USA > Massachusetts > History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery : organized October 3, 1861, mustered out June 12, 1865, v.1 > Part 27
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sat down to rest. Saw James Tuttle : he was safe. Harry Simonds lost his piece, and was struck with a piece of shel !.
About 8 o'clock we crossed the Chickahominy, and laid ourselves down to sleep.
I received a letter from my wife today during the battle!
Saturday, June 28, 1862. Got up feeling very sore, had some water to drink. I was awfully dry. My face and hands are black with powder and sweat, and I have no chance to wash.
About & this morning we fell back about a mile, and there found two of our guns; the other four having been taken by the rebels. Most all the men are tired out. The buildings near by are used for hospitals, and are filled with the wounded. It is an awful sight. About noon we hitched up and fell back. At Savage's Station there were a great many cars loaded with the wounded who are being moved away. The roads are lined with sick and stragglers. Got into camp about II o'clock. Was routed out at 3 o'clock in the morning."
Reviewing this Diary in Charlestown, Mass., October I. 1900, Grows added the following :--
"There is one thing I did not mention: It was how the gun I worked on at Gaines Mills was saved. A bullet struck the right wheel horse, while the gun was stuck in a rut, the pain caused the horse to jump to the right, and the driver struck the off horse, and the wheels of the limbe: were free. And so we got out of a bad place."
NOTES OF CHARLES D. BARNARD. FEBRUARY 1, 1901.
"I was wounded at Gaines Mills, June 27, 1862. While try- ing to save the gun we held, we got into the woods. The Con- federates had charged 3 times on us before they got the gun. When Corporal (Albert F.) Milliken sent up the last charge to the gun, he sent word to the gunner Corporal ( Charles)
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FIFTH MASS. BATTERY.
Macomber, that that was all the canister he had. Corporal Macomber told us that when we had fired he should give the order 'by hand to the rear,' as we only had one horse stand- ing, he being the nigh pole horse, the other 5 horses were down, having been shot.
As soon as we had fired, the order was given :--
'By hand to the rear!'
We cach sprang to our posts.
No. I, between the Wheel and Gun.
No. 2, opposite, between the Wheel and Gun.
No. 3, grabbed the Wheel.
No. 4, the opposite Wheel.
The rest of the gunners ran to the trail.
No. 2, William H. Ray had a ball pass through him.
No. 3, was myself. The ball entered the right thigh coming out 3 inch from the spine. The force of the ball threw me over the trail into No. 4 man's place. I got up standing on one leg, and said to Corporal Macomber :---
'They have shot my right leg off, Charley!'
At that William Ray came running up with a sponge staff, and Corporal Macomber said :---
'Billy, you are wounded.'
Billy said no, but upon unbuttoning his jacket the blood began to show, and Billy says :-
'They can't have this sponge staff to use on us.'
This was the only sponge staff we had left. So he took it, and when he came to the ditch in going to the rear, he made 3 pieces of it and threw it into the ditch.
Then Corporal Macomber came to me, and I threw one arm over his neck and he tried to take me to the rear, and as we were trying to go to the rear he said to me :-
'Help yourself all you can, Charley, for there lays poor Corporal Milliken.'
We both looked down on him. The ball had struck him in the head, killing him instantly. There was no mark of
das
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blood on him. Corporal Macomber and myself were the 2 last men of our Battery that ever saw Corporal Milliken.
We had not gone 30 feet from him when a ball struck me in my left foot and stopped under my knee, the force of the ball throwing mne out of Corporal Macomber's arms to the ground. He bent over me and said :- 'Charley, I am going to throw you over my shoulder.'
I said, 'No, Charley, there is only one of us to be killed, and I am that man. You run around the foot of the hill, under the protection of our heavy guns that are on the hill.'
'No,' he says, 'I am going to shoulder you.'-
I fainted away from the loss of blood, and he got to the Battery and reported me killed.
WITHIN THE ENEMY'S LINES.
The first sound I heard was, ---
'Don't tread on that man!'
I looked over my shoulder, and saw coming towards me a solid line of Confederates, and as they came up to mie they opened enough to pass me. Not a inan touched me. In a short time the stragglers began to come back. I was choking, and as they came near me I begged for water. Some of them said they had no water; others took no notice of me; others cursed me. At last when I did not care what they did to me, a very tall Confederate came along, and said he had no water. but would give me some whiskey and water. He knelt down and passed me his canteen, and said 'Drink all you want.' A little seemed to quench my thirst. I told him I was a thousand times obliged to him, that was all I could do, but he said that was not all I could do, I could 'the first time I had a chance do the same thing.'
I shall never forget his words and have tried to do so. I lay where I fell the second time about 2 hours, then a Con- federate officer and a Private came along. The officer said to me --- 'Come, get up!'
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I said 'I can't. I am wounded in both legs. - He said, 'You can't play any of your Yankee tricks on me. If you don't get up. I will cut you down.'
I told him if he would give me 2 sticks I would try to walk, but I put one arm on each of their shoulders, as the Private asked me to, and they carried me through the gap where we had repulsed them 3 times that they had charged on us. into the yard where there was a large house, and as we entered the yard there was a number of Confederates making coffee. They began to make fun of me and I answered them back. Then it was the Private who was helping me told me to take all that they might say, for I was a prisoner and it was better not to answer back.
I thanked him and afterwards found out that he was right. They laid me under a tree and a doctor came and put some cotton in my wound near my spine, and put a bandage round me. In a few minutes the bandage was up under my arms. He said he would come in the morning and take off my leg.
THE RED BLANKET.
I was cold, and asked a Confederate if he had a blanket he would lend me. He said 'yes,' if I would give it to him the next morning. I told him I would, so he lent me one. Next a man came along and wanted to know who wanted water. I did, and had found a canteen, and he took it, filled it, and brought it back to me. I then dropped off to sleep, and in the morning when I awoke I saw that I had a red blanket. I looked it over, and found the name of Serg't. William B. Pattison sewed on it! When the Confederate called for his blanket, I told him that it was one of my Serg't's blankets. He said, -- 'You promised to give it to ine this morning.'
I told him that I should do as I told him I would, and he took it, and I don't know as I ever saw him again. They
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gave us that morning for breakfast boiled rice, and it did taste good. About 8 or 9 in the morning, an old man with long, white hair came and sat down and commenced to talk with me. He asked me where I was wounded, and I told him. He asked me how my leg felt, and I told him it felt 'queer.' I could not move my foot, and it felt like a foot that was 'asleep'; kind of prickly. He then told me he was a doctor, and asked me what I was going to do. I told him I had asked the doctor to take it off for me, but he ad- vised me not to have it taken off, and asked me if I wanted to go home. I said yes, as I was no good to the army now. 'Then,' he said, 'tell them when they come after you that you have concluded not to have it done, and they won't take it off. It is better than a wooden leg, and if they take it off, they have got to tinjoint it at the hip, as it will do no good to take it off below the wound.'
He then said that the ball had cut the leaders to my foot, which caused the foot to drop, and had injured the sciatic nerve, which caused paralysis, and that it would always trouble me, that many times I would be hurrying along and would stub my toe, as the foot had dropped and caused me to fall. This I have done a great many times. He said, ---- 'You may think it strange for me to give you advice, but if you ever want to go home don't have your leg taken off. for there is only one chance in a thousand of your living."
I took his advice, and his words have proved true in re- gard to my leg.
THIE DEATH OF PRIVATE GUSTINE.
Soon after he left me, one of our own surgeons came along and said to me :-
'One of your boys is over there.'
'What is his name?' I asked. He said he did not know but would go and see. He came back and said his name was Gustine. I raised myself up on my elbow and asked Gustine
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FIFTH MASS. BATTERY.
how he was wounded. 'O, Charley. I am wounded through iny left lung. I can't stand it a great while.'
'Don't give up so,' I said, but he answered :--- 'O. Charley, I'm a goner. I can't talk any longer.' He laid down and I never saw him again to talk with him. The next day I saw 2 men carrying an artilleryman into the next field to bury him. I think it was-poor Gustine.
TALKING IT OVER.
That day a Confederate came and sat down by me and said :---
"Well, Yank, what do you think of the war?'
'Well,' I said. "Did you start it?'
'No.'
'Neither did I. Can you stop it?' 'No.'
'Neither can I. You won't agree with me?'
'No.'
Neither will I with you. Now we are good friends, what is the use of our arguing the question? Neither you nor I can stop it.'
'You're right,' he said, and from that time out, as long as he was there, he would come every day and ask me to lend hiin my pipe. He kept me in tobacco as long as he was there. I was then moved into the cellar of the house, and put into a little room with 2 others. One man's name was Smith. He belonged to a New York regiment. He was terribly wounded, and kept calling for his wife and children all the time. They came after him to take off his legs a number of times, and he would keep putting them off, say- ing. 'Let me lay a little longer, please, I am so comfortable.' At last two attendants came in and said The Doctor says bring you, dead or alive.'
"Well, please give me a drink of water.'
They gave him water, he drank a little, and then for the
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first time in my life I heard the death rattle. They carried him out.
HANDY WITH HIS NEEDLE.
I lay in that cellar 3 days. Then they took me out, and laid'me under a tree on the other side of the house, where I heard 2 Confederates talking about the poor fellows who had legs and arms taken off, how they suffered pain and had nothing to rest the stumps on. I called them and told them if they would bring me some old bags so I could cut them up into smaller ones, or some cloth, so ) could make some small bags out of that, they could stuff them with grass, and they could lay their stumps on them and it would ease the pain. They did, and I made a number of them. I made the bags for Confederates as well as Union men. I, being a har- ness maker, was handy with my needle, and I always carry my thimble in my pocket, even today. I still have my needle-book that I carried with me in my jacket pocket.
I enlisted as an artificer, and when we were in Washing- ton, encamped on Capitol Hill, the paymaster came and said that the Government only allowed 2 artificers, a blacksmith and a harness-maker, and as I was the second one to enlist as'a harness-maker, I could take my discharge and go home. But I preferred to stay, so asked Serg't. (O. B.) Smith if I could have No. 3 man's place on the gun, which he gave me.
I was the first man wounded in the Battery, and the first badly wounded man to return to New Bedford.
TO RETURN TO THE PRISON YARD.
Next a very tall Confederate came to me, and said :--- 'Yank, where did you enlist?'
I told him I enlisted in New Bedford, but I was a Nan- tucket boy.
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FIFTH MASS. BATTERY.
'New Bedford? Why, I used to be a coaster, and I have been there.'
He then told me all about that city. and how pretty it looked at night all lit up, as you come up the river. Every day, as long as I was there at Gaines Farm, he would come along and put something under my blanket and say, 'Don't touch that till after I am away.' I would find either crack- ers, or a piece of 'salt horse' as we used to call corned beef.
THE NO. I GUN.
There was on the day of the Malvern Hill fight, a little boy came and said to me, -- 'You ones will be taken back before long. for you ones are driving our men. What gun was that that held the gap in the woods?'
I told him it was No. I gun of the Fifth Mass. Battery. I asked him how they got by that gun, and these are exactly his words :--
'General Jackson rode up and asked the general in com- mand "Why don't you go on?" The general answered "I can't. I have got a piece of artillery I can't pass. I have charged three times on it, and have been repulsed each time."
Jackson told him to 'Charge, Halt, Fire, and then Charge in your smoke!'
By charging before the smoke rolled away their advance was unobserved, and that is how No. I gun was lost.
THE CORN-POPPER.
'How is it?' asked the little boy, 'You ones kill our men and we only wound yours. You ones did not play it on we uns did you? You ones left a trap for us, but we did not touch it. What did you do with it? You ones came and took it away.'
It seems that it was what we boys used to call the 'Corn-
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popper,' a gun that you put the cartridges into a hopper, and by turning a crank the cartridges would fall into the barrel of a rifle attached to it, and did good work. They thought it a trick we were playing on them, and did not dare go near it, and our men came and recovered it.
A CONSULTATION.
While the boy and myself were talking. a number of offi- cers rode into the yard and stopped a little way from where I lay and held a consultation. I should think they talked a half an hour or so, then they galloped off, some in one direc- tion, some in another. In a little while from that they turned our men and won the day.
A soldier from a Maine regiment lay near me, and every morning he would ask me to lend him my testament which I did. One morning after he passed back my testament. some 'Johnnies' came along and began to plague him. He commenced to swear, and called them everything he could! think of, and when he got them as mad as they could be, they threatened to kill him and he laid back and commenced to sing. Well, he was one of the best singers I ever heard, and after that they would come every day and stir him up, and it always ended in his singing.
TO SAVAGE'S STATION.
We were put into army wagons and sent to Savage's Sta- tion where an officer came and asked what our names were. After that we were put on flats-such as we send wood into Boston on -- and sent to Richmond. When the cars stopped, 2 Confederates came to the car where I lay, and asked me if I had anything to eat. I told them I had 2 hard tacks and that was all. They begged me to give them to them. I told them I would it I thought I could get anything to eat in the city. They said 'They will feed you ones when they won't feed us.' They said 'O, we are so hungry !'-
£
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[ told them I would give them one and keep the other for myself. When I opened my havresack I found I had 3 hard tacks, so I gave each one of them. They were mouldy, and wet, as it had rained hard all day, but you should have seen them eat, and then they begged for the other one. I told them I had done the square thing by them and wanted the other for myself. They said they knew it but they were so hungry. They did not take the one I had left, but thanked me for what I had given them. Soon 2 Confeder- ates put me on a litter and carried me into the depot, laying me down on the narrow platform near the engine. When they had lain me down I found they had left my havresack and asked them to get it for me, offering them a ring I had on my finger if they would bring it to me, as I had my mother's and sister's pictures, and some few things I wanted to save. They went, and soon returned with it, and wanted to see the pictures. I showed them and then took off the ring and offered it to them. They were looking at the pic- tures, and when I offered them the ring they said, 'What do you take us for? Put the ring on your finger again.'
Soon a little boy came to me, about 12 years old, and said, ----
'Soldier, what can I do for you?'
I had just had another hemorrhage and asked him to get me some cotton to stop it. Ile did, and then found me a small dry twig for me to keep the flies off. He then got me a fresh canteen of water. After that. every morning he would come and get me a fresh canteen of water. One morning he came and put his hand under my blanket and said "Don't touch it till I am gone. It is something Mother sent, and there she is on the back of that car.'
I looked, and all I could do was to bow to her. After lie had gone. I found a nice, clean, white crash towel, and while I was looking at it, an officer came up and wanted to know where I got that. I told him some one dropped it and I picked it up. He took it from me and when the boy came
·
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again I told him, and he said, 'Some one told on Mother, yesterday, and she liked to got caught.'
The last morning he came he left something under my blanket and said "Mother sent you that.' He said all the badly wounded were to be sent north, and the slightly wounded were to be sent to Belle Isle, and true enough about the middle of the forenoon they commenced to load up ..
I heard an officer say "Well, that's all.' I began to holler and the officer got mad, and told two men to 'take the fool and lug him off.'
They put me in an open wagon with springs under it. I made the 6th one. When the team got to the outskirts of the city, the driver turned round and said-'I am a Union man. I have got 2 boys down to the steamer looking out for good places for you.' He told us that they came after him to take us to the steamer, and he told them he would not take a Yankee in his wagon. He said they paid him Sio a piece in Confederate money, to take us to the steamer .-- 'But.' he said, 'I would have taken all I could carry for noth- ing, only 1 dare not say so.'
. On our way we went through a Confederate camp, and there was a bread cart standing near some tents. The team- ster stopped his team and said he was going to buy some bread for us. While he was gone, an officer rode up and wanted to know where the driver was. I told him he was buying bread. He asked 'Are you hungry?'-I said 'No, my friend,' and he swore and said 'I am no friend to you.' He followed us almost to the boat. The driver gave us each a loaf of bread, and said the officer was watching him. He had a ten dollar U. S. bill and said he would give that for a picture of A. Lincoln, if either of us had one, but none of us had one. We finally reached the steamer, and as we got where we could see it and 'Old Glory,' what a shout went up! I could not keep back the tears, and great, stout men cried like babies to see the dear old flag again. One who
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never was deprived of the sight cannot realize how good it is! The joy was beyond describing.
Well, true enough 2 stout young men came running up and said, 'Father, we have got some nice places for your men.' I was the last one to be taken out of the wagon, and I was placed in the gangway of the steamer. A man came in and sang out, -- 'Are there any Massachusetts men here?' I hollered out 'Yes, come here.'
He came and asked my name and put it in a little book. I asked him if he knew W. W. Caswell of the Fifth Mass. Battery. He said 'Yes.' I said 'Tell him that Charley Barnard is badly wounded, bound north.' He went to one of the streets of the Battery and hollered out :- Does any one know Charley Barnard?' Ephraim B. Nye was writing a letter at that time to his wife. He stepped out of his tent and said, -. Yes, I know him.' He then gave him my mes- sage, and he wrote it to his wife, and that was the first that any one knew that I was living.
I was taken to Baltimore, put in the Hospital, No. So Camden St. One day a gentleman came in and looked at the card over my head and says -- 'From New Bedford?'-'Yes, sir.' 'Well," he says, "So am I, my name is Rodman ( Ed- mund Rodman ) and I am going back in a few days.'
Then I asked him if he would go and see my mother and tell her just how he found me. Some one had told her that I had had a large piece of my hip taken off, and they only took out about three inches. She was worrying about me. He went to see my mother and told her, and I never shall forget his kindness."
THE FIELD REVISITED.
In letters dated South Boston, September 24th and Octo- ber 3. 1900, Corporal Thomas E. Chase thus refers to a recent visit to this battlefield :---
"I have just returned from Richmond, Va. and the old
JE : . ...
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battle ground of the seven days' fights. I could not make it seem possible, as I watched the farmer tilling the battle- fields, that the last time I was there all was the roar of artil- lery and the rattle of musketry. Strange thoughts came to me as I strolled over that quiet square mile of peace .-- Gaines Mills, -- with only seven people in sight, as I pointed out to wife and daughter where sixty-five thousand Con- federates fought fifteen thousand of our men that sultry afternoon of June 27th, 1862, for Nature is doing her best to hide the scars and lines of battle. but I had no trouble finding our positions."
MALVERN HILL.
Halement
19-1-1-1.1.
N
12.
Tun
MALVERN
HILL.
en Union.
5.
6
Fortor's
Headquarters
Turkey Grund
6
13
River
James
Road to City Point.
Raced to Harrison's Landing
Trapares ly
By C.A. Philhpi
CGB -19 hàmen
From Sketere: Descriptions.
1. Dr. J. H. Mallert's house, Headquarters of Gen Morell. 2. Morell's and Griffin's position. 3. Sykes' position. 4. Hunt's Reserve Art. 5. Colonel Tyler's siege guns. 6. General Franklin's Command. 7. Gen. Porter's Comm- and. 8-9 Heintzelman's & Keyes' Commands. 10. Couch's Command. II. Gen. Martindale's Command. 12. Summer's Commandin Reserve. 13. Place where Gen. MoTell's Command brvouacked June 30, 1862. 14: Wheat fields. 15-16. Kingsburys & Armes's Batteries. 17. Martin's. 18. Weeden's Ist position, 19 Wander's 2nd position, also Kingsbury's 20. Fifth Mass.
Turkey Pr.
CO
CHAPTER XI. THE BATTLE OF MALVERN HILL.
JULY 1, 1862.
"Forget not our wounded companions who stood In the days of distress by our side ;
While the moss of the valley grew rich with their blood. They stirred not, but conquered and died."
-Thomas Moore.
It now became the duty of the Fifth Corps to guard the roads leading from Richmond toward the White Oak Swamp, over which they had passed on June 28, 1862, and on the next day to proceed to Turkey Bend on the James River, cover the Charles City road to Richmond, and open communication with the gunboats on the James.
Porter's orders were to move by the direct road to Mal- vern Hill, an elevated plateau a mile and a half long and about three quarters of a mile broad, free from any growth of timber. Towards the north and east it sloped gently tint it reached a thick forest. On the west was a deep ravine running down to the James River. Along the front the land is uneven. making the hill difficult to approach except by roads built across the low places. Porter was to select and hold this position. continuing the line to the right. Time was lost by the guide mistaking the road, and the Ist Division did not reach James River until 10 a. m. of the 30th. The Divisions of Morell and Sykes were given the Left of the position, with Colonel Henry J. Hunt's Artillery Reserve and Colonel Robert O. Tyler's siege guns on Mal- vern Hill; Porter's command holding the Left and Left
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dr
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Centre of our forces upon which the enemy made a most determined attack. This was successfully resisted by the infantry, which the superior position and strength of the artillery placed so as to sweep all the approaches, and. to some minds, the proximity of the gunboats, made invincible.
Brig. Gen. William F. Barry, in his account of the opera- tions of the Artillery of the Army of the Potomac, from July 25th, 1861, to August 29, 1862, dated September I, 1862, says :---
."For the artillery of the Army of the Potomac, it is but simple jus- tice to claim that in contributing its aid to the other two arms, as far as lay in its power, it did its whole duty faithfully and intelligently. and that on more than one occasion, the Battle of Malvern Hill par- ticularly, it confessedly saved the Army from serious disaster."
If the "lay of the land" had been more in his favor Mc- Clellan might have here shown the advantage of the co- operation of the water with the land forces, as first sug- gested by him, and which he endeavored to demonstrate as soon as it was in his power.
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