USA > Connecticut > The county regiment > Part 2
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regiment. There were rebels in Alexandria who furnished deserters with citizens' clothes and thus their capture became almost impossible."
At first, and perhaps to some extent always, there was a mental distinction made by the men between those who had originally enlisted in the "old Nineteenth," and the large body which was now joined to that organization, many of whom had never seen the Litchfield hills. But there was enough character in the original body to give its distinct tone to the enlarged regi- ment; its officers were all of the first enlistment, and the common sufferings and successes which soon fell to their lot quickly deprived this dis- tinction of any invidiousness. The Second Ar- tillery was always known, and proudly known, as the Litchfield County Regiment.
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HERE came to the Second Connecti- cut Heavy Artillery, on May 17, 1864, the summons which, after such long immunity, it had almost ceased to expect.
The preceding two weeks had been among the most eventful of the war. They had seen the crossing of the Rapidan by Grant on the 4th, and the terrible battles for days follow- ing in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania, de- pleting the army by such enormous losses as even this war had hardly seen before. Heavy reinforcements were demanded and sent for- ward from all branches of the service; in the
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emergency this artillery regiment was sum- moned to fight as infantry, and so served until the end of the conflict, though for a long time with a hope, which survived many disappoint- ments, of being assigned to its proper work with the heavy guns.
It started for the front on May 18th (1864), and on the 20th reached the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, and was assigned to the Second Brigade, First Division, of the Sixth Corps, now under Major-General Horatio G. Wright, another leader of Connecticut origin, who had succeeded to the command of the Corps on the death a few days before of Litchfield County's most noted soldier, John Sedgwick.
The famous series of movements "by the left flank" was in progress, and the regiment was in active motion at once. For more than a week following its arrival at the front it was on the march practically all the time while Grant pushed southward. To troops unaccustomed to anything more arduous than drilling in the De-
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General Sedgwick
し
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fences at Washington, it was almost beyond the limits of endurance. At the start, without ex- perience in campaigning, the men had overbur- dened themselves with impedimenta which it was very soon necessary to dispense with. "The amount of personal effects then thrown away," wrote the chaplain, Rev. Winthrop H. Phelps, "has been estimated by officers who witnessed and have carefully calculated it, to be from twenty to thirty thousand dollars. To this amount must be added the loss to the Govern- ment in the rations and ammunition left on the way." On some of the marches days were passed with scarcely anything to eat, and it is recorded that raw corn was eagerly gathered, kernel by kernel, in empty granaries, and eaten with a relish. Heat, dust, rain, mud, and a rate of movement which taxed to the utmost the powers of the strongest, gave to these untried troops a savage hint of the hardships of cam- paigning, into which they had been plunged without any gradual steps of breaking in, and much more terrible experiences were close at
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hand. Of these there came a slight foretaste in a skirmish with the enemy on the 24th near Jericho Ford on the North Anna River, result- ing in the death of one man and the wounding of three others, the first of what was soon to be a portentous list of casualties.
THE movements of both armies were bringing them steadily nearer to Richmond, and but one chance now remained to achieve the object of the campaign, the defeat of Lee's army north of the Chickahominy and away from the strong defences of the Confederate capital. The enemy, swinging southward to conform to Grant's advance, finally reached the important point of Cold Harbor on May 31st. Cav- alry was sent forward to dislodge him, and seized some of the entrenchments near that place, while both armies were hurried forward for the inevitable battle. The Sixth Corps, of which the Second Artillery was part, reached its position on the extreme left near noon on June ist, having marched since midnight, and
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awaited the placing of other troops before the charge, which had been ordered to take place at five o'clock.
It would have been a fearful waiting for these men could they have known what was in store for them. But they were drugged, as it were, with utter fatigue; the almost constant movement of their two weeks of active service had left them "so nearly dead with marching and want of sleep" that they could not notice or comprehend the significant movements of the columns of troops about them preparing for battle, or the artillery which soon opened fire on both sides; their stupor, it is related, was of a kind that none can describe. They heard with- out excitement the earnest instructions of Colonel Kellogg, who, in pride and anxiety at this first trial of his beloved command, was in constant consultation with officers and men, directing, encouraging, explaining. "He marked out on the ground," writes one of his staff, "the shape of the works to be taken,-told the officers what dispositions to make of the dif-
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ferent battalions,-how the charge was to be made,-spoke of our reputation as a band-box regiment, 'Now we are called on to show what we can do at fighting.'" The brigade com- mander, General Emory Upton, was also watch- ing closely. this new regiment which had never been in battle. But all foreboding was spared most of the men through sheer exhaustion.
At about the appointed time, five in the after- noon, the regiment was moved in three bat- talions of four companies each out of the breast- works where it had lain through the afternoon, leaving knapsacks behind, stationed for a few moments among the scanty pine-woods in front, and then at the word of command started forth upon its fateful journey, the Colonel in the lead.
The first battalion, with the colors in the centre, moved at a double quick across the open field under a constantly thickening fire, over the enemy's first line of rifle pits which was abandoned at its approach, and onward to the main line of breastworks with a force and im-
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petus which would have carried it over this like Niagara but for an impassable obstruction. Says the regimental history, "There had been a thick growth of pine sprouts and saplings on this ground, but the rebels had cut them, proba- bly that very day, and had arranged them so as to form a very effective abatis,-thereby clear- ing the spot and thus enabling them to see our movements. Up to this point there had been no firing sufficient to confuse or check the bat- talion, but here the rebel musketry opened. A sheet of flame, sudden as lightning, red as blood, and so near that it seemed to singe the men's faces, burst along the rebel breastwork, and the ground and trees close behind our line was ploughed and riddled with a thousand balls that just missed the heads of the men. The battalion dropped flat on the ground, and the second volley, like the first, nearly all went over. Several men were struck, but not a large number. It is more than probable that if there had been no other than this front fire, the rebel breastworks would have been ours, notwith-
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standing the pine boughs. But at that moment a long line of rebels on our left, having nothing in their own front to engage their attention, and having unobstructed range on the battalion, opened a fire which no human valor could withstand, and which no pen can adequately de- scribe. It was the work of almost a single min- ute. The air was filled with sulphurous smoke, and the shrieks and howls of more than two hun- dred and fifty mangled men rose above the yells of triumphant rebels and the roar of their mus- ketry. 'About face,' shouted Colonel Kellogg, but it was his last command. He had already been struck in the arm, and the words had scarcely passed his lips when another shot pierced his head, and he fell dead upon the in- terlacing pine boughs. Wild and blind with wounds, bruises, noise, smoke, and conflicting orders, the men staggered in every direction, some of them falling upon the very top of the rebel parapet, where they were completely rid- dled with bullets,-others wandering off into the woods on the right and front, to find their
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way to death by starvation at Andersonville, or never to be heard of again."
The second battalion had advanced at an in- terval of about seventy-five yards after the first, and the third had followed in turn, but they were ordered by General Upton to lie down as they approached the entrenchments. They could not fire without injury to the line in front, and could only hold their dangerous and trying position in readiness to support their comrades ahead, protecting themselves as they could from the fire that seemed like leaden hail. There was no suggestion of retreat at any point and several hundred of the enemy, taking advan- tage of a lull in the firing, streamed over the breastworks and gave themselves up, but through a misunderstanding of the case the credit of their capture was given to other regi- ments, though clearly due to this.
The history continues: "The lines now be- came very much mixed. Those of the first bat- talion who were not killed or wounded gradu- ally crawled or worked back; wounded men
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were carried through to the rear; and the woods began to grow dark, either with night or smoke or both. The companies were formed and brought up to the breastworks one by one, and the line extended toward the left. The enemy soon vacated the breastwork in our immediate front, and crept off through the darkness." Throughout the terrible night they held their ground, keeping up a constant fire to prevent an attempt by the enemy to reoccupy the line, until they were relieved in the early morning by other troops; they had secured a position which it was indispensable to hold, and the line thus gained remained the regiment's front during its stay at Cold Harbor. Until June 12th the posi- tion was kept confronting the enemy, whose line was parallel and close before it, while daily additions were made to the list of casualties as they labored in strengthening the protective works.
The official report of General Upton reads in part as follows : "The Second Connecticut, anx- ious to prove its courage, moved to the assault
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A UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
CHARGE OF THE 2D CONNECTICUT HEAVY ARTILLERY AT THE BATTLE OF COLD HARBOR, VA.
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in beautiful order. Crossing an open field it entered a pine-wood, passed down a gentle de- clivity and up a slight ascent. Here the charge was checked. For seventy feet in front of the works the trees had been felled, interlocking with each other and barring all further advance. Two paths several yards apart, and wide enough for four men to march abreast, led through the obstruction. Up these to the foot of the works the brave men rushed but were swept away by a converging fire. Unable to carry the intrenchments, I directed the men to lie down and not return the fire. Opposite the right the works were carried. The regi- ment was marched to the point gained and, moving to the left, captured the point first at- tacked. In this position without support on either flank the Second Connecticut fought till three A.M., when the enemy fell back to a second line of works."
The regimental history continues: "On the morning of the 2nd the wounded who still remained were got off to the rear, and taken to
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the Division Hospital some two miles back. Many of them had lain all night, with shattered bones, or weak with loss of blood, calling vainly for help, or water, or death. Some of them lay in positions so exposed to the enemy's fire that they could not be reached until the breastworks had been built up and strengthened at certain points, nor even then without much ingenuity and much danger; but at length they were all removed. Where it could be done with safety, the dead were buried during the day. Most of the bodies, however, could not be reached until night, and were then gathered and buried under cover of the darkness."
The regiment's part in the charge of June 3rd, the disastrous movement of the whole Union line against the Confederate works, which Grant admitted never should have been made, was attended with casualties which by com- parison with the slaughter of the 1st seemed inconsiderable. There were, in fact, losses in killed and wounded on almost all of the twelve days of its stay at Cold Harbor, but the fatal
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1st of June greatly overshadowed the remain- ing time, and that first action was indeed incom- parably the most severe the Second Connecticut ever saw. Its loss in killed and wounded, in fact, is said to have been greater than that of any other Connecticut regiment in any single battle.
The reputation of a fighting regiment, which its fallen leader had predicted, was amply earned by that unfaltering advance against in- trenchments manned by Lee's veterans, and that tenacious defence of the position gained, but the cost was appallingly great. The record of Cold Harbor, of which all but a very small proportion was incurred on June 1st, is given as follows: Killed or died of wounds, one hun- dred and twenty-one; wounded, but not mor- tally, one hundred and ninety; missing, fifteen ; prisoners, three.
General Martin T. McMahon, writing of this battle in "The Century's" series of war papers, says: "I remember at one point a mute and pathetic evidence of sterling valor. The
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Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, a new regiment eighteen hundred strong, had joined us but a few days before the battle. Its uni- form was bright and fresh; therefore its dead were easily distinguished where they lay. They marked in a dotted line an obtuse angle, cover- ing a wide front, with its apex toward the enemy, and there upon his face, still in death, with his head to the works, lay the Colonel, the brave and genial Colonel Elisha S. Kellogg." Such was their first trial in battle.
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IMMEDIATELY after receiving news of the action of June 1st, Gov- ernor Buckingham had sent a com- mission as colonel to Lieutenant- Colonel James Hubbard. He, however, was unwilling to assume the responsi- bility of the command; this had been his first battle, and he "drew the hasty inference that all the fighting was likely to consist of a similar walking into the jaws of hell. He afterwards found that this was a mistake."
Upon General Upton's advice, therefore, the officers recommended to the Governor the appointment of Ranald S. Mackenzie, then a
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captain of engineers on duty at headquarters, and this recommendation being favorably en- dorsed by superior officers up to the Lieutenant- General, was accepted, and Colonel Mackenzie took command on June 6th.
Of the man who was now to lead the regi- ment, Grant in his Memoirs writes twenty years later the following unqualified judgment: "I regarded Mackenzie as the most promising young officer in the army. Graduating at West Point as he did during the second year of the war, he had won his way up to the command of a corps before its close. This he did upon his own merit and without influence." Such a statement from such a quarter is enough to show that once more the Second Connecticut was to be commanded by a soldier of more than ordi- nary qualities, a fact which was not long in developing.
Colonel Mackenzie's active connection with the regiment lasted only some four months, but they were months of great activity and afforded such occasions for proof of his abilities that his
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speedy promotion was inevitable. He never achieved the general popularity with his men that had come to his predecessor, nor cared to, but he did gain quite as thoroughly their re- spect through his mastership of the business in hand. It was not long after he assumed com- mand that, as the regimental history says, the men "began to grieve anew over the loss of Kellogg. That commander had chastised us with whips, but this one dealt in scorpions. By the time we reached the Shenandoah Valley, he had so far developed as to be a far greater ter- ror, to both officers and men, than Early's grape and canister. He was a Perpetual Punisher, and the Second Connecticut while under him was always a punished regiment. There is a regimental tradition to the effect that a well- defined purpose existed among the men, prior to the battle of Winchester, to dispose of this commanding scourge during the first fight that occurred. If he had known it, it would only have excited his contempt, for he cared not a copper for the good will of any except his mili-
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tary superiors, and certainly feared no man of woman born, on either side of the lines. But the purpose, if any existed, quailed and failed before his audacious pluck on that bloody day. He seemed to court destruction all day long. With his hat aloft on the point of his saber he galloped over forty-acre fields, through a per- fect hailstorm of rebel lead and iron, with as much impunity as though he had been a ghost. The men hated him with the hate of hell, but they could not draw bead on so brave a man as that. Henceforth they firmly believed he bore a charmed life."
Colonel Mackenzie's advancement was bril- liantly rapid, as Grant states, and at the time of Lee's surrender he was in command of a corps of cavalry, which had shortly before taken an important part in the battle of Five Forks under his leadership.
When the war ended he became colonel of the Twenty-fourth Infantry in the regular army, and later received a cavalry command, gaining much distinction by his services in the
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Indian campaigns in the West and on the Mexi- can border. He was made brigadier-general in 1882, shortly after placed on the retired list, and died at Governor's Island in 1889.
THE unsuccessful assault on Lee's works at Cold Harbor marked the end of the first part of Grant's campaign. The next move was to swing the army southward to the line of the James River and prepare to move upon Rich- mond and its defences from that side. This change of base was one of General Grant's finest achievements, admirably planned, and so skilfully executed that for three days Lee remained in total ignorance of what his adver- sary was doing. The Second Connecticut with- drew from its position on June 12th, late at night, reached the river on the 16th, and, moving up it in transports, was disembarked and sent toward Petersburg, to a point on the left wing of the army. It reached position on the night of the 19th and entrenched. The usual occurrences of such marches as at-
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tended this change of scene were varied for the men, as the regimental history suggestively re- lates, by a notable circumstance-a bath in the river. "It was the only luxury we had had for weeks. It was a goodly sight to see half a dozen regiments disporting themselves in the tepid waters of the James. But no reader can possi- bly understand what enjoyment it afforded, un- less he has slept on the ground for fourteen days without undressing, and been compelled to walk, cook, and live on all fours, lest a perpen- dicular assertion of his manhood should in- stantly convert it into clay."
The operations against Petersburg had been going on for some time when the regiment ar- rived, and for two days it lay in the rifle pits it had dug under continual fire, with frequent resulting casualties. It was "the most intoler- able position the regiment was ever required to hold. We had seen a deadlier spot at Cold Harbor, and others awaited us in the future; but they were agonies that did not last. Here, however, we had to stay, hour after hour, from
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before dawn until after dark, and that, too, where we could not move a rod without extreme danger. The enemy's line was parallel with ours, just across the wheat field; then they had numerous sharpshooters, who were familiar with every acre of the ground, perched in tall trees on both our flanks; then they had artillery posted everywhere. No man could cast his eyes over the parapet, or expose himself ten feet in the rear of the trench without drawing fire. And yet they did thus expose themselves; for where there are even chances of being missed or hit, soldiers will take the chances rather than lie still and suffer from thirst, supineness, and want of all things. There was no getting to the rear until zig-zag passages were dug, and then the wounded were borne off. Our occupation continued during the night and the next day, the regiment being divided into two reliefs, the one off duty lying a little to the rear, in a corn- field near Harrison's house. But it was a ques- tion whether 'off' or 'on' duty was the more dan- gerous."
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On the 21st, relieved from this post, the regiment was moved to a new position further southwest and about the same distance from the city of Petersburg, which lay in plain view and whose city clocks could be heard dis- tinctly. The Sixth Corps was engaged in an operation having the purpose of breaking Lee's communications with the South by the line of the Weldon Railroad, and in the course of this the Second Connecticut took part in a "sharp skirmish" with Hill's Division, on June 22nd, an affair which to other experiences would be notable as a battle of some proportions. The desired result was not gained; the attempt on Petersburg, which if successful might have has- tened the end of the Confederacy by six months, and which came so near success, was changed to besieging operations, and for some time Grant's army lay comparatively quiet. In its four days in action here, the regiment suffered as follows : Killed or died of wounds, fifteen; wounded but not mortally, fifteen; missing, three; prisoners who died, five.
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BRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
Colonel Wessells
N July 9th came the orders which took the Second Connecticut for many months away from its place before Petersburg, where, after the activities described, it had set- tled down to a less exciting course of construct- ing batteries, forts, and breastworks, and laying out camps, with days of comparative peace and comfort notwithstanding several alarms show- ing the possibility of more arduous service.
The Confederate Army which had been sent under General Early into the Shenandoah Val- ley to create a diversion in that quarter, had unexpectedly appeared on the Potomac in a
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sudden dash upon Washington, then defended chiefly by raw levies. Part of the Sixth Corps had been detached from Grant's army and sent to protect the capital a few days before; now the rest of the corps, including the Second Connec- ticut, was hurried north and reached Washing- ton just in time to defeat Early's purpose. He had planned to storm the city on the 12th, and with good prospects of success; it was on that very day at an early hour, that the rein- forcing troops arrived. They were hurried through the city to the threatened point, and the enemy, seeing the well-known corps badge con- fronting them at Fort Stevens, and recognizing that the opportunity was gone, promptly re- treated, after an engagement in which the Second Connecticut took no active part. This occasion was notable by reason of the fact that for the only time during the war President Lin- coln was under fire, as he watched the progress of affairs from the parapet of Fort Stevens.
The pursuit which began at once entailed some hard marching, but the enemy could not
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be brought to a stand. It continued for several days until the Valley of the Shenandoah was reached, when Early, as was supposed, having hurried back to join Lee at Petersburg, the Sixth Corps was marched again swiftly to the capital. Here it developed that the authorities had decided to keep part of the forces sent for their protection, to man the defences, since Early's attempt had come so dangerously near succeeding, and the Second Connecticut was chosen to remain. On July 25th it was moved into the same forts it had occupied when called to the front two months before, and here it might have remained through the rest of its term of service, if Early had, as was presumed, gone back to join Lee at Petersburg. But it was learned now that he had faced about when the chase ceased and was again threaten- ing a northward move. The Sixth Corps was therefore ordered against his force once more, the Second Connecticut going from the anticipated comforts of its prospective garrison duty with anything but satisfaction.
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