History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 49

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700

USA > Massachusetts > History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I > Part 49

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" By the side of the column rides an officer of engineers, who stops every now and then to note a by-path or prominent knoll, or draw a rough plan of the wood. The dust has hardly settled yet along the wood from the tramp of their retreating infantry. We press on close behind, until at length the column halts close within range of the Port Hudson batteries.

" It is now just after sunset. I hitch my cartridge-box a little off my shoulder for relief, and bathe my head and face in a roadside pool. At the head of the column spy-glasses are being passed from hand to hand among the officers. What is it they and the skirmishers see to the northward and westward from the bend in the road ? If we camp here for the night, we rank and file will go forward and see for ourselves. They are the outer earthworks of the rebel stronghold. As the dusk deepens the column turns, and back we go, we fellows in the very heart of it, the crimson stripes of the standard leaping and flowing out above us like currents of arterial blood.

" We fell back that Saturday night two or three miles, then camped in the woods. Later a battery went forward to a posi- tion near that to which we advanced, and fired shells for a while toward the rebel intrenchments. Our blankets and bag- gage were four miles behind. We hung equipments and haver- sacks on the gun-stocks, and, wet with sweat, lay down in our clothes, without covering.

" The eyelids shut together like a pair of scissors-blades and cut the thread of consciousness ; but in the midst of my dream- ing crash after crash broke upon my ear like the chorus of doomsday. We all jumped to our posts, for we thought the

hour of battle had come. I looked at my watch by the light of a few embers : it was half-past eleven. At the time we were completely ignorant of the events that were transpiring. We know now that it was the fleet just passing the batteries, and all this was the uproar of the bombardment. Through the trees to the west ward arose the flashes, ineessant, like the wink- ing heat-lightning of a hot summer evening. Through the air rolled reports, now isolated, now twenty combining in a grand crash, now a continuous roll of them,-a thundering rub-a-dub, as if the giants were going to storm heaven again, and were beating a réveille to summon every gnome and all the genii and each slumbering Titan to fall in for a charge. The centre of the regiment, the color-guard, rested in the road. The pickets, four or five rods off, could see the falling bombs, the streams of comet-like rockets, and the outlines of the shore-batteries lit up by the cannon flames. It went on, and we sat listening with our hands close at our guns. Then, at last, the heavens reddened high and far with a fiercer and steadier glare that moved slowly southward, crimsoning in turn the moss and old scars on the north, on the west, and on the south- west of the tree-trunks. Meantime came up the boom of can- non, slowly receding in the same direction. So we heard the swan-song of the stern old ' Mississippi,' abandoned, beaten with shot, ragged through her whole frame where shells had torn and burst. On that night a freight of dead men were on her deck, and the bodies of' drowned men floated about her hoary hull for retinue. Then came a crash,-a light making all bright, flung back from the burnished gun-stocks, from the pool by the roadside, revealing the watching soldiers and the słain steeds fallen headlong in the road in the midst of the camp. So passed the veteran ship through fire and earth- quake-shock to an immortality in history."

On the battlefield in Louisiana :

" Presently we hear the sound of firing. 'They have found them again,' I say to the color-sergeant ; and we look off over the woods to where the white cloud of the discharge can be seen rising among the trees. As we sweep along the road toward the firing, the day each minute becomes more and more beautiful. Each minute, too, the roar of cannon is more frequent, and becomes mingled at last with sharp, rattling volleys of small-arms.

" We come at last into full view of the scene. We halt in the road; and, leaning against a fence, looking southward through the rails, the whole combat is visible to us, who are now within cannon-range. We look down a gentle slope. To the left we can see a battery posted, which fires very vigor- ously ; then bodies of infantry, in long, dark lines, moving upon an open field in front of a wood. In the lines are gaps, which may be caused by moving over rough ground or by the plunge of shot and shell.

" To the right, again, we can see bodies of troops and bat- teries. Hear that long crash of musketry ! each individual discharge so blending into others that we can only hear one long sound, like the slow fall of some huge tower. It is a rebel volley, terribly effective, as we afterward hear; and while the wind bears it to us we are ordered forward, and presently are on the very field.

" Ambulance-men with stretchers are hurrying across the field to a sugar-house in the rear, where a hospital is estab- lished. On each stretcher is a wounded man, and the number of these make it certain to us that the engagement has reached the sad dignity of a pitched-battle. We are passing ammu- nition-wagons now ; now a tree, beneath which is a surgeon at work ; and close where he stands, on his back, stiff and stark, dead, a tall, broad-chested man with closed eyes. The column files to the right, out of the road, and we stand in line of battle just in the rear of the action, within rifle-range of the woods where the enemy lie concealed, expecting every moment the order to advance. The firing, however, slaekens ; and presently word comes that the enemy are withdrawing.

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HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

" Between the color-company and the next company, through the centre of our line, runs the cart-track down into the field, along which is now constantly passing a stream of wounded men on stretchers or supported by comrades, and lines of rebel prisoners. I am elose by, and can hear the talk of a sergeant, bloody, but able to walk, who is glad be has had a chance to do some service. I look, too, upon the ghastly head of a young lieutenant who is dying upon his stretcher, and upon many others. Prisoners come in hy squads, sometimes five or six, sometimes twenty or thirty ; some in gray, some in blue, some in faded brown. Once in a while there is an intelligent, good-looking face; more often the features are unintelligent,- the brutish face of that deteriorating class, the ' white trash.' Thus we stand close at hand to suffering and death.

" The pursuit is being continued down the road. Hours pass, and we still remain in line. We cook, eat, and sleep. I get out my portfolio and write a little. In the course of the day, up into the blue, calm sky go mighty columns of smoke, with deep reports, the explosions of rebel gunboats and transports, overtaken in the Têche by the victorious army, and blown up by their crews as they flee. Within. half a dozen rods of our line is a field-hospital, where lie, of one New York regiment, the wounded colonel, the dead lieuten- ant-colonel, adjutant, and other officers and men. Of other regiments, too, are many wounded, Federal and rebel, some dying under the surgeons' hands. 1 go over and see the writhing wounded, and the hospital attendants laying out the dead. An Irish private lies elose hy the straight young adjutant, whose face is reverently covered, and not far off is a rebel covered thick with his own gore. Before death go down all distinctions and animosities.

" Does it not seem, when the experiences are so out of the common course and so dreadful, as if there ought to be some change in outward circumstances to make them correspond ? But no; it was a perfeet summer day, an almost cloudless sky, with a cool, sweet wind coming from the woods where the rebels had been hidden,-the woods green and fresh and inno- cent as if they were only a haunt for fairies.

"Toward night I go down the cart-path to the actual field, and see the broken muskets, the scattered knapsaeks and cloth- ing, the furrows where the enemy lay, the bloody pools where the dying fainted, the burial-parties, and the piles of distorted corpses lying by the trenches just dug to receive them." In the hospital :

" At Baton Rouge we heard first of the sudden investment of Port Hudson by Gen. Banks, and that very day, in front of the beleaguered fortress, such a battle was threatened as the de- partment had never known. The transports were all detained to wait for this struggle, and even the siek had been sent up from the hospitals to do duty with the ambulances. There would be no opportunity to rejoin the regiment for some days, so I went to the medical director : 'I am So-and-so, doctor, on leave of absence ; if I can be of any service, send me up as a nurse till 1 ean rejoin my regiment.'

" That night i went to 'Springfield Landing,' three miles below the grim, hostile batteries,-as near as peaceful vessels dare go. As we touched land at midnight the air was full of thunder, and whirling among the stars went the lighted fuses of the slow-revolving bombs, high up toward the zenith, then dropping through a long, fire-lit arch to a deep explosion,-all this, now elose at hand, what we had been hearing on the re- mote bayou, fifty miles away."

Battle :

" A formidable battery of ship's guns has opened, within a few days, not far from us. My first visit to it was in the evening. Bivins and I slung our canteens (for we never miss an opportunity of going for water), and started down the blind, obstructed cart-track which leads out of the woods. Every few minutes came in the heavy crash of the Dahlgrens we were going to see, and the lighter reports of guns farther

off. We were soon out on the plain where the battery is placed. To the right of it ran a hedge, behind which, sereened from the rebel riflemen, lay a regiment stationed there to protect the guns against a sudden dash of the enemy. " It is now quite dark, but in the starlight we can see the outlines of the sandwork behind which the guns are ranged. The rebel intrenchments are from a quarter to a half-mile away in front of us. We can see three or four large fires burning within them. Volumes of flame and smoke roll up among the trees, and the soldiers about us think they can make out the figures of men standing by the glare. As often as once a minute, from the east, where lies a huge New York battery, from the right, which Weitzel holds,-or over on the opposite side from us, where lies the fleet in the river, as often as once in a minute, like heat-lightning,-flashes a cannon ; then, in a few seconds, comes the roar ; then another light within the fortress as the shell explodes.

" Now a 'Dahlgren' in our battery here is discharged. How fierce and sullen ! I must have a nearer view; so I make my way in behind the earthwork itself, and stand with the sailors who are detached from duty on shipboard to man- age these great fellows. Each gun stands on a broad platform, sloping from rear to front to prevent the recoil of the piece from sending it too far back. They are a part of the broad- side of the Richmond, and have already done good service at the taking of the forts and the running of the Port Hudson batteries in March.

"' Ready there at No. 2!' says the officer in charge. The erew of ' No. 2' stand back, and 1 brace myself for the con- cussion. A sailor jerks a lanyard, and it is done. It is no. light field-piece, remember, but one of war's grimmest mon- sters. Clash go my teeth together ; my bones almost rattle; then follows the hungry, ravening shriek of the shell, which breaks forth like a horrible bird of prey to devour the whole world. It sweeps hoarsely toward the enemy's line; then I hear it go 'thud-thud !' through some obstruction. In a moment the air beyond is lit up with its bursting, and the sound roars hack to us,-to us, now enveloped in the sulphure- ous cloud that wraps the whole neighborhood." The attack :

" Before dark we were ordered into line and stacked our arms. Each captain made a little speech : 'No talking in the ranks ; no flinching. Let every one see that his canteen is full, and that he has hard bread enough for a day. That is all you will carry besides gun and equipments.'

" We left the guns in stack, polished and ready to he caught on the instant, and lay down under the trees. At midnight came the cooks with coffee and warm food. Soon after came the order to move; then slowly, and with many halts, nearly four hundred strong, we took up our route along the wood- paths.

" Many other regiments were also in motion. The forest was full of Rembrandt pictures : a bright blaze under a tree, the faces and arms of soldiers all aglow about it ; the wheel of an army-wagon or the brass of a cannon lit up; then the gloom of the wood, and the night shutting down upon it.

" At length it was daybreak, and with every new shade of light in the east a new degree of energy was imparted to the eannonade. As we stood at the edge of the wood, it was war on all sides. In a few moments we were in motion again. We erossed a little bridge over a brook thickly covered with cotton, to conceal the tramp of men and noise of wheels, elimbed a steep pitch, and entered a trench or military road cut through a ravine, passing some freshly-made rifle-pits and batteries. We are now only screened from the rebel works by a thin hedge. Here the rifle-balls began to cut keen and sharp through the air about us, and the cannonade, as the east now began to redden, reached its height,-a continued, deafening uproar, hurling the air against one in great waves till it felt almost like a wall of rubber, hounding and rebounding from

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HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

the body,-the great guns of the ' Richmond,' the siege-Par- rotts, the smaller field-batteries, and, through all, the bursting of the shells within the rebel lines and the keen, deadly whistle of well-aimed bullets. A few rods down the mili- tary road the column paused. The work of death had be- gun, for ambulance-men were bringing back the wounded, and, almost before we had time to think we were in danger, 1 saw one of our men fall back into the arms of his comrades, shot dead through the chest. The banks of the ravine rose on either side of the road in which we had halted ; but just here the trench made a turn, and in front, at a distance of five or six hundred yards, we could plainly see the rebel rampart, red in the morning light as with blood, and shrouded in white vapor along the edge, as the sharpshooters behind kept up an incessant discharge. I believe I felt no sensation of fear, nor do I think those about me did.

"Our brigadier is with us at the front; and now, calling the colonel, the two soldierly figures climb the bank of the ravine and take a narrow survey of the ground. In a mo- ment the order comes. We are to move up this rough path to the right, then advance out from the shelter of the trees into the open space before the fortifications, deploying as skirmishers meanwhile, and making our way through the fire to a closer position. We climb up the path. I go with my rifle between W .* and II .* , keeping nearest to the former, who carries the national flag. In a minute or two the column has ascended and is deploying in a long line, under the col- onel's eye, on the open ground. The rebel engineers are most skillful fellows. Between us and the brown earth-heap which we are trying to gain to-day the space is not wide, but it is cut up in every direction with ravines and gullies. These were covered, until the parapet was raised, with a heavy growth of timber ; but now it has all been cut down, so that in every direction the fallen tops of large trees interlace, trunks block up every passage, and brambles are growing over the whole. It is out of the question to advance in line of battle : it seems almost out of the question to advance in any order ; but the word is given, 'Forward!' and on we go. Know that this whole space is swept by a constant patter of balls ; it is really a ' leaden rain.' We go crawling and stooping ; but now and then before us rises in plain view the line of earthworks, smoky and sulphureous with volleys; while all about us fall the balls, now sending a lot of little splinters from a stump, now knocking the dead wood out of the old tree-trunk that is sheltering me, now driving up a cloud of dust from a little knoll, or cutting off the head of a weed just under the hand as with an invisible knife. I see one of our best captains car- ried off the field mortally wounded, sbot through both lungs, -straight, bright-eyed, though so sadly hurt,-supported by two of his men; and now, almost at my side, in the color- company, one soldier is struck in the hand and another in the Jeg. 'Forward !' is the order. We all stoop, but the colonel does not stoop; he is as cool as he was in his tent last night when I saw him drink iced lemonade. He turns now to ex- amine the ground, then faces back again to direct this or that thank. W. springs from cover to cover, and I follow close after him. It is hard work to get the flag along; it cannot be carried in the air, and we drag it and pass it from hand to hand among the brambles, much to the detriment of its tolds. The line pauses a moment. Capt. Morton, who has risen from a sick-bed to be with his command, is coolly caution- ing his company. The right wing is to remain in reserve, while the left pushes still farther forward. The major is out in front of us now. He stands upon a log which bridges a ravine,-a plain mark for the sharpshooters, who overlook the position not only from the parapet, but from the tall trees within the rebel works. Presently we move on again through brambles and under charred trunks, tearing our way and pulling after

us the colors ; creeping on our bellies across exposed ridges, where bullets hum and sing like stinging-bees ; and right in plain view the ridge of earth, its brow white with incessant volleys.

" Down this slope, and it will do. The color-guard is some rods in advance of the company, and many pause. I hear cheer- ing. A ridge hides the space in front of the works from which it comes, and I tell W. I must creep up and see the charge.

"' Better not,' he says. " We will go where our dnty lies, but we had better run no risk beyond that.'

" He is wiser than I. While he speaks I have partially raised myself to climb forward to the point of view. Balls are striking close by me. I have become a mark to sharp- shooters in the trees, and lie down again to be safe.

" The color-guard are under orders not to fire except when the colors are specially threatened. My piece is loaded and capped, but I can only be shot at without returning the dis- charge. Down into our little nook now come tumbling a crowd of disorganized, panting men. They are part of a New York regiment, who, on the crest just over us, have been meeting with very severe loss. They say their dead and dying are heaped up there.

" We believe it, for we can hear them, they are so near ; indeed, some of those who come stumbling down are wounded ; some have their gunstocks broken by shot and the barrels bent, while they are unharmed.

" They are frightened and exhausted, and stop to recover themselves ; but presently their officers come up and order them forward again. From time to time afterward wounded men crawl back from their position a few yards in front of where we are,-one shot through the ankles, who, however, can crawl on his hands and knees ; one in the hand ; one with his blouse all torn about his breast, where a ball has struck him, yet he can creep away."

In the sap :

" You shall go with me into this outmost sap and know what sights and sounds it is our business now to be familiar with. Into this sap I am obliged to go three times a day for my rations, out of the retreat of the colors. First we must creep out of our ravine through the top of this prostrate tree, whose boughs catch our clothing ; then up by the charred trunk, the feet slipping in the mud. Your head now comes within the range of riflemen in the trees over there. Some- times they are in the trees, though not always. A few steps more, and we come within full range from the parapet ; bnt do not stop to look. Stoop as low as you can, and run. This stump will shelter you, -- pitted with the striking of balls against it, as if it had the smallpox when a sapling. When you have caught your breath, run for that trunk. It is an ugly one to get over, for it is breast-high, and one's whole body has to come into the enemy's view. Once over this, and the road is smoother. We soon gain the cover of the woods, and are comparatively safe. The other day I was twice shot at while passing the space we have just been over. I do not know how near the bullets came; only the first seemed as if it were sweeping my legs off at the knee with its sharp rush. I stooped and labored through the brush, when the second came cold along the length of my spine just above the vertebræ. We are to have a better road, however. One of Co. E has just been shot through the head-dead in an instant-here, and we are to have a protected passage-way.

" Down this little gully, and we enter the beginning of the sap at the end of the military road. Behind the angle, just back there, is the station of the ambulance-men. They wait there day and night with stretchers ready. These stretchers are now all blood-stained. Three or four a day out of the brig- ade and working-party are carried out. The ambulance-corps is made up largely of the musicians, but music- We never hear it now, not even the drum and fife. It is too stern a time for that.

* Fictitious names.

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HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

" We pass out into the sap. Here is the most dangerous point of all, just at the entrance, where the first man from our regiment was killed the day of the assault. You see how the rebel parapet commands it. We are going considerably nearer to it, but we shall be better sheltered. 'Tis just in front, with an old shot-pierced building behind it, and white sand-bags lying on the top of the lawny slope. That old building might be a ruinous mill, and those bags might be grist laid out there along the wall until the miller was ready for it, but every bag or two there is a sharp-eyed Mississippian with his rifle pointed through some chink. Let us go at a good pace, so that no one of those fellows will have a chance to ' draw a bead' on either of us. The trench goes under a large trunk, stretching from bank to bank, and from here we are tolerably safe. Only tolerably, for the other day, close by here, one of our company was hit in the face by a glancing ball; and Sergt. Bennett, of Co. K, was mortally wounded by a fragment of one of our own shells, which flew back into our lines from over the rebel parapet, where the shell ex- ploded. We are coming close, you see. Climb a steep pitch now, and we reach the station of Co. D. The sap is here about six feet wide and four deep, dug out of the hard soil, the dirt being thrown out on the side toward the enemy, forming a bank rising about five feet from the surface, and therefore about nine feet from the bottom of the trench. Here now are our boys, the few that are left,-barely twenty. Along the top of the ridge of earth logs are placed, into the under side of which notches are cut at intervals of three or four feet, leaving, between the earth below and the timber above, a loop-hole four or five inches in diameter for the men to fire through. MeG. has just sprung down after discharg- ing his piece. Before he loads again let us climb up and take a view of the world through the hole. Carefully ! Lay your body up against the steeply-sloping bank, resting your feet on the edge of the sap. By all means take care that the top of your head does not project above the narrow timber. Your face is at the hole now. From the outside a groove runs along the top of the thick bank, then comes the open air, and opposite you, within call easily enough, is the deadly ridge,- the two or three tents behind it, the old ruinous chimneys, the one or two shattered buildings, so near you can plainly see threads, and bricks, and splinters. Do not look long. Every yard (perhaps the intervals are less) behind the sand- bags there is a rifleman. Mellen, of Co. F, has just been shot while aiming his piece through one of these holes. The ball entered through the hole, hit the band of his gun, then the lock, splintering wood and steel, then crashed in through his chest.

" Yon duck your head now as the balls whistle over. It is a marvelous sound, but you would soon get over that here. They go with a hundred different sounds through the air, ac- cording to the shape, size, and velocity of the projectile. Two strike the bank. It is like two quick blows of a whiplash. That went overhead, sharp as the cut of a cimeter; another goes with a long moan, then drops into the earth with a ' thud !' It comes from some more distant point, and is nearly spent. A shot comes from some great gun in the rear,-an earthquake report, then the groaning, shuddering rush of the shell, as if the air were sick and tired of them and it was too much to be borne that they should be so constantly sent.

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History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 49

Author: L.H. Everts & Co Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts Number of Pages: 700

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700