USA > Connecticut > The story of the Twenty-first Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, during the Civil War. 1861-1865 > Part 17
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The first attempt to be made is to crowd the rebels back as closely as we are able to the river's bank, and if it may be, to drive them across. It was past six and nearly seven before the troops were formed and in readiness, and meanwhile the pattering of the skirmish fire had been incessant, and once our skirmish line had been charged upon and pushed back. It, however, rebounded by a return thrust and established itself more securely in an advanced position. At last the dispositions are complete, and the Sixth and Eighteenth Corps leap forward simultaneously with a ringing cheer to the hot work before them. They march in line of battle through the woods, dislodging the gray-coated sharpshooters from their hiding places and emerge upon the open field. At their appearance the rebel batteries commence firing with
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redoubled fury and the enemy's position is fully unmasked. Rickett's division of the Sixth Corps, having the shortest distance to traverse, was soonest engaged. . With the utmost energy they rushed across the clearing, and striking the rebel works like a whirlwind, swept over them in a headlong burst, before the enemy could deliver a second volley.
While the Confederates were in the act of reloading their pieces, the line of hostile bayonets appeared at their throats and half a brigade were captured, disarmed, and hastened back to our rear. The residue of the rebel defenders in front of Ricketts took to their heels and disappeared among the reserves beyond. Russell's division, which moved directly up the road in front of the tavern, was met with a most withering fire from front and flank, and the whole plain seemed wrapped in a sheet of flame. Yet they staggered on close up to the entrenchments, and finding shelter along a favoring ridge, held on tenaciously to what they had gained. General Neil, on our extreme left, held his troops in reserve to protect against a flank movement of the enemy from that quarter. Devens' division of the Eighteenth Corps, who were posted just at the elbow of our extended right arm, found before them an intervale amounting almost to a marsh, which was also obstructed by felled trees and underbrush. But his men forced their way through this abattis, and rather in a helter-skelter form kept on, charged up the hill and took the rifle pits before them.
Brooks' division, next in order to the right, whose com- mander was a fiery old regular, had perhaps as hard a task as any and suffered heavy losses without inflicting much pun- ishment in return. They were badly raked by an enfilad- ing battery, and many of the troops, being for the first time under such galling fire, were somewhat shaken. Still, there was little flinching and many of the regimental commanders were gallant in the extreme. The lion-hearted Colonel Ander- son, of the Ninety-second New York, a man of noble carriage and desperate bravery, was shot through the forehead and
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fell at the head of his men. He had survived the battles of Malvern Hill and of Gaines' Mills, only to be slain in this identical spot two years later. Lieutenant-Colonel Marshall, in command of the Fortieth Massachusetts, smarting under the undeserved censure of his superior and burning to show the high mettle that was in him, was also shot dead in the very forefront of the charge. A new regiment from Pennsylvania, bewildered by the inimitable antics of one of their leaders and by the disappearance of others who should have con- trolled them, lost their discipline and opened a tremendous fusilade more dangerous to friend than foe. The marsh and the sand hills and the hazel brush aided in breaking up their formation and in lending confusion. Yet the line responded with cheers to every rebel yell and neither halted nor turned back.
One of the brigade commanders, Colonel Guy V. Henry, an intrepid young West Pointer of magnetic presence and merciless discipline, reckless of himself, rode back and forth crowding on his men, and at last with a smile of cool defiance, leaped his horse over the enemy's works, and as the dying steed lay struggling on the parapet, its rider coolly standing in his stirrups emptied his revolver in the very faces of the awestruck foe. On the extreme right our re- maining division under Martindale was cooperating, as did Neil on the left, and so manoeuvering as to secure safety for our flank and rear. The brunt of the fighting, however, was borne by Ricketts, Russell and Devens, and while the nature of the ground prevented any but the former from cutting out entire sections from the rebel lines, yet the enemy was every- where pushed back for more than a half mile, and this lost ground he strove in vain to recover. From dark until past ten o'clock did Beauregard persist in his efforts to retake his vantage, but he was everywhere unsuccessful. It was nearly midnight before the firing ceased and the weary troops lay down upon their arms. Our casualties had been severe during this brief engagement, the Eighteenth Corps losing
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alone over two thousand in killed and wounded, while the Sixth Corps lost twelve hundred more. All night long the ambulances were gathering up their bleeding freight and moving toward the hospital field, that sickening tent of mercy at the rear. Perchance at some narrrow stretch of road, they were halted and turned aside by stern command, for even the wounded must make way for the ammunition wagons to bring cartridges up to the front.
Thus far we have sketched the preliminaries of Cold Harbor. The great struggle and the more horrid slaughter is yet to come. Where is our Commander-in-chief mean- while and what are his intentions? Grant has reached a decisive stage in the struggle for Richmond. We have already seen how his efforts to reduce Lee's army to its minimum have been frustrated. By the failures of Butler and Siegel, and we may add by the failure of Banks to move on Mobile as ordered, it has been possible for President Davis to re-enforce the defenders of the rebel capital. But for this, the battles we now describe would never have been fought, nor would the National Democratic Convention three weeks later have declared the war a failure, nor have nominated McClellan for President. It was still possible, however, that Lee might be overcome by a coup de main, and to this final attempt at crushing his foe Grant now resolutely advanced. A grand assault to force the passage of the Chickahominy was to be the next move. General Lee had the river but a mile in his rear, and if his line could be broken, the entire rebel army would be ruptured and driven into the Chicka- hominy. From that Point to Richmond was a distance of only five miles, and Sheridan was ready to keep on the trail at a gallop till the capital of the Confederacy was won. Cer- tainly the attempt was worth making and Grant did not hesitate.
On the morning of June 2d, as soon as daylight came, the picket firing was resumed and the whole army of the Potomac began to close in around its foe. The battle-field
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of the day previous became the center of the grand line which stretched out for seven miles from Cold Harbor to Bethesda Church, the Federal troops facing south-west. The Ninth Corps held the extreme right, with the Fifth Corps on their left, next to which came the Eighteenth and the Sixth in their old positions, and the Second Corps on the extreme left, with Gregg's Cavalry posted for observation beyond. Wilson's Cavalry kept watch on the right flank, and Sheridan guarded the roads leading to the White House and held the lower crossings of the Chickahominy. It was the intention of General Meade to commence the assault on Thursday after- noon, June 2d, but the attempt to mass our troops and to change their position provoked such lively skirmishing as finally to bring on a regular attack from the enemy. This delayed the grand assault till the next morning, Friday, June 3d, when the columns were ordered to advance simultane- ously at four o'clock, cach of the corps and division generals having set his watch to accord with the timepiece at head- quarters.
The troops were silently roused before dawn and the vari- ous regiments quietly took the places assigned them. The early morning air was chill, and the damp, swampy odors from the river made the dreariness greater. The hopeless look which many of the soldiers wore was quite noticeable. They did not expect to succeed, for they had not been able to carry the breastworks on Wednesday, and the rebels had been working hard for thirty-six hours to make them im- pregnable. Recognizing the duty before them as that of a forlorn hope, many of the private soldiers were seen writing their names on little slips of paper and pinning these papers upon the inside of their blouses, that in death their story might mutely be told to those into whose hands they should fall. The tactical formation for the charge was not in line of battle of two ranks, but in " column by division closed in mass; " that is, the width of the column in front was that of two companies or about seventy feet. Imagine three brigades
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of four regiments each making a solid column of twelve regi- ments, perhaps six thousand men massed into a parallelogram such as I have described. There will be three such columns as these to every corps, and there are four of these corps to make the simultaneous move. Such is the battering ram which is to essay the task of butting its way through the hostile line. In some of the regiments all the percussion caps have been removed from the muskets in order to prevent the miscellaneous firing so harmful on the previous day.
This morning's work, if done at all, must be done with the bayonet alonc. And now there is a metallic rustle and a faint gleam of steel among the waiting host. The officers are draw- ing their swords, the symbol of command. Then, amid a pro- found hush, the heavy tramp begins forward into the lair where the tiger lies in wait. Almost the next instant, the battle roar crashes upon our ears and every tree and leaf thereon trembles with the leaden hail. A space of only three hundred yards separates the blue from the gray, and across this inter- val the corps of Hancock, Wright and Smith advance upon the run. Opposed to Hancock on the left are the new troops from the Shenandoah under Breckenridge, and those at first recoil from the headlong charge of the Second Corps. The enemy is pushed out of his first line in a sunken road before his works, and driven by Gibbon and Barlow in confusion across the parapet into a second line of redoubts. Several hundred prisoners, a standard and three pieces of artillery are captured. The guns are at once turned upon the rebels and they are dislodged from the entire position. But this partial success is immediately turned into a reverse, for the enemy's reserves are at once thrown forward upon the disordered captors, and their hard-earned laurels are wrung from them in part, although the prisoners and the color are secured. The Second Corps falls back about sixty yards, and then, re- pulsing the counter charge, begins to entrench. Colonels Porter, Morris, MeKeen and Haskell were killed, and General Robert O. Tyler was seriously wounded. The heroic Colonel
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MacMahon, One Hundred and Sixty-fourth New York, with a fragment of his regiment, being separated by a swamp from the rest of his brigade, reached the enemy's parapet, planted the Stars and Stripes upon its bastion, and fell, covered with wounds, expiring on his colors in the rebel's hands.
Along our center, Generals Wright and Smith met with similar misfortunes. Assaulting with splendid intrepidity, they were able to make no permanent impression on the works before them. The carnage was terrible, and the gloomy hollows between the lines were lit up with the fires of deatlı. The bullets seemed to come in torrents. Our enemy had in many places a plunging fire from which it was impossible to gain a shelter. The grapple was so close that the missiles of death struck with a spiteful energy utterly unlike that of a half-spent ball. The bullets did not whistle ; they came with a rush like lightning and tore through and through the heroes whom they laid low. Our center, like the left, had rebounded from the concussion of their owa blow against their immovable opponent, and the columns having been quickly deployed under a murderous fire, the long lines were stretched out again at about half pistol-shot from our foc.
Our sharpshooters were planted against the back of the old skirmish pits of the rebels and endeavored as far as pos- sible to prevent their artillerists from working their guns. The Union soldiers were lying flat on their faces, hugging their mother earth with ardent affection, but hardly safe, even in her embrace. Many and many a gallant fellow was shot thus as he lay, hit squarely in the top of the head by a missile whose projectile force would almost carry it lengthwise through his body. Solid shot from an enfilading battery far to the right came crashing through the trees, showering broken limbs and iron fragments upon us. Our own ar- tillerymen, in seeking to shell the foe, ofttimes cut their fuse a second too short, and hurled death into the ranks of their friends. Two field mortars from a safe hollow behind
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the rebel trenches sent up their bombs, which, mounting high on unseen curves, came down to burst upon us. It seemed as if all the powers of earth and of hell were concentrated in the endeavor to sweep away every vestige of the Federal army.
Just at the height of this awful din, a little brown bird stepped down from branch to branch of a splintered oak and plainly was seelting refuge amid human kind. Unconscious that we were madly slaying one another, the little songster seemed relieved of fright as he stood on the prostrate form of a dead soldier, and in a momentary lull of the musketry, sang a sweet, rich carrol that brought tears to many an eye. But, alas, we were not ready yet for songs of peace, and a bursting shell swept away the little messenger of love and the stern conflict went on unchecked.
The rebels were jubilant. Never before had they caught us at such odds or disadvantages. We could hear their shouts and often distinguish their faces. They were quite secure behind their heaps of sand and we were losing nearly twenty men to their one. Yet, their exultation was not always well timed, for as often as they essayed to issue forth upon us, they found our line unbroken and were repulsed. Despite these repeated sorties and the incessant musketry, the Fed- erals sullenly held their ground, and as the hours passed on worked deeper and deeper into its protecting surface. The men had no entrenching tools, but with bayonets for trowels and with their tin cups for shovels, they dug by the instinct of self-preservation a channel of safety along their front. About noon, the order came from General Meade to each corps and division commander to renew the attack without reference to the troops on his right or left, but although this order was transmitted as usual, down through division, brigade and regimental leaders, not a man stirred nor was obedience insisted on. The first assault had been decisive and was so recognized by every officer and private engaged. In the words of Hancock's report, the troops had gone for-
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ward "as far as the example of their officers could carry them," and the silent verdict of the army pronounced against a further sacrifice of life. Before sunrise the fortunes of the day had been settled in the first ten minutes of the charge. The slaughter of twelve thousand nine hundred and seventy men during the subsequent battle had not modified the result. It is said that the rebel casualties were less than fifteen hundred in all on June 3d. On our right, the fighting in front of Warren and Burnside was unimportant. General Grant, in his report, thus briefly and frankly describes his repulse : "On June 3d we again assaulted the enemy's works in the hope of driving him from his position. In this attempt our loss was heavy, while that of the enemy, I have reason to believe, was comparatively light."
As soon as the welcome darkness came on, an attempt was made to better our condition. The pioneer corps with axes and shovels, were ordered up and rough breastworks begun along our front, which was straightened and proper con- nections made with right, left and rear. Skirmish pits were dug for the pickets a few lines in advance, and the reserves took the place of labor in the trenches. The musicians and the ambulance corps with stretchers groped cautiously about, responding to the groans of the wounded and the dying. Fatigue parties without arms or equipments were detailed to bury the dead. The ground was strewn with men in blue overcoats, some lying cold in death, some feverishly begging for water, some sleeping the deep, heavy sleep of exhaustion and dreaming over again their perils. Any unusual noise, sometimes even the snapping of a brittle twig, would provoke a random shot from the vigilant foe. Staff officers crawled warily to and fro, seeking to trace their path to the various headquarters with orders for the night and the morrow. It was well nigh impossible to take a stop without treading upon some human being, either living or dead. Besides this ob. struction, the ground was honeycombed with pits and holes where the men had burrowed for safety during the day's trial.
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CAPTAIN CHARLES FUNION. CAPIAIN ALJARI B. JOHNSON. CAPTAIN WILLIAM W. LATHAM.
CAPTAIN GEORGE W. SHEPARD.
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Behind the front line where the shovels were languidly plied, there were no less than seven parallels of sand thrown up by the successive regiments in rear of each other. These ridges, in the diinness of night, looked like gigantic furrows turned up by some enormous plough-share and awaiting the harrow.
Prowling about with cat-like tread and greedy eyes, ap- peared one of those harpies of the battle-field, a plunderer of the dead. He was detected in the act of robbing an officer, whom he supposed to be wounded. Placed under guard till daylight, this rascal proved to be a bounty jumper from Phila- delphia, one of those substitutes whom some men so patriot- ically furnished to represent themselves at the front. He was tried by a drum-head court martial the next morning and sentenced as follows: To be paraded at the point and prick of the bayonet asd to the tune of the "Rogue's March " through every camp in the corps, and to wear on his breast and back meanwhile a placard labelled "Thief;" at the end of his march to be publicly kicked by the provost marshal, and then to be sent to the rear in disgrace. Strange to say, this pickpocket was glad to escape from the front, even at this disgraceful cost, and he doubtless deserted at the first oppor- tunity and took the bounty somewhere again before the sum- mer was finished.
Captain Franklin, of the Fourth Alabama, now residing at Selma, sends me this inquiry concerning the battle of Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864: " A color-sergeant came out with his regiment from the Federal lines opposite Law's Brigade in one of the assaults that morning. His regiment was so roughly handled that the survivors deserted him and fell back ; but he, quite unconscious of his isolation, steadily advanced, solitary and alone, proudly bearing his flag. The Alabamians, admiring such courage, shouted to him, 'Go back ! go back ! we'll kill you !' But he, insensible to the situation, still marched forward, the solitary footman, erect and undaunted. Determined to spare him, they frantically waved him back, with still louder and more carnest cries, and
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he finally stopped, and taking the staff from its socket, rested it on the ground. He then deliberately looked, first to his right rear and then to his left rear, and then seemingly for the first time taking in the situation, with the same moderation gathered in the flag, right-shoulder-shifted his charge, came to an about face as deliberately, and walked back amid the cheers of Law's men, who never saw anything equal to it before or since." It would be interesting to locate so hand- some a tribute as this of the Confederate Captain Franklin. The man, if living, should be found.
Long before dawn of June 4th, the tired and dispirited Federals were under arms, in readiness for an expected assault from their exulting foe. Daybreak revealed many new features of our position. Now that our breastworks were built and we lared to survey the field, it appeared that our line was extremely irregular. Each division having entrenched its own front just where it had paused in its charge, the line was full of salient angles, in shape something like the letter W. This feature of our position made it very strong for defense, since it gave us a cross fire covering our front.
It was also plain at a glance that most of our killed and _ many of our wounded were still uncared for. They lay close up to the rebel works and all along upon the narrow strip of neutral ground between our pickets. Occasionally one of the poor fellows would hold up his hand and wave it feebly to plead for rescue, but after one or two had been brutally made a target by the enemy for so doing, these motions ceased and the blue overcoats lay still, and we knew that many a brave soul was wrestling with a terrible death alone. It made us heartsick that we could afford no relief, but it was sure de- struction to venture one foot beyond our cover. By a singu- lar coincidence, in front of and close to the works of General Breckenridge lay mortally wounded his cousin by birth and by marriage, the gallant Colonel Porter, a graduate of Har- vard and a noble man, but he was left to taste the bitterness of death alone.
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The day was spent in sharp picket firing and in throwing up barriers for protection at every exposed point. It hardly seemed possible for a bullet to find its way through the thick woods to the open field behind them, but many soldiers were killed in the plain at the rear by chance shots. This open field was soon ribbed across with sand-heaps, behind which the reserves lay down to rest and smoke their pipes, and write letters home, and criticise the battle of yesterday, and to speculate upon what "Old Grant " would do next.
Along in the afternoon the rain commenced to fall in a dismal drizzle, which soon took off the gleam from every steel. No fires were allowed at the front, and night set in dark and cheerless indeed. At about nine o'clock the enemy made a vigorous attack upon the Second and Sixth Corps, but were repulsed with loss. This assault was an illustration of all the magnificent but terrible concomitants of a night engagement. Dreadful though the encounter may be by daylight, it is in some of its features a thousand times more hideous in the dark. First we had a startling volley from the pickets ; then a few seconds later the crack, crack, of the aroused skirmish line, and then, timing in to punctuate each message of death, the sharp twang of a Parrot gun from the rear, or the belch of a howitzer with its load of grape or cannister at close quarters. Then came the thickening roar of the combat, till its sound resembled the simmering noise of a rapidly puffing locomotive, only a thousand fold louder. Then we heard the long fiendish yell, at which we all in- voluntarily exclaimed, "The Johnnies are charging!" and next the defiant Union cheer in response, which told of their re- pulse. After this a steady roll of musketry for an hour until at last passion is spent and the conflict dies away for the nonce. Add to this the dreadful indescribable glare of flash- ing gun-powder, and the consciousness that after each flash a missile is winging its way toward you, and the moment's sus- pense -- especially where cannon are served at the rate of
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forty rounds a minute-to conjecture where and whom the balls will strike.
For the next three days the work of entrenching and sharpshooting continued without interruption. On the night of Sunday, the 5th, the enemy assailed Warren, and on the night following, with commendable activity, they attacked Burnside, but in both cases without any success. The Union army was regaining its courage, and was still confident that somehow Grant would pull through and win the race for Richmond. Features even of amusement were not wholly wanting to the siege. The lines were so close and the mark- manship so good that nearly every one who showed his head above the trenches was liable to be picked off. Covered ways were dug, by which to get the men safely to and fro at the advanced posts. These ways were a zigzag trench wide enough for two or more to march abreast and deep enough to protect their heads from fire. Occasionally the men would try some practical joke like the following: In front of the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery there drooped a rebel flag most temptingly near to our skirmish pits. While atten- tion was called for the moment to another part of our line, a private of the Second Connecticut crawled cautiously out at the end of his pit and wormed his way forward till he actually caught the lower corner of the rebel flag. Then ensued a comical struggle for its possession. The Yankee pulled the staff over to himself, but the rebel on the other side held fast to his end, and so they tugged and strained, neither daring to stand up for fear of being shot by the watchful musketeers on either hand. A crafty rebel tried to reach over one arm and prod the Yank with his bayonet, but a ball through his hand soon induced him to discontinue. At last the rotten bunting gave way, and, with two-thirds of the flag in his grasp, the adventurous Yank fell over backward into a friendly pit, where he lay closely till dark, and then brought in his well- earned trophy.
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