifle pits perceiving a commanding officer whose presence indicated authority, directed their fire upon Gen- eral Sedgwick. After a few seconds of delay I ventured to suggest to him to retire from his exposed position. At first he did not seem to hear me. Upon my repeating the sug- gestion as the bullets became more numerous, he turned to me with a rapid gesture, pulling down his old slouch hat as if to conceal the intense expression of his eyes, and said with strange emphasis, "By Heaven, sir, this must not delay us."
He slowly turned his horse and rode back into the streets of the town.
During the few moments that he stood gazing at the
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enemy's works, his plans were completed, and were carried out without the loss of a single instant.
Gibbon's division, which had crossed over on a bridge newly laid directly in front of the town, was ordered to move forward on the right to develop what could be accom- plished by an attack in that direction. Howe was ordered to execute a similar move on the left. In the meantime, from Newton's division and the light brigade, assaulting columns were organized to carry the heights directly in our front if the flank movements should prove impracticable. Gibbon found himself confronted by the canal running parallel to the enemy's position and under the full fire of all their batteries. This he could not cross in line of battle; to cross it in column on a bridge constructed for the pur- pose under the fire which would be concentrated on him was destruction. Hazel Run on our left with its deep and precipitous bank rendered a similar good service to the enemy as a part of their defensive line and checked for the time the advance of Howe. The regiments for the main assault from the center on Marye's Heights were collected as quickly as possible. These regiments were drawn from the various divisions of the corps. Our extreme left was still back at the position held on the previous day and strongly skirmishing with the enemy in their front. It was therefore ten o'clock before the assaulting columns were formed and ready to attack.
From the main street of Fredericksburg, running at right angles to the river, the plank-road leads up to the center of the enemy's position.
From the limits of the city to the crest of Marye's Heights the distance is about half a mile. A toll-gate stands about half way up the slope. The heights on both sides of the road were crowned with batteries. A little above the toll-gate and at the commencement of the steeper slope to the left of the road as we faced the enemy's posi- tion, was the stone wall occupied still by a strong line of infantry. In front of the stone wall, about three hundred yards below and near the outskirts of the city, was our line of battle, repulsed at daylight. The enemy plainly saw our preparations for the assault and evidently did not wish to
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interfere with them. They seemed perfectly confident of the result, and when they saw that we intended to attack their direct front and center, they scarcely disturbed our intentions by a single shot. At last it was my duty to report to the General that everything was in readiness. His instructions were that one column formed on the street leading to the plank-road should march directly up the plank-road ; that another and parallel column formed on a street about sixty yards to the right should march up through the fields towards the toll-gate. At this point he knew that they would receive the heaviest of the enemy's fire. He directed that the line of battle still lying in front of the stone wall and rifle pits to the left of the plank-road should rise up at that instant and go forward with a cheer, and at a double-quick.
In this plan there was an admirable calculation and combination of what may be called the moral effects, and which are of much importance in a movement of this kind. The advance of our left column on the plank-road he knew would be a tempting target for the rifle-pits on their left, and that by the time the head of the column approached the toll-gate they would no doubt draw the entire fire from the rifle-pits; that both columns would attract the full attention of the batteries on the heights, that the fire would reach its highest intensity as the heads of the columns reached the toll-gate, and then, if at all, they would com- mence to waver, and a single cheer from an advancing line of American soldiers delivered as the Sixth Corps knew how to deliver it, would not only put new heart into the men composing the columns, but strike dismay to the defenders of the rifle-pits who would have already dis- charged their volley fire.
The result was as he expected. The men went for- ward gallantly at "trail arms." The artillery tore through our ranks ; the men neither halted nor hesitated. The right column, by the very force of the fire on its front and flank, bent towards the plank-road, and the heads of the two columns came together at the toll-gate. There, for an instant, as when a strong, quiet streamn moving in a new channel meets with some sudden obstacle, there was a mo-
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mentary pause, and the men clustered around the frame building at the toll-gate seemed to hesitate, and, for an instant, it was doubtful whether they could advance. Out upon the clear summer air rang the cheer of Newton's men. Up at double-quick they sprang. The men in the rifle-pits who had forgotten the line of battle in their zeal to destroy the advancing columns, saw their danger. The men of the columns burst like a mountain torrent over all barriers. Taking up the cheer of the line of battle they pressed for- ward magnificently, victoriously, and before the enemy was aware of the fact, still firing from their batteries on the hill, their attention distracted by the smoke of their own guns, by the cheering of the line of battle and its advance, the flag of the Sixth Maine Volunteers, supported by that regi- ment and its sister regiment, the Fifth Wisconsin, was planted, standing out upon the breeze between the guns of the Washington Light Artillery of Louisiana as their last discharges were made.
The morning dew was yet fresh upon the grass upon that pretty slope which led from the city limits to this crest of death ; the blood of one thousand gallant men was min- gled with it, many of them cold in death, many of them writhing in the agony of painful wounds. There were dis- tant homes, where expectant wives were looking forward to the unknown agony yet to come. There were distant hearths where little children played, some of whom may now be listening to my voice, who knew not that at that mo- ment on a grassy slope in far Virginia a cloud had fallen on their young lives never to be lifted again. There were hearts in many homes that day that were ready to break as they wearily waited for news from the front. Nevertheless the war went on, and the twenty thousand gallant men who swept that crest, less the one thousand bleeding on its slope, went forward under John Sedgwick.
Our advance was spitefully resisted. At Salem chapel, midway between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the enemy, strongly reinforced from the main army under Lee confronting Hooker, reinforced also by the troops who lined the river above Fredericksburg and who fell back upon the carrying of Marye's Heights, made a final stand. Brooks-
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God bless him! old Commander of the Vermont Brigade, true-hearted gentleman, unequaled soldier, rough and ready, beloved of men, robust, strong, and prompt, went for- ward with his division of the red cross through the thick undergrowth that covered the mild ascent that led to Salem Heights. The sunken road across the crest at right angles to our line of march, filled with the rebel infantry, checked for the moment his advance, but he swept forward gallantly and well, pierced their line, and for a moment held the crest.
His flank and rear were assailed by the enemy, who overlapped him, and he was forced back through the under- growth out into the clearing, followed closely and viciously until he was enabled to re-form under cover of our batteries, which, with grape and canister, rapidly served, checked the enemy under the personal supervision of Sedgwick. The next division, as fast as it arrived, was put into action, and the whole line again advanced, steadily forcing its way up the crest, until at last night set in and there was the silence of death. All night long those two armies lay in the posi- tion in which they had fought during the closing hours of the day. There was no interchange of soldiers' badinage; there was not a picket-shot to disturb the silence. No fires were lighted on either side, and the men lay down coffeeless on their grassy beds. Here and there the stretcher-men moved around silently bringing in their wounded or gather- ing in the dead. There was but one sound that disturbed the stillness. From the direction of Chancellorsville we could hear the low rumble of artillery, telling of marching columnns. Strange but not unexpected rumors reached us from our rear that the city of Fredericksburg and Marye's Heights, which we had carried so gallantly at such a cost, were reoccupied by the enemy, reinforced from the direc- tion of Richmond. The situation of the Corps was critical. Howe's division was formed in line of battle facing to the rear and toward Fredericksburg to resist an attack from that direction. Brooks and Newton remained on the field facing towards Chancellorsville, and the two lines thus formed in opposite directions, about two miles apart, were connected by a skirmish line of troops supporting frequent batteries. Everything indicated that the Sixth Corps would
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be overwhelmed by an attack from all sides at early day- break. General Sedgwick, when all his arrangements were completed, lay down in the wet grass with his head pillowed on his saddle; but he slept not. Three times during the night he telegraphed to General Hooker, sending the dis- patch to the river at Banks' Ford, a few miles above Fred- ericksburg, with which point we still held communication. There was a certain pathos in those dispatches that none who do not realize the situation can appreciate.
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