USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry, Chancellorsville : a paper read at the officers' reunion in Boston, May 11, 1880 > Part 1
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Gc 973.74 M38t 1755367
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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Gc
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00825 0620
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HISTORY
OF THE
2 d SECOND MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT OF INFANTRY.
CHANCELLORSVILLE.
A PAPER READ AT THE OFFICERS' REUNION IN BOSTON, MAY 11, 18So,
BY
GEORGE A. THAYER,
CAPTAIN SECOND MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT OF INFANTRY.
BOSTON : GEORGE H. ELLIS, PRINTER, I4I FRANKLIN STREET. . 1882.
..
50 %
F 8349 . 415
Thayer, George Augustine, 1839-
History of the Second Massachusetts regiment of in- fantry. Chancellorsville. A paper read at the officers' reunion in Boston, May 11, 1880, by George A. Thayer ... Boston, G. II. Ellis, printer, 1882. 33 p. 24cm. Priv print. for the association.
SHELF CARD
1. U. S .- Hist .- Civil war-Regimental histories-Mass. inf .- 2d. 2. Massachusetts infantry. 2d regt., 1861-1865. 3. Chancellorsville, Battle of, 1863.
3-32915 i
6072
Library of Congress
E481.C4T3
1:55367
PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE ASSOCIATION.
V
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THE SECOND MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY
AND THE
CAMPAIGN OF CHANCELLORSVILLE.
IT is assigned to me to tell the story of the part taken by our regiment in the campaign of Chancellorsville in May, 1863.
In the execution of the original plan of these papers, that the entire history of the Second Regiment should eventually be covered, this account, in its proper order, should follow the story of Antietam, which is yet to be written. It is therefore in place for me to give a rapid sketch of our movements from just after Antietam to the beginning of May, 1863.
In November, 1862, the earliest date of which I can speak from personal knowledge, the Second was encamped in a grove of handsome tulip-trees at Sharpsburg, Md., close by Blackford's Ford, the shallows of the Potomac over which Lee had retreated two months before, and opposite which Fitz John Porter, too closely following the Confederate rear- guard, had met with a sharp repulse from Early. General Gordon, commanding the brigade, was in Sharpsburg ; and the head-quarters of General Slocum, the corps commander, just promoted from a division of Franklin's corps, were at . Harper's Ferry. Captain William Cogswell was in com- mand of the regiment.
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The Sharpsburg camp gave a refreshing respite from the hardships which had been the regimental lot since the early summer. Although frequent rumors of the enemy's reap- pearance about the Shepardstown Heights opposite com- pelled heavy details of pickets at the river, still the men were snugly housed in quarters of boards and logs, the offi- cers were yet indulged in wall tents (a luxury soon to dis- appear till the end of the war, save for the brief taste of Paradise when the regiment was upon its holiday service of suppressing draft riots in New York), fruitful Maryland made up the shortcomings of the commissariat, and familiar faces of convalescents and exchanged prisoners were daily reappearing in the streets to add zest to our social life.
In the yet soft and sunny autumn days, broken only by an occasional flurry of snow or by a north-west blast which roared harmless far above our sheltered camp, there were delightful compensations in the life of the woods and fields for even the monotony of guarding the river, and at least one novice found his initiation into the ways of war to have more of romance than of sternness.
But these days of recuperation were put to an end by the march of December 10, which took us by the way of Antie- tam Iron Works, Maryland Heights, and Harper's Ferry, into Virginia, to become once more a part of the Army of the Potomac.
For a month, we were about Fairfax Station, with an occa- sional excursion to Occoquan Creek in search of Stuart's raid- ing parties ; and there one supreme effort of architectural skill, vying with the best work of the days when all possible con- structive trades were represented in the regimental rank and file (there were even thatchers to be found in those early days), showed that the genius for building camps was not yet dead. But this masterpiece was no sooner finished than the summons came to march toward Fredericksburg, our portion of Burnside's famous "mud march"; and the sole satisfac- tion of our labors was a touching, because unprecedented . letter of gratitude from the Fifteenth Vermont, sent to us
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weeks afterward, to the effect that they had inherited our estates and found our handiwork as creditable to our taste as it was sumptuous for its new possessors.
From January 19th to the 23d, we were on the road. On the night of the 20th, we bivouacked in Dumfries graveyard, the only open ground near that decrepit village; and while we slept, with that placid repose which becomes the sedative air of a cemetery, the north-east rain began to pour. To those of us who, weatherwise, had discerned the signs of the sky in the evening, and had pitched our shelter tents high up the hill slope, the pattering was only a lullaby; but there were more careless or unfortunate souls who had dis- posed themselves in the hollows among the sunken graves, from whom, at midnight, above the noise of the storm, arose sounds of wailing which betokened that the floods were dis- puting the right to their beds.
The morrow's march was not a happy one. Quantico Creek, at the foot of our hill, was bridged with a single log for the footmen, being presumptively fordable ; and now the stream was swift and fast swelling. There was an occa- sional plunge into the current by the dizzy-headed, and the most went in above the ankles. And all day the wagons and artillery labored in the bog, while the troops shivered on the roadsides in the furious north-easter. There was one philosopher of K Company, who, possibly zealous for the re- pute of his company for soldierly neatness, was seen under the lee of a tree-trunk, shaving himself in all the dismal cold and soak. At night, we had gone somewhat less than a mile. But a thicket of young pines and roaring fires lightened our tribulations; for we still had wherewithal to eat, and sleep came without coaxing. Another day of rain and mud, the latter mitigated for the trains by the discovery of a corduroy road ; at evening, the contemplation of the fact that our ra- tions had given out and no commissary supplies were within reach ; a rapid push the next day for the nearest quartermas- ter's post, inspired by the consideration that we had had no breakfast; and, late in the afternoon, dirty, tired, and hollow
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with fasting, we reached the woods of Stafford Court House, which was to be our abiding place for the next four months, with the intermission of the ten days to Chancellorsville and back.
The movement of Slocum's command has its explanation in what was transpiring with the army of General Burnside at Falmouth. That general's plan had been to cross the Rappahannock at Banks Ford, six miles above Fredericks- burg, with the main army ; while Sigel, under whom was the Grand Division consisting of the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps, was assigned the duty of guarding communications with Falmouth and the railroad to Acquia Creek. When the storm broke out, Franklin's and Hooker's divisions were in bivouac at the ford, and Sigel was in place with his advance.
The plan was utterly discomfited by the storm of the 20th and 21st; and as we reached Stafford, ten miles from the front, the rest of the army had, as far as possible, resumed its old quarters about Falmouth.
Three days later, on the 26th of January, Major-General Joseph Hooker announced his succession to the command of the Army of the Potomac. The movement which opened the Chancellorsville campaign began on the 27th of April. We were therefore three months fitting for action, than which a similar length of time was never more faithfully devoted by an army to the work of preparation for vigorous warfare. Notwithstanding a natural distrust of Hooker felt by many of the general officers on account of his ten- dency to boastfulness and a certain impatience of subordi- nation to his superiors, he soon won the hearty confidence and admiration of the army (and of our regiment) by his decisive and wise administration of affairs. He infused great energy and a fine spirit of emulation into all depart- ments of his command. Discipline was made rigid, and praise and censure judiciously distributed among the dif- ferent organizations. General Order No. 18 designated by name a few regiments and batteries which appeared upon
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close inspection to deserve honor for their soldierly condi- tion ; and that this distinction was not indiscriminate, as such orders often are, appears from the fact that but three regiments of Massachusetts (whose troops were among the best in the army) were commended, the Second being one of these. Desertion and absenteeism, which had prevailed to an enormous extent (so that in January nearly three thousand officers and eighty-two thousand enlisted men were away from their posts without sufficient cause), were peremp- torily checked. Incompetent officers and shirks were sum- marily got rid of when detected. Officers' recitations in tactics, daily drills, and frequent parades and reviews were required.
Close attention was paid to the health and comfort of the rank and file. The rations were the best afforded by the Army Regulations, and nothing which concerned the morale of the command was deemed too insignificant for the atten- tion of the commander-in-chief.
The Second shared the prevailing vigorous tone. Although three of its Companies, B, E, and G, were detailed at corps head-quarters under Captain Charles F. Morse, leaving to the seven remaining companies the arduous routine of camp duty, there was no abatement of the tasks pertaining to thorough preparation for the great work of the spring. The line officers were daily summoned by bugle-call to Captain Cogswell's regimental head-quarters to make deliverance of their knowledge of Casey's tactics, and in the plain by bri- gade head-quarters these acquisitions were put into practice in company, regimental, and brigade drills and dress-parades. We were all well-worked and well-cared for, and therefore in the best condition of body and mind.
Under the reorganization which promptly engaged Hook- er's attention, the army consisted of seven corps of infantry, . and one of cavalry under Stoneman. Of the infantry corps, Reynolds had the First, Couch the Second, Sickles the Third, Meade the Fifth, Sedgwick the Sixth, Howard the Eleventh, and Slocum the Twelfth ; and to each was assigned a distin-
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guishing badge, to be borne upon the general flags and wagon trains, and worn by the soldiers upon their caps. The 20th of April marks our first use of the red star, our division emblem, which was through the rest of the war particularly honorable and convenient in designating our corps associa- tions, but, in the tangle and confusion of the coming cam- paign, was found to afford an indispensable clew for leading estrays back to their respective commands.
The two divisions of the Twelfth Corps were, as hereto- fore, under Williams and Geary. The three brigades of the First Division were led by Generals Knipe and Ruger, and Colonel Ross of the Twentieth Connecticut ; and the several regiments of the Second Brigade were commanded, - the Sec- ond Massachusetts by Colonel Samuel M. Quincy (returned early in March from convalescence from wounds received at Cedar Mountain), the Third Wisconsin by Colonel Hawley, the Thirteenth New Jersey by Colonel Carman, the Twenty- seventh Indiana by Colonel Colgrove, and the One Hundred and Seventh New York by Colonel Diven.
The entire force of Hooker's command of all arms present for duty April 30 was one hundred and twenty-three thou- sand men, thirteen thousand of whom were in Slocum's corps. Confronting these were not far from sixty-two thou- sand men, under Lee and his principal lieutenant, Jackson, Longstreet being detached.
The Confederates were in high spirits, admirably disci- plined, alert, and safe behind substantial fortifications, stretch- ing for twenty miles from Skenker's Neck below to Banks Ford above Fredericksburg. When their own arsenals had not amply equipped them with new muskets and cannon, the thoughtfulness of our British cousins had supplied the defi- ciency ; and the Union Committee on the conduct of the war had been all winter, through its hearings of discontented and mutually jealous officers, proffering them advice concern- ing the weak points in their defences. To say that with all Lee's prevision of our probable movements, and the difficulty of preventing any Union plans from being the common talk
قوة
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of the army before they began to be executed, Hooker effect- ually surprised the Confederate commander, and nearly neu- tralized the value of his elaborate system of field works, is to pay the highest testimony to the Union General's talent for war.
It is not an altogether unnecessary digression in the story of the regiment's campaign to deal in a somewhat cursory manner with the positions and plans of the army on the eve of its spring operations ; for thus alone can our own move- ment be made to have any meaning or permanent interest.
To Hooker was presented the problem of drawing Lee from behind his impregnable works on the banks of the Rappahannock, and compelling him to accept battle upon terms favorable to the Union Army's success.
The southerly banks of the river consist, at some places, of comparatively steep bluffs, a hundred and fifty feet high, cut by trickling streams and frequently heavily wooded ; at other places, of bottom lands which gradually swell into hills of a considerable elevation at a distance of from three- quarters of a mile to a mile and a half from the river margin, this latter characteristic belonging to the region just about Fredericksburg, where, though it was not difficult to make a crossing under the protection of our artillery, our troops would presently emerge under an intolerable fire of the strongly entrenched enemy. To court battle with reasona- ble chance of good fortune, the field selected must be well above the fords guarded by any respectable force of the vigilant Confederates ; and this choice was promptly made by Hooker.
Stoneman with his ten thousand cavalry was to make a long detour around Lee's left (crossing the river at Rappa- hannock Station), and to reach the Richmond and Freder- icksburg Railroad in season to co-operate with the infantry advance by cutting the enemy's line of supplies and harass- ing his retreat as soon as that calamity was imposed upon him. It may as well be said here that this portion of the programme utterly miscarried. Stoneman did not pass the
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river until the infantry corps were well upon their way to Chancellorsville, instead of anticipating them a fortnight, and, when he did attain Lee's rear, did but little damage. With the exception of the help given by Pleasanton's bri- gade, the cavalry co-operation was of no moment in the campaign.
The First, Third, and Sixth Corps were to make strong dem- onstrations in front of and below Fredericksburg, to detain as many of the enemy as possible, and, upon the first signs of his weakening his lines here, to assault and carry his posi- tions. The Second Corps was to lie near the United States Ford, ten miles above, until its crossing should be covered by the movements farther up stream. The Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Corps were to move to Kelly's Ford, fifteen miles above, with utmost expedition and secrecy, and, that passed, to push by divergent columns over the Rapidan, and thence get immediately in Lee's left rear, extending a hand to the Second Corps, now free to cross. Then, with a largely pre- ponderating force pressing him on front and flank, it seemed as if Lee must be crushed or driven disastrously southward.
The marching forces were put in shape for expeditious work. Eight days' rations were carried by the men ; and the trains were reduced to a few wagons with forage, two ambu- lances and a battery to each division, and pack-mules laden with small ammunition. The remaining artillery and bag- gage was to stay in reserve near the United States Ford.
At six o'clock on Tuesday morning, April 27, the Second moved out of its camp at Stafford. The back loads of the men were heavy, what with the extra rations, the sixty rounds of cartridge, and the inevitable accumulation of treas- ure of a winter's camp ; but the roads were in capital condi- tion, hard and dry, the air was delicious with spring warmth and fragrance, and the trees just bursting into young leaf, and the anemones and violets by the roadside gave that quickening to the imagination which exalts the spirits and makes burdens light. On the second day, Hooker passed us ; and we knew we were a fragment of a formidable general movement.
II
Upon the second night, we bivouacked near Kelly's Ford. The enforced stillness of our camp, without drum-beat, even the mules cut short in the midst of their braying by a jerk of the halter and the customary expletive, the two or three smouldering fires of the regiment kept well under the hill- sides, and speedily put out, and the various precautions against discovery by a wary enemy, seemed to forebode a struggle in the crossing ; but the Eleventh Corps was easily over bright and early, and Captain Comstock's canvas pon- toons were laid by sunrise for our solid highway.
Slocum's orders were to the effect that, as soon as he should pass the Rappahannock, he should send three or four smart marching infantry regiments and a regiment of cav- alry to Germania Mills on the Rapidan, and take possession of the bridge there, if it was standing. For this service, Ruger's brigade was chosen, and with the Third Wisconsin and Twenty-seventh Indiana advanced as skirmishers, and the Second Massachusetts moving by the flank in the road, fol- lowed by a section of Cothran's Battery M, First New York Artillery, we proceeded to scour the country. The curious and sometimes frightened inhabitants (almost all women, the men as usual being absent) watched us from their door- ways ; a sprightly damsel now and then responding to the compliments of the men concerning the special opportuni- ties now afforded for matrimony, "the last chance," with "I'd marry a rebel, and not a Yankee." Occasionally, the cavalry scouts appeared with a squad of prisoners ; and pres- ently, late in the afternoon, word came from the front that a considerable body of the enemy were in possession of the Germania crossing. The approaches to the Rapidan were through dense thickets of scrub-oak, up to the immediate bluff overlooking the river which spreads out for a few hun- dred yards into a comparatively easy plain. Upon the south . bank (the Confederate side) were steep hills rising somewhat precipitously from the very edge of the river, which forms a decided bow at the ford, the bend being northward in such a shape that all the approaches to the ford were completely
1 2
covered by a cross-fire from those who should occupy the north bank.
In this mouth of a bag, three companies of Virginia infan- try were at work rebuilding the bridge which had been destroyed in some former cavalry raid, all unsuspicious of our approach, although the cavalry advance had exchanged a few shots with them. But they probably took this to be a mere scouting party, and kept about their work.
The Second now replaced the Twenty-seventh Indiana in the advance, and, upon the right of the road (the Third Wisconsin upon the left), clambered up through the tangle of briers and black jack in formation by the right of com- panies to the front, so far as there could be any order in get- ting on, each man as best he could. But with laughter and eagerness such as a hunter feels when on the track of game (curious it is to look back upon the sensations of that hour of hunting fellow-creatures with no other emotion than the fear lest they should not be bagged), we emerged into the open field, and then with rapid sweep to the right, and with a few shots, more of warning against their trying to escape than of response to their defence, of which they had time to make scarce any, we had possession of the ford and its guard,-one hundred and three men, seven of them officers. And then, to complete our work, we plunged into the river. The water was cold, and up to our waists, and swift running ; and many a man, holding above his head his ammunition and his other precious possessions which he wished to keep from the wet, found his feet disposed to fly upward too, so that, but for the cordon of cavalrymen sta- tioned below us, the perils of the flood would have been more fatal than those from rebel musketry. In bivouac among the scrubby pines beyond, we passed a wretched -night, in our steaming clothes, which not even the huge fires we kept for lighting the bridge-builders availed to make other than a cold vapor bath, and with scanty meals for the officers, who in those days depended for edibles upon for- aging or the sutler.
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Thursday morning, we struck the road running toward Fredericksburg, and for ten miles had easy marching, only arrested briefly by Stuart's cavalry. At 4 P.M., we were in the woods not far from the Chancellorsville House, expect- ing merely to bivouac for the night. No attempt at breast- works was made, for there were no indications of the ene- my's presence. Company H, being on picket at night, did indeed capture one man ; but it attached far greater impor- tance to the capture of sundry sheep who were so injudicious as to come within the picket lines.
But toward noon of Friday, the Ist of May, the familiar hollow ring of artillery and the cracking of skirmish shots in our front apprised us that we had struck the enemy ; and, as we took up the advance and debouched into the open fields, the great parks of artillery and ambulances, and the masses of infantry of many corps resting in column in the fields, or pushing hastily over the divergent roads, with Hooker con- templating and directing affairs from his support of the col- umns of a spacious brick house, told us that here was likely to be the centre of impending great events. Our march was for a couple of miles, and then we halted and prepared to form in line of battle. Ambulances and loaded stretchers now and then passed us going to the rear. In an orchard by the roadside, a hospital had been improvised.
Sykes's division of the Fifth Corps had met Anderson in some works farther on, and these wounded were the results of his vigorous skirmishing.
Knipe's First Brigade was on our left, with skirmish line deployed, and a part of our brigade was being advanced in like array. A Confederate battery, apparently a quarter of a mile from us, was sending shells toward our lines. We were nerving ourselves for the business that was plainly at hand, when our preparations were stopped and we were ordered to go back to whence we had started.
As we retreated, the enemy's skirmishers slowly followed ; and as we lay in our last night's lines, and worked energet- ically at forming breastworks from the logs, the crash of
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musketry, the noise of artillery, and the yells of the Confed- erates, and responding hurrahs of the Union men, coming within a half-mile of our position, made it appear doubtful how the day had gone. But at evening, when the storm had subsided, a General Order from the commander-in-chief assured us that all was as well as heart could desire. The Union forces were planted solidly upon the flank of the Fredericksburg defences, and Lee must sally forth and fight us upon our chosen ground or make inglorious flight. There- upon, we were comforted, and chuckled at the thought of the morrow.
But now, in order to give intelligibility to these regimental operations, we need to know something of the proceedings of the army down to this Friday night, and of the region of which we had had but fragmentary glimpses ; as, indeed, what infantryman ever does know anything of a battle-field except the little patch of pasture, hill, or forest just before his eyes ?
When Slocum had passed Kelly's Ford, he was closely followed by Meade with his Fifth Corps, who, simultaneously with our advance, pushed to Ely's (or Elley's) Ford near the mouth of the Rapidan, where, crossing with no resistance, he uncovered the United States Ford of the Rappahannock, behind which Couch's Second Corps was lying ; thence he moved to Chancellorsville, which he reached with his advance about noon of Thursday, a short time before the arrival of Slocum, who, as senior officer, was authorized to direct the movements of the three corps,- namely, the Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth.
Hooker enjoined upon Slocum to lose no moment until these corps were established at or near Chancellorsville, and, if the enemy was not found in any considerable force, to advance at all hazards, secure a position on the plank road to Fredericksburg, and uncover Banks Ford, so as to place his wing of the army within easy supporting distance of Sedgwick's wing before Fredericksburg. On Thursday even- ing, the only forces in his front were the three brigades of
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