USA > Connecticut > The story of the Twenty-first Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, during the Civil War. 1861-1865 > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34
247
The Battle of Cold Harbor.
I have already spoken of our difficulty in reaching those who had fallen beyond our entrenchments. The tropical sun had been pouring down for four days upon the battle-field and the stench was sickening. At last, in the evening of June 6th, an armistice for two hours, from 6 to 8 P. M., was agreed upon for the burial of the dead. Incredible though it may seem, there were several wounded who were found alive among the heaps of slain who were brought in after lying four days without food or water, or shelter from the broiling heat and the chilly dews. It is dreadful to think of those others whom nursing might have saved, yet who died in bitterness and agony and were buried among the heaps of unrecognized dead on that Monday evening. About seven hundred were thus huddled into a vacant rifle pit and covered up to await the resurrection morn.
But I must bring my story to a close. Were I to tell you all, I should overtax your nerves and transgress the limits of your forbearance. We have not even space to criticise thoroughly the manreuvers or to sum up the results of this sanguinary encounter. In some respects, this ten days' battle was a costly failure, and justifies the remark that our com- mander did not properly distinguish between the difficult and the impossible. Not long before the death of General U. S. Grant, he stated to a friend that the battle of June 3d, at Cold Harbor, was one of the two engagements which he regretted ; the other one being the experimental assault on Pemberton's lines at Vicksburg, May 19, 1863. In other respects, this deadly battle served a wise end, since, under cover of its shock, our army was moved unmolested to the south bank of the James, from which we ultimately destroyed the opposing legions and entered Richmond. On the 12th of June, with admirable cleverness and dispatch, the position at Cold Har- bor was abandoned by General Grant, and its soil was never again disturbed by the contending hosts. But it had been consecrated by martyrs' blood, and it holds in trust the ashes of thousands of our honored dead.
2.48
Twenty-first Regiment Connecticut Volunteers.
Inasmuch as our Brigade-Commander Colonel Guy V. Henry was corps officer-of-the-day on the night of the with- drawal, it was my privilege to execute his orders in retiring the picket line after the main body was on its march for the White House landing. It was between 3 and 4 A. M., and the dawn seemed hastening to overtake us. Each one of the pickets must be personally visited and told in a whisper what to do and where to find the little reserve of a thousand men, which was all the force remaining in front of Lee's veterans. The latter suspected that something was in progress, but, fear- ing a trap, waited till long after daylight before they learned that our army had disappeared, and it was not for several days that Lee discovered our movement on Petersburg. But I shall never forget the sense of loneliness and peril at the front that night, with the knowledge that our preservation depended solely upon the ignorance of our wary foe. Their pickets were wide awake. They crowed like roosters, quacked like ducks, barked like dogs, and imitated all the sounds of a farmyard at dawn. Apparently they concluded that we were strengthening our picket line or relieving the guard, instead of retiring, and, fortunately for us, we were not molested as we slipped away to the rear and took up our rapid march to connect with our rear guard five miles distant. It was a welcome sight when we caught up with our stragglers and halted for a few minutes to make coffee and to rest the men.
A year of fighting and of victory has sped along, and the last remnant of armed rebellion has disappeared. Richmond, in June 1, 1865, is held by a Federal garrison who are grumbling over the necessity of serving out their time and of playing at war any longer.
From the captured city, one bright sunny morning, there marches forth a detail of one hundred men in blue. They are loosely clad in fatigue uniform and without arms, their officers alone carrying sword and pistol. A mule-team with a white-covered army wagon precedes them, containing their haversacks and a load of entrenching tools-shovels, picks
249
The Battle of Cold Harbor.
and long-handled spades. The men are chatting gaily and joking together, glad of any expedition to escape the daily drill and the monotony of camp. But as they trudge on along the Mechanicsville pike, they sober down more and more until when they halt at Gaines' Mill, they are quite silent and are evidently not anxious to proceed. What is the mission on which these men are sent? They are going to bury their'dead comrades at Cold Harbor. It has been discovered that the rebels performed no rites of sepulture for our fallen ones. All the summer and winter and spring have our unburied heroes lain at the mercy of wind and storm, exposed to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field. Their corpses have been overturned, their clothing has been stripped off, every pocket has been cut out and rifled, but no hand has offered to return the dust to kindly dust once more. There were two men who died in each other's arms, perhaps they were brothers, at least they were comrades dear. They have their arms about each other still, and still their waist - belts are girded round and fastened with the United States plate all green with brazen rust. Take up the twain as tenderly as a mother would her babe and lay them side by side, that e'en in burial their embrace may be unbroken. And so these wasted forms were shielded at last, when the cruel war was over, and after many days of labor this great potter's field was made clean.
So we bid farewell to Cold Harbor with a sigh and perhaps not without tears, but feeling sure that even such aceldamas as these were not too heavy a price to pay for a nation's freedom.
250
Twenty-first Regiment Connecticut Volunteers.
SKETCH OF COLONEL THOMAS F. BURPEE.
Men who served with Colonel Thomas F. Burpee in the Civil War have no need of a description of his life and char- acter. They knew him. What most they desire now, if we may judge by their oft-expressed sentiments, is to be assured that he loved them as they loved him-with that love that only soldier comrades may know.
The briefest outline of his previous life is sufficient. Colo- nel Burpee, son - of Thomas Burpee, a descendant of New England's earliest pioneers, was born in Stafford, Conn., February 17, 1830. Working on a farm, he earned the money to pay his tuition at Hall's Select School in Ellington, and his parents dying when he was young, early had to give all his attention to self-support. He held responsible posi- tions in the Rock and Hockanum Woolen Mills in Rockville, in Terry's mill in Plymouth (in 1858), and in the Windermere mill in Ellington, where he was when the war broke out. He married Adeline Minerva, daughter of Ebenezer Harwood, in Rockville, Thanksgiving Day, 1852. Their first child, a daughter, died in infancy. The other two children are living, Lucien F. of Waterbury (Ex-Colonel of the Second Regi- ment, C. N. G.), and in the Spanish war a Lieutenant- Colonel on the staff of General Miles, commanding the army), born October 13, 1855, and Charles W. (who has held commissions in three of the National Guard regiments of the state, retiring with rank of captain), born November 13, 1859.
Colonel Burpee early showed a marked preference for mili- tary life. His ante-bellum record was : Corporal of " Fourth Infantry Company of Fifth Regiment of Infantry in the Mili- tia of the State " ( Elijah W. Smith, Colonel), September 10, 18.49 ; Third Sergeant, same company (J. C. Parker, Colonel), September 10, 1850; Second Lieutenant, Infantry Company D, Fifth Regiment, April 16, 1853; Second Lieutenant, In-
2.1 x5%
PRIVATE FRANCIS B. CLARK.
LIEUTENANT ELISHA B. CHIPMAN.
LIEUTENANT JAMI'S STANLEY LIEUTENANT LUTHER N. CERTIS
253
The Battle of Cold Harbor.
fantry Company C, Fifth Regiment, June 19, 1854 ; Captain Company C, September 20, 1855 ; Adjutant, with rank of First Lieutenant, Fifth Regiment, July 21, 1858; Captain Company C, July 27, 1859; Major Fifth Regiment, May 13, 18614 Captain Artillery, Company A, Fifth Regiment, August 24, 1861.
The first call for troops for the war was not for enough to take all who wanted to go. Purposing to be in if there were need of more than the few first accepted, Captain Burpee offered his well-drilled company on May 1, 1861, for service when required, and in reply, received word from Adjutant- General Williams that no new muskets could be issued, and the department might be compelled to call in what muskets the company had, " to temporarily arm the regiments now accepted." The company was accepted, however, May 4. But two days later the guns and all equipments were called in. On May 8, orders came announcing that more had responded to the President's call than were needed ; the services of the companies of the Fourth and Fifth Regiments were declined, and they were ordered disbanded. When, a little more than a year later, the magnitude of the rebellion first began to be realized, and Lincoln called for three hundred thousand men for three years, the Captain was ready with his company- reorganized after members had gone into the Fifth and other regiments-which became Company D of the Fourteenth, eighty-four men.
Hle was soon offered the position of Major in the Twenty- first, but declined, preferring to remain with his own men. It was only after repeated urgings by Governor Buckingham that he accepted, August 23, 1862, and soon was appointed a Lieutenant-Colonel, September 3, 1862.
In his first letter after getting settled in the first camp (Camp Kearney, Washington, September 15, 1862), he speaks a good word for the men : "The battalion behaves very well indeed for raw troops; it is made up of good men." Wash- ington of those days he considers " a magnificent effort and a
254
Twenty-first Regiment Connecticut Volunteers.
tremendous failure." Telling of the journey from Norwich, he says: " In Philadelphia the ladies were very attentive, giving us all we wanted to ent and drink, and as we marched through the streets to the depot, crowds of women and children pressed around, asking where we belonged, bidding good-by, Godspeed, etc. One would say, "I touched his hand;' another would say, 'I touched his sword, or his coat,' and the like. In fact, I thought the ladies a little too warm in their expressions as we were embarking on the cars in the evening. They would crowd around and show rather more warmth than the occasion required, and I think the wives of the mnen might have been a little jealous if they had seen it."
Two days later, in camp across the Potomac, he but voiced the sentiment of you all, I know, when he said: "We are, I am told, to constitute a corps of reserves, which is not so pleasing to s when we hear of glories being won by our brothers in arms." And frequently after that he murmured because the Twenty-first was not seeing as much fighting as any other regiment. He was pre-eminently a "home man," as he expressed it, but he writes : " Yet there is a witchery about this kind of life that is fascinating, notwithstanding its hardships."
From the first he had a deep, solemn appreciation of the situation. From Camp Pleasant Valley, Md., October 12, 1862, his letter says: " Tell them (the relatives) that I con- sider it a very great privilege to be called a soldier of the Republic, and that I hope to have that privilege until the monster rebellion is crushed out. utterly and forever, until they who have dared lay their desecrating hands upon the flag of our Union shall be made to bite the dust. * Give yourself no uneasiness. He who could heal the centu- rion's servant on account of his great faith, and bring to life the widow's son as he was being borne to the grave, can carry safely through so humble a creature as I am if he so wills it, not by any great display of power, but by his own
255
The Battle of Cold Harbor.
simple, quiet means. And I have faith, for it is by his will that we have been brought thus far; and without his pro- tection there is no safety anywhere." That tone pervades all the letters.
During Colonel Dutton's sickness at Camp Pleasant Valley and whileshe Lieutenant-Colonel was in command, the Gen- eral commanding the division called a Sunday inspection of guns, knapsacks and everything belonging to the regiment. The letter of that day, October 19th, says : " He praised our regiment highly, saying it was fifty per cent. better than any other one out of some forty regiments he had inspected."
The present style of war reporting is as old as the rebel- lion, if we may judge by this not infrequent sentiment: "Now, you must not believe more than one-quarter what you see in the papers, or else disbelieve the whole, and you will know more. If there is the slightest movement of troops or a little skirmish, the papers get hold of it and dress it up and make a great story of it, when in reality there is hardly anything to it worth mentioning."
He felt the soldier's resentment of certain civilian criticism, in the press and elsewhere, and on November Sth voiced it thus : " Tell them not to be impatient because the army moves no faster down here. They little dream what this army is enduring for them from day to day. The only wonder is that their hardships do not conquer their patriot- ism, and indeed it would if it were not for the stern, unyielding principle which actuates some, at least, of the leading officers, together with a sense of military honor and duty which holds the army together as with a band of iron. If Horace Greely could be made a common soldier in this regiment to-morrow for one month, he would cease his howlings about the slug- gishness.of the army forever."
The letters from Camp Kearney. Washington, (September 15 and 16, 1862.) describe the journey to the capital.
And his spirit -- the spirit of the soldiers who saved the Union-breathes in this, of September 25, 1862, referring to
256
Twenty-first Regiment Connecticut Volunteers.
a nephew, William Goodell, who had enlisted in the Four- teenth : "Tell Louise not to be over-anxious about William. I should rather see him sacrificed. for a holy principle than to see him remain in inglorious waiting at a time like this. The Lord has said, 'Whosoever will save his life shall lose it,' and this has often been the case in this accursed rebellion. If anyone lacks enthusiasmı in this cause, let him go to work, and if that doesn't awaken him, then he is a coward. The lofty inspiration of this cause is worth living a life-tinte to feel ; and if I had a thousand lives I would not withhold one of them. Yet I do not know whether in actual conflict I should be a brave man or a coward. But when I hear of the death of my comrades, I feel as if I had the strength of a hundred men in my own arm with which to avenge their deaths. * * * Don't borrow any trouble about any inconvenience I may be obliged to suffer ; it is nothing. I am satisfied so long as you and the children are comfortable. Should lybe laid in the grave, remember that our Heavenly Father doeth all things well. Look on the bright side, and the bright side only. God bless you and the children."
When William Goodell was killed at Gettysburg, he wrote: " The blow which laid him low welded our hearts to our country's cause. The sacrifice of suffering, and blood which he poured out, sanctified to us its soil."
In the regiment's forced marches to Fredericksburg, the endurance, patience and good nature of the men is com- mented upon in his hurriedly scrawled notes in the woods and in the saddle. And again his pride in his command appears when he writes from camp near Fredericksburg, November 20, 1862: " I have it direct from the headquarters of our division that the Twenty-first is considered by the General the best regiment in the division. The division con- sists of nine regiments. Among them are the Fourth Rhode Island, Eighth, Eleventh and Sixteenth Connecticut, Tenth New Hampshire, Eighty-ninth New York, One Hundred and
SERGEANT ROBERT A. GRAY. PRIVATE HENRY SNOW.
MUSICIAN WILLIAM H. PALMER. PRIVATE HAJJAH B. TRACY.
259
The Battle of Cold Harbor.
Third New York, and the famous Hawkins Zouaves. So we consider ourselves somewhat praised."
Comments like the following are worth cherishing by the soldiers of the Twenty-first and their descendants, written at a time (December 9, 1862,) when there was much gossip at home about army habits: "I am happy to say that the officers of the Twenty-first are not a whiskey-drinking set. Almost without exception they are quite the reverse, and with very few exceptions there is neither vulgarity nor pro- fanity among them. The Colonel (Dutton) never employs any but gentlemanly language and very seldom uses spirits."
Be it remembered that this was written by a man who would have been quick to observe the vices and who would have been unsparing in his condemnation of them.
In his letter graphically describing the regiment's experi- ence at the battle of Fredericksburg, there is a deep tone of regret for the circumstances that led up to that butchery and for the results; but with this one characteristic sentence, indicating the spirit that was persistent, however dark the cloud : " But he who rules the destinies of nations can bring order out of chaos." Everyone remembers the depression following that battle. In a letter at this time to Colonel John W. Thayer, of Rockville, in which he acknowledges the depression, but asserts that he is not discouraged, he refers thus to an historical incident: "A military commit- tee of investigation have been here from Congress. Some of our officers thought it would be advisable to take them over to the rebs with a flag of truce and then leave them there, but the trouble is the rebs would not have them there. One officer, who commands a battery of twenty-pounder Par- rots, hoped they would visit the battle-fields so that he could mistake them for the rebs and shell them off, just to let them know how pleasant, or rather how unpleasant, it is to have shells whistling about one's ears. I must say I had a similar wish myself. The impudence of the thing is unbearable. They don't need to come so far for rottenness, It is like
260
Twenty-first Regiment Connecticut Volunteers.
sending Banks to the Gulf to hunt for rebels when the state nearest the capital is swarming with them. I don't think I had better write anymore now, but wait until I possess a better spirit."
From the Nansemond River, May 24, 1863, he wrote of the necessity of fighting on steadily and calmly through every obstacle and disgrace " until he who giveth us the vic- tory shall proclaim the contest ended." Continuing : "The enthusiastic feeling of patriotism which can prompt a man to leave his hearthstone and rush to arms at the first approach of danger, is as much inferior to that lofty courage which can carry a man through a prolonged struggle like this, as the moon is to the sun. The war develops the feeling of the people everywhere throughout the country. Those who in the first fever of the excitement at the beginning were so eager and noisy, have now learned that it was a task re -. quiring more sacrifices than they supposed, and they are now 'sick of the war.' Another class who were at first indifferent, but would have supported a short war, are now firmly arrayed against it, while the third and last class, and that upon which the country must depend for support, is made up of those who have been from the first and are now determined that at any cost and at all hazards the country must and shall be preserved, not by lolling in ease at home, passing high- sounding resolutions, not by doing up a few packages of pillow-cases and shirts, bandages and lint, and sending them to the army, but by putting their shoulders to the wheel, by interposing their bodies as a living barrier between our gov- ernment and its foes."
While the Colonel was home on sick leave in June, 1863, Edwin S. Wheeler wrote from headquarters at White House, Va., telling how General Dix had appointed the regiment provost guard, and Major Crosby provost marshal, and this, which is of peculiar interest to-day : " Captain Spittle has gone to Fort Monroe to-day with his company as a guard to
-
261
The Battle of Cold Harbor.
one hundred and fifty prisoners, among whom is General Fitzhugh Lee."
Here is a reminiscence from Washington, N. C., (April 14, 1864.): "Our troops are preparing ground outside of the breastworks, under the direction of the medical director, raising vegetables for use of the soldiers here. The Twenty- first men have done nothing at it, as they have enough to do without. I presume they will do someone good, but who it may be is uncertain. I have a nice garden, but I don't like to buy seed and plant it for the use of somebody else. I think I shall find a good darkey and let him plant it on shares ; then it will do somebody some good, if it doesn't me."
His letter from the field the morning after the battle of Drewry's Bluff, which was May 16, 1864, is of value in a regimental history, as giving the regimental commandant's story at the tene. After rehearsing the preliminaries leading up to the event, he says: "The rebels got re-enforcements the day before. The night had been foggy and wet, and at four o'clock the fog was so thick that nothing could be seen two rods off. I had just sent out Captain Brown with his company in front of the Twenty-first as skirmishers, when a tremendous firing opened on the right of my brigade, which was the right of the whole line occupied by our troops. The enemy had turned our right flank and were in our rear. The Ninth New Jersey and the Twenty-third and Twenty-seventh Massachusetts were almost used up by the suddenness of the attack. I will not attempt to describe the whole fight. Suffice it to say that in an hour and a half I was left alone with the Twenty-first to cope with the enemy who were in my front and on both flanks, and a thick, swampy woods in my rear. The men fought well, in some cases hand to hand with the rebs. I changed my front to rear and fought for five hours through the swamp and timbers, gradually falling back, some- times charging upon them when they pressed too hard on us, and at last succeeded in bringing the regiment and most of my wounded on to the open ground, where I could get help.
262
Twenty-first Regiment Connecticut Volunteers.
Our Brigadier-General was captured and I received no orders at all until I had fought three hours, and when the fight com- menced I could not tell how things were going on my right, and did not know the enemy had got around us until their bullets came from that direction. I don't know what the generals at headquarters think of the conduct, but I hear that we have gained much credit. We were so long in the woods that they thought we should be captured.
"I lost one hundred and six men and four commissioned officers. Captain Shepard lost a leg ; Captain Stanton, severe wound in the arm ; Lieutenant Dutton, flesh wound; Lieuten- ant Hubbell, slightly. As for myself, I received no scratch. A bullet struck the spur on my heel and glanced off. ‘God covered my head in the hour of danger' and brought me safely through. Captain Shepard was fighting like a tiger when he was struck, and so was Stanton. He was wounded early in the action. We were engaged from four in the morning till nearly noon without an instant's rest and had had but little rest for the previous two days. * * I suppose the main objects of the expedition (under Butler) thus far have been accomplished, in preventing re-enforce- ments from being sent to Lee and drawing troops from his army here."
The day of that battle his wife was writing to him. In his letter of the twenty-second he says: "I received yours of the sixteenth this morning with much joy. You say, 'Go! and God be with you!' May God bless you, my darling wife, for that ! It gives me unspeakable joy to know that you are resigned to leave everything in the hands of God and trust him for the result. * When in battle my only constant prayer was, 'God bless my dear wife and children.'
" The papers do not give anything like a correct idea of the fight on Monday. The Twenty-first was at that time assigned to headquarters brigade, and although we fought for five hours in one of the most difficult situations in which a regi- ment could be placed, we are not mentioned at all in the
PRIVATE HENRY B. LAWRENCE. PRIVATE LINCOLN E. CROSBY.
SERGEANT JOHN I .. TIFT. SERGEANT DANIEL F. BRADLEY.
265
The Battle of Cold Harbor.
published accounts. But this is of no consequence except as it shows the incorrectness of the reports. Some officers go so far as to say that the stubborn fight made by the Twenty- first in the fog and obscurity of the woods saved the entire corps from destruction on that morning. [Later evidence and reports substantiated that belief.] I only know that we tried to do our duty in the sight of God. * *
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.