USA > Connecticut > The story of the Twenty-first Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, during the Civil War. 1861-1865 > Part 16
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The fascination of war is mainly in the retrospect. We study out a campaign with its intricate strategy, its bold manœuvers, its victory perching in the balance between the hostile leaders ; we read of rushing squadrons, and flashing sabres swung high in the air and the long lines of steel leveled for a charge ; of colors bravely planted on perilous heights, and blue columns swarming over the moat and up the counter- scarp of some belching fortress ; we hear of the weary march, the patient siege, the gradual approach by parallels in the trenches around some doomed city, and at last of the head- long burst which captured the beleagured town; and we make such stirring scenes as these the background of our picture. Then we put our favorite leader in the forefront and center of our hero-worship. We dress him in all the blaze of his rank, with plume and sash, with gilded spurs, and jewels in sword- hilt or scabbard, and as his steed rears at the bugle-blast, or snorts defiance at the cannon's hot breath, whilst the rider sits him well and smiles unharmed amid the leaden hail, -- we admire the glories and the magnificence of war. But the battle pictures are all of them painted after the battle is over, and after the red laurels are won. The groans and the
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carnage are then forgotten and the perils are overpast. Our hero himself, no doubt, would acknowledge that he shrank from the field of his own renown, and that he would have gladly escaped from the combat into which he resolutely plunged. One of the reasons why the veteran loves to fight his battles o'er again, is because he describes past danger from the view-point of present safety. This contrast between what is and what was, heightens his satisfaction in the re- hearsal of perils once encountered. It is largely due to the comfort of this contrast that I enter with pleasure on the task before me this afternoon. I am to describe one of the most sanguinary and stubborn battles in which any two command- ers ever crossed their swords,-a battle which raged almost without intermission for ten days, yet, which was really de- cided in as many minutes on the third day's encounter ; a battle in which the dead were numbered by thousands, and which definitely settled in the negative the question of march- ing from the Rapidan straight to Richmond. My testimony will be chiefly that of an eye-witness, and having thus, once for all, stated by authority, permit me to suppress the ego for the residue of the story. While, however, disclaiming my own purpose to be all " I's," let me invite you, on your part, and in no uncomplimentary sense, to be all ears.
Some novelist has said that, in order to do full justice to a story, the characters introduced should be traced back to their first parents in Eden, that thus all the ramifications of their history might appear. So, too, when we single out one, in the chain of struggles during our great American conflict, the embarrassing inquiry comes up, "How far back must we travel before we reach any intelligent starting point for the events we would narrate?" Happily for us, the limits are well defined in our case, and the arrears to be brought up, cover but a single month of our rebellion record.
Opening our calendar then at May-day, 1864, let us visit the great taciturn Ulysses, as he sits at evening before his camp fire on the Rapidan. Had we approached him then, he
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The Battle of Cold Harbor.
would only have smoked on in silence, but time has since lifted the veil and we now can read his thoughts. He says : " I determined to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission with the loyal section of our common country to the constitution and laws of the land." This process he was about to commence, and although at times we feared that hammer and anvil would alike be crushed to- gether, yet the sturdy hammer pounded away till the last of his terrible strokes was dealt at Appomattox Court House eleven months later. It was then that Sherman, himself, in hot pursuit of Joe Johnston, sent to the Lieutenant-General the following dispatch :
" I am delighted and amazed at the result of your move to the south of Petersburg. Lee has in one day lost the reputation of three years, and you have established a reputation for pluck and perseverance that would make old Wellington jump out of his coffin."
But in May, IS64, the eyes of the country and the world were upon this silent warrior, as they judged from a hundred signs that he was about to hurl his battalions against the wary foe. The Army of the Potomac had been thoroughly reorganized, consolidated and equipped. It consisted of the very flower of American soldiers. Trained in the school of defeat, the football of political intriguers, again and again sacrificed for naught, ever confronted by the ablest General and the best fighting material of the South, this patient, noble band of undaunted heroes was once more to sally forth, and for the first time under a thoroughly competent commander. It now consisted of the Second Corps, under Hancock, the Fifth under Warren, and the Sixth under Sedgwick, all under the manipulation of General George G. Meade and under the immediate control of General Grant. The cavalry, an arm of the service hitherto of little avail, was, all of it, consolidated
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under Sheridan, who was destined to make it, for the first time, a terror to the foe. The Ninth Corps, under Burnside which had been recruiting during the winter at Annapolis, and which was composed in part of colored troops, had also joined the Potomac army a few days previous, and was to share its fortunes henceforth to the end. All of the corps commanders and many leaders of divisions were graduates of West Point, and the old officers had been so judiciously weeded out, that not only the incompetent, but also the inhar- monious, had been transferred to other and less important fields. The private soldiers were good men and true, well schooled in all the duty of bearing arms, and having so large a nucleus of veterans as to season the whole body. The regimental and company officers were brave men who had risen from the ranks, who had the sympathy of their sub- alterans, and who understood by experience how orders should be given and executed. In a word, the army was excellent in its material, in a high state of efficiency and never . before so well fitted to take the field. It was also powerful in numbers, including a movable column of one hundred and twenty-one thousand one hundred and seventy-eight men, and its artillery numbered three hundred and sixteen guns. It lay along the north bank of the Rapidan, confronting and watching the force under General Lee.
The Confederate chieftain was, of course, aware of the mortal struggle which must soon begin, yet he did not despair of beating back for the fourth time the invading host. By a stubborn defense and by skillful return thrusts, he hoped to survive the remorseless blows of his new antagonist, and to send him reeling back like his predecessors to the safety of Northern soil. The sixty miles between the Rapidan and Richmond were as familiar as a chessboard to General Lee, and that veteran player had thus far checkmated every antagonist who had risked his pieces thereon. The great advantage of playing a defensive game he fully appreciated,
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The Battle of Cold Harbor.
and now he calmly awaited an attack. He had selected with care every probable battle-field and had fortified every inch of ground that could be useful in punishing his assailant. He held the key to every road through that great tangled waste known as the Wilderness. If forced out of this strong- hold he would make a stand at the river Mattapony, and if that was not enough, would dispute the passage of the North and South Anna and Pamunkey Rivers. Even if these cross- ings were forced, he had still the deep, unfordable Chicka- hominy, that fatal barrier, which had so often saved the rebel capital from our grasp. Now, as the proportion of loss between an assaulting force without earthworks and a defend- ing force behind earthworks, is in the ratio of ten to one, it is evident that Lee had good reason to suppose himself secure. By compelling Grant to repeated assaults upon almost impregnable positions, the Union army would soon be deci- mated and disheartened and the task of taking Richmond would be abandoned as hopeless. So at least reasoned General Lee. The rebel soldiers were expressly assured in a circular from headquarters that, if they were successful in arresting this first advance of Grant's, the independence of the South was achieved.
Lee was strongly entrenched on the south bank of the Rapidan, his lines extending about twenty miles on each side of his headquarters at Orange Court House, his left flank resting on Gordonsville and his right protected by Mine Run, a creek flowing due north at right angles to the main river. His infantry was divided into three corps, commanded by Longstreet, Ewell and Hill, the cavalry being ably generaled by Stuart, who was slain by Sheridan a few days later. The force, of all arms, at Lee's disposal, was probably about ninety-six thousand men.
Colonel Taylor, the confidential Assistant Adjutant-General of Ice, gives these figures :
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Army of Northern Virginia, April 20, '64, - 63,984 Pickett's and Hoke's Division from North Carolina, - - - - - 14,400 With Breckenridge's command from West Vir- ginia, and Beauregard's from Richmond, 18,000
Aggregate of all troops engaged from Wilder- ness to Cold Harbor, - - 96,384
(Other rebel authorities put Breckenridge's and Beauregard's forces at 28,000. Lee's artillery included 224 guns. )
Having thus refreshed our memory as to the relative strength and position of the two grand armies, let us now return to the tent of our Federal Commander, whose duty it is to take the initiative in this momentuous campaign. Grant's plan was to cross the river below his own camp at Germania Ford, and by a sudden move turn the right flank of General Lee and cut him off from Richmond; then by a series of fierce and continuous battles, to beat him and destroy his army. Failing in this, there remained the alternative of forcing him back by edging down constantly the left flank of our troops, striking him a side blow at every step, and thus by threaten- ing to overlap his right, compelling him to retreat on to Richmond and pursuing him thither. This feature of tactics explains why, in all the great conflicts which follow, the hostile armies were facing East and West, rather than North and South. The entire movement, from the Rapidan to the James, presents the spectacle of an army moving sidewise towards its goal, ever and anon halting to front and fight at right angles to its own course. The soldiers called it a crab movement, since the crab, while facing in one direction, reaches out and travels on towards its right or left.
Everything now was in readiness for the Army of the Potomac to move. At midnight on the 3d of May our cavalry, with an engineer party and pontoon train, threw five bridges across the Rapidan (here about two hundred feet wide) and the troops pushed on to Chancellorsville without
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The Battle of Cold Harbor.
opposition. Before noon of the following day the army was safely over and on the march for the Wilderness Tavern. Thus far the movement had been a surprise to General Lee, who, as it seems, had expected our advance against his left at Gordonsville. He now hurries across his left wing, under Longstreet, to fall upon the Federal troops while passing through the ravines and impenetrable undergrowth of the wilderness. The rebels, having shorter and better roads to traverse, were able to outmarch our troops and to plant themselves across our path. Then followed that desperate wrestle for four days in those sombre thickets of scrub oak and pine. The end was a drawn battle, but the hope of Lee that we were retreating on Washington was rudely dispelled, for he soon discovered that Burnside and Sedgwick had again marched past his right and were on their way to Spottsylvania Court House. The astounding fact appeared that our army was neither beaten nor demoralized, but was being launched forward for another blow.
At this good news, the loyal North, which had been hold- ing its breath with intensity of apprehension, burst into enthu- siasm and President Lincoln issued a proclamation for a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. But the wildest excite- ment still prevailed throughout the land. The President and the heads of departments at Washington sat up all night to receive tidings. Lee was not yet routed and driven from the field. Orders were issued to arrest every fugitive and not to permit a single deserter to enter the defenses at Washington, and to put in irons all cowardly officers found lurking at the capital. Re-enforcements were hourly forwarded. The forts at Washington were stripped of their garrisons and members of the invalid corps put on duty instead. Thirty thousand volunteers for one hundred days were called out to play the soldier in camp and at the rear, and everywhere the nation guarded itself anew for the emergency of the hour.
Meanwhile, Grant had been shifting his divisions from right to left, and thus creeping steadily southward, till he had
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reached an open table-land fifteen miles from the Wilderness. Here, for the first time, artillery could do its awful share in the general carnage, and, prefaced by a fierce cannonade, on the 9th of May began the battle of Spottsylvania Court House. In the midst of this encounter, Grant penned his famous dispatch :
" I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."
After twelve days of incessant and sanguinary struggle, it was seen that the attempt to crush Lee in this position was hopeless. Making a detour of eight miles to the eastward, the Federal columns were once more headed toward Rich- mond, and simultaneously the rebels started by parallel roads to escape their being cut off from their capital. Both armies reached the North Anna on the 22d of May, and heavy skir- mishing occurred for the next three days. Onward by a flank movement again sped the weary soldiers, passing by the mouth of the South Anna and along the Pamunkey, into which it merges. At this juncture the gallant Sheridan re- appeared with his slashing troopers, who had been raiding for two weeks in the rear of Lee's army, and had kept the rebel cavalry so busy as to prevent them from molesting our own trains and communications. He had killed the famous cavalier, General J. E. B. Stuart, had given Wade Hampton a severe drubbing and released three hundred of our soldiers on the way to Libby Prison, and had actually penetrated the outer defenses of Richmond itself, capturing a section of artillery and a hundred of the Home Guard. His round bullet head and his swarthy red face were a welcome sight to the Lieu- ten int-General, who at once dispatched him to hold the crossing of the Pamunkey and to reconnoitre beyond as far as Cold Harbor. This duty he fulfilled in gallant style, driving back the foc, and by noon of Friday, the 27th, he had seized the ferry at Hanover and thrown across a pontoon bridge. This ferry is only fifteen miles from Richmond, and the booming of cannon began to be distinctly heard at the rebel
CAPTAIN JAMES H. LATHAM. CAPTAIN NATHAN A. BELDEN. SERGEANT ALBERT LEEDS.
SERGEANT EDWARD G. CHILDS.
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capital. Grant, having broken up the railroad behind him toward Washington, established a new base of supplies at the White House, on the river Pamunkey, from whence therc was easy navigation to Chesapeake Bay and to Fort Monroc. This change of base gave the rebels great concern, although they affected to laugh at Grant for coming once more into the camp of Mcclellan. But the fact was patent and undeniable that, in spite of all their losses and over or past every obsta- cle, the Federals were creeping steadily down toward their goal, and that there was plenty of fight left in them yet. A long distance from their old basis, they had now established new ones, and there remained but one more river for them to cross before the spires of Richmond would be in sight.
Now it was that fortune seemed to interpose in Lee's behalf and that the fatal Chickahominy bade us once more to pause ere we appropriated the spoils so nearly within our grasp.
Among the cooperative movements which Grant had planned for the campaign against Lee, there were two which we must here pause to mention. The first was to be made in the Shenandoah Valley by a column under Siegel, threaten- ing Lynchburg and the great artery of supplies for Richmond from the west. The other, and far more important advance, was to be made by Butler from the south of Richmond, and for this end he was furnished with a fine army of twenty-five thousand men. Of both of these expeditions, it is enough to say that, while they promised immense advantage, they proved to be lamentable failures, owing to the apparent in- competency of their commanders. Grant was indeed beset not only by rebel armies, but by the most inexcusable and incomprehensible blunders among his own subalterns. Bitter indeed must have been his regrets that he ever intrusted some major-generals with a corporal's guard. But he nobly held his peace and complained of no man's failure. Ile only modified his plans, kept his own secrets and fought it out alone, when his helpers disappointed hin.
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Siegel having been defeated in the west, Breckenridge came at once eastward by forced niarches, and with ten thousand men joined the army of Northern Virginia at Cold Harbor. Butler having been bottled up at Bermuda Hundred, Beaurc- gard pressed on to the relief of his chieftain, and with about fifteen thousand men occupied the battle-field of Cold Harbor on June Ist. With these re-enforcements, Lee was nearly as strong as at the opening of the campaign, and boldly offered battle on the banks of the Chickahominy.
We left Sheridan on his reconnoissance toward Cold Harbor, and the main army behind him filing across the pontoons which he had laid. The troopers felt their way un- molested until they reached the edge of the high bluffs which hide the Chickahominy valley. At the base of these hills they descried a force of cavalry and a brigade of infantry holding the cross roads at Cold Harbor. Sheridan instantly attacked, and the rebels, under Fitzhugh Lee, were driven off towards the woods and the river. Grant, on learning of this skirmish, ordered Sheridan to hold the position at all hazards, and at once hastened away the Sixth Corps.
The enemy made repeated efforts during the afternoon to dislodge our cavaliers, but they dismounted, every fourth man holding the horses, and deploying as infantry used their carbines with such deadly effect as to defy every assault. Whilst they are sleeping on their arms, let us take a glance at the moonlit battle-field, and thus be in readiness to under- stand the terrible struggle which is close at hand.
Cold Harbor is a village of a single house, the tavern at the crossroads. Its importance in the present campaign lay in the fact that it was the point of convergence for all the roads leading forward to Richmond, or back to the base of supplies at the White House. Grant, as we have seen, was reaching down to lay hold on the Chickahominy, which was really the outer ditch in front of the rebel capital. But as he knew that Lee had been heavily re-enforced, it was clear that any effort to carry a direct crossing without a battle was
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The Battle of Cold Harbor.
hopeless. By holding Cold Harbor, Grant could move on at once to Richmond in case of Lee's defeat, as that would un- cover the bridges of the Chickanominy. Or, if unable to force him out of the direct path, we should still hold the road by which to swing round below him on to the James. Furthermore, at the very moment when Sheridan was strug- gling to maintain himself at the crossroads, an infantry force of fresh troops, the Eighteenth Corps of fifteen thousand men from Butler's command, was hurrying down the White House to join the Potomac army at Cold Harbor Tavern. Understanding the strategic importance of his post, Sheridan sent back word that he was "hard pressed, but would hold on till he died, or until the infantry appeared." As usual, he kept his promise.
It is interesting to notice here how this campaign connects itself with that of 1862. Two years and a few days before this date, a portion of Mcclellan's army had marched over the ground which Grant was now traversing, and on that very Ist of June was fought the opening battle of a most disas- trous series. The first action at Cold Harbor was known as the Battle of Gaines' Mills, in which the Fifth and Sixth Corps under Fitz John Porter, were so shattered by Stonewall Jack- son as to compel the immediate abandonment of the White House and the destruction of its vast depot of commissary stores. As the veterans trudged on all night and day began to break, they recognized the old familiar landmarks and rehearsed to the new recruits the stories of the " Peninsular Campaign." "There was where my brother was killed," says one, thoughtfully, as he points to a deserted rifle pit on what was once the line of skirmishers. "You'll be lucky if you don't see him again before another sunrise," is the stern rejoinder. By noon, the Sixth Corps was within supporting distance of Sheridan and his peril was at an end. The in- fintry skirmish line was thrown forward, the artillery was posted and unlimbered, and soon the cannoniers were en- gaged in a lively duel. The region thereabouts is of a
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somber and desolate cast, with frequent patches of low forest and little streams threading their way towards the deep, sluggish river beyond. The ground was already marked with the obstinate struggle of the day previous, dead horses, splintered trees and red stained clothing being visible along the roadside.
General Wright moved forward his corps a few rods, clear- ing the advance line of rebel pits and establishing himself in front of the tavern on the road to Gaines Mills. At 3 P. M. the head of a blue column appeared coming down the New- castle road and the Eighteenth Corps, with ten thousand men under General W. F. Smith-commonly styled " Baldy Smith ",-after a severe march of twenty-five miles, were ready for a hand in the coming brush. Without a moment's pause for rest, they form at once "on the right by file into line," deploy their skirmishers, quietly load their muskets, and are prepared for action.
If we now stand in the doorway of the Cold Harbor Tavern, we can, perhaps, at a glance take in the situation as it appeared at 6 P. M. on the Ist of June. The house faces toward the west, its front upon the road to Richmond and . its south windows opening on the other road running at right angles from Mechanicsville to Bottom's Bridge. A huge gnarled catalpa stands across the way, and under it are two of General Wright's orderlies holding their horses, and an aide-de-camp renewing the cartridges in his pistol. As we stand up facing west, with arms outstretched, we have the battle line. The extreme right, or the right hand and arm of our symbol, represents the Eighteenth Corps in position, the men in part sheltered by a friendly copse of pine and white oaks. At the right elbow the Sixth Corps laps on, and its left wing represents the body resting on the angle of the two roads. This was Rickett's division, which was joined at the left arm by Russell's division and at the left hand by Neil's division.
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The Battle of Cold Harbor.
If we choose to walk up the road toward the west we shall in five minutes reach the skirmish line, and if not very anxious for our personal safety, can look beyond to the hostile lines before us. In front of our extreme right there is a cleared space, a cornfield just planted, but destined soon to be trodden hard in the onward sweep of our hosts. In front of the right forearm there is a gentle upheaval, sparsely wooded with low pines, and just to the left of this a corresponding vale, degenerating into a marsh before we reach the rebel line. The belt of timber runs from here quite across the remainder of our front to the left. On the farther side of this belt toward Richmond is a beautiful strip of green field one-half mile wide, bordered at its farther edge by another belt of woodland, and it is just where the shadow of green deepens, that we see the line of red sand which marks the breastworks of Hoke, Kershaw, Picket and Field. All this plain is swept by rebel cannon and muskets. Behind the rebel front the army of Northern Virginia is hurrying into place to entrench along the river, and behind the Sixth and Eighteenth Corps the tired veterans of the Potomac are being rushed forward by Grant's iron will to force, if possible, the passage of the Chickahominy.
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