USA > Massachusetts > History of the Second Mass. Regiment of Infantry, third paper > Part 13
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* Pope's Official Report.
# Pope's Official Report.
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Shenandoah, in forcing such heavy detachments from the main force of the enemy as to enable the Army of the Potomac to withdraw from its position at Harrison's Land- ing, and take shipping for Aquia Creek or Alexandria,* and so to embarrass the enemy, should he move northward, as to give all time possible for the Army of the Potomac to arrive behind the Rappahannock.t
On the 6th of July, with our part in the coming tragedy not yet revealed, we took up our line of march, halting the first night one mile south of the town of Front Royal ; and the next day crossed the Blue Ridge at Chester Gap, to begin our campaign within the region bounded by those mountains and the sea. We rested at night in a pleasant woods, just before reaching the little town of Flint Hill, where I had an ami- cable discussion with a Virginian upon secession a Consti- tutional right. On the Sth we encamped near Amissville, from whence, after a short day's march, I pitched my tent in the front door -yard of an unwilling host on the Warrenton road. Our camps generally were established in the neighborhood of quiet farms, which we occupied and overran, until we became a great, unnatural plague to the people. We filled their woods with our tents, we killed their sheep and calves, and substituted, for the "drowsy tinkling of their lowing herds," the beating drum, the ear-piercing fife, and all the loud alarum of war. My sympathies were often touched as our cold-eyed commissary seized the cattle, as they were mov- ing from their quiet folds in the early morning to their well- known pastures, and doomed them to the shambles for our troops. We were beginning to live upon the country.
* The general-in-chief, accompanied by Gen. Burnside, who had come from North Carolina to Fortress Monroe with his army, visited Gen. Mcclellan at Harrison's Bar. The question of the withdrawal of that army was submitted to a council of officers, and, against the wishes and protests of Mcclellan, was de- termined upon. It was to be removed at once to Fredericksburg. See Report of Congressional Committee, Operations of Army of the Potomac, p. 13.
t Pope's Official Report
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When Gen. Banks, on the 5th of July, returned from Wash- ington he was despondent. At his mess-table the next morn- ing, in the presence of some eight officers and their servants, with an indiscretion unusual to him, he spoke of rumors ofloat in Washington of disaster to McClellan, and fears of the cap- ture of his whole command. He said that the President was believed to be much alarined and uncertain what to do, and that some one commander should be placed in charge of the War Department and the army in the field .* The relation of such matters was too much for one of Banks's listeners, the unlucky Major Copeland, who, despite the telegram for his removal after the unfortunate proclamation, was here again with Banks, temporarily abiding until service could be secured with Gen. Hunter in the Southern Department.i Copeland, listening to the promptings of the evil one, believed that now was the time for him to make the United States Government abandon conservatism, as he called it ; ¿ so he determined to take the first step, and send a dispatch in secret cipher to his friend Dunbar of the "Boston Daily Advertiser," § which should not only accomplish that result, but perhaps effect changes in Washington that might restore his status with officials in the War Department.
The despatch; was sent, and Copeland's doom was seak.d. Within a few days, while preparing to sail from New York for
* Punphlet Statement of It. Morris Copeland, formerly assistant adjutart-gen- eral to Banks, P.21.
t On the ed of July Banks telegraphed Copeland from Washington, " There is nothing to communicate upon affairs South. Have received your despatches. The secretary will assign you to Gen. Hunter. Put out force into condition to move as soon as possible. Will send you werd when I return, think to-meiros. " N. P. BANKS, A. G. C."
# Corelani's PampWet Statement, p. 22.
& Copeland's Stat ment. 2. 22. " Gen. Banks retnine 1. MeCellen, defeated and Hin' le to be captured, the President, alarmed and uncertain what to do, urge that 'a strong man be placed at the head of an are, and troops be sent rapidly forward from west.'" - CA-
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the Southern Department, he read in a New York paper that he was dismissed from the United States Service. The only reasons for this ever given him by the President were founded upon the proclamation and despatch .*
My own experience with Banks, in an interview after his return from Washington, in which I labored hard to get some hope out of our heavy despair from disastrous reports, was so intensely satisfactory that I cannot forbear giving it in this history.
It was on the evening of the 5th of July, the day Banks arrived at the headquarters of his corps, that I rode to his tent, dismounted, and engaged with our austere chieftain in the following animated conversation : -
"What information have you brought back to us, General ?" " None, sir."
"Nothing of this sad affair of Gen. McClellan's, - this rumor of his defeat ? "
"Nothing, sir."
"Nothing of the purposes of the Administration in such an event ? "
"Nothing, sir."
" Nothing, sir? Nothing! Nothing ! Can you, under these circumstances of our excessive anxiety an ! desire to know suricthing, can you not repeat something? Surely the Ad- ministration must have some plans."
" "Continued the President, 'I don't know why the charges are, but I do know that you sent a must improper and malicious telegram in cipher to a Boston editor, which no officer had a right to do, saying I was scared, M Clellan was to be captured, and we were all going to ruin. I'm thou hit you were very sharp, and put it into some kind of a cipher you make up; but we've got some very cute fellows in thetelegraph ofer, and one of them found it out and sent it to me to read, and I could see plainly enough that you belonged to that class : men who are trying to make all the wheel Set de Government that they can. Fact is, I believe you want to belp run thi: G . calm w, sa lecause you don't get as mach notice as you think you deserve, you are trying to take trouble?" -- S .: s.f R. S. C. , 2. 32.
[NOTE - As Copeland was firmeng quartermaster of the Second Regiment, this extract is part of the history I am following. -- AUTH .]
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With a great oath Banks broke his silence : "By God, sir, without honest men this country will be ruined, sir!"* Gen. Banks delivered this irrefutable sentiment to the intense sat- isfaction of -- himself.
At the camp near Warrenton (we moved there on the Sth) we sent to Alexander such superfluities as baggage and tents, for we were not only to live on the country, but were to sleep on it unsheltered, and clothe ourselves as might be. But the men were in good spirits, and soon threw off all depression, even if they had felt any, because of the defeat of the Army of the Potomac.
One of the memorable incidents that occurred at this camp was the recovery of a horse that had been stolen from me by some of the New York cavalrymen, on the morning we crossed the river at Williamsport on our retreat before Jackson's army. The animal, noticeable for his flowing mane and tail and for his rich color, a mahogany bay, dis- appeared a few minutes after my servant had tied him to a fence on the Maryland side of the Potomac at Williamsport. There was a house near the fence occupied by a sergeant or two of the New York cavalry, but they had seen nothing of such a horse, they told my man, repeating their denial to me with an honest touch of incipient indignation at my cross- examination. It was certain the horse had not strayed off,
* " MARCELLUS. How is't, iny noble lord ?
" HORATIO. What news, my lord
" HAMLET. Oh, wonderful !
" HOR. Good my lord, tell it.
" HAM. No ; you will reveal it.
"HOK. Not I, my lord, by heaven !
" MAR Nor I, my lord.
"HAM. How say you then : would heart of man once think it ? -- But you 'll be secret ?
" HOR, MAR. Ay, b; heaven, my lord !
"HAM. There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he's an arrant knave.
- Hunslet, Prince of Denmark, Act 1, Scene 5.
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nor had he committed suicide in the river, nor would any citi- zen of Williamsport, under the circumstances, have dared to steal him.
All search proving vain, I sought Gen. Hatch, who invited me to attend with him, in the afternoon, a review of his cavalry, " where," he suggested, "in riding between the open ranks, you will see your horse if he is there; and if he is not, he will be found, if taken by any of my cavalry men, among the horses left in camp, and there your groom can look during the review." - " Good !" I replied, " that is the thing. I'll find him."
After the review I rode along the ranks, seemingly criti- cising the troops, but really looking for the horse-thief. Returned to the reviewing officer's position, when the order "Rest !" was given, the cavalry command gave me three rousing cheers.
" That's for your accusing them of stealing your horse," said Hatch, laughing.
How the fellow that did steal that horse must have smiled ! for the horse was there, but I could not recognize him. After a few days I gave him up.
On a lazy afternoon of the 13th of July, on Sunday, at this camp near Warrenton, my groom, Fuller, came to me, excitedly saying, ----
" General, I have found your horse."
" When, where, and how ?" I asked.
" Ridden by a private in the New York cavalry."
In a few minutes, in charge of my guard, the private ap- peared riding a horse with ragged mane and tail, - a gaunt, dejected animal, upon whose flank was stamped or branded the letter " A," thus denoting a public animal belonging to " A" Company of a cavalry regiment.
"Do you mean to tell me that is my horse ?" I said to Fuller, as he and the private and the guard awaited in silence my decision.
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" I think so, sir," replied Fuller.
"Think so? By what token ? Wherein do you see any- thing like my bright-colored horse, his thick mane and way- ing tail, his spirit - anything ! Tell me, where do you see it ?"
Looking down doggedly, as if indignant at a suspicion that he could, through a mistake, have originated this scene, Ful- ler lifted the animal's fore-leg, looked intently at the shoe, dropped the foot, struck a defiant attitude, and exclaimed, --
"It's your hoss, sir !"
" Well, by Jove! so it is, or the remains of him," I ex- claimed, after a critical examination.
Then followed a scene.
The private and the sergeant, the one who denied at the house in Williamsport any knowledge of the horse (and I have every reason to believe the captain of the company to which these worthies were attached), were accomplices in the theft ; they were members of a gang of horse-thieves. When this fine-looking animal was espied tied to the fence in Williamsport, while Fuller was trying to get some break- fast after his long fast, it was the work of a moment to lead him to a secluded spot, and there to crop and notch his mane as if mules had fed on it; to dock and thin his tall until there was no waving curl about it ; and then with sharp-pointed scissors to finish the work by cutting the letter A in the hair on his flank. One without experience cannot conceive the transformation thus effected. Add to this the rough riding of a cavalry-trooper from the 26th of May to the 13th of July, and gauntness, lack of fire, and duiness of coat complete the disguise.
After seeing the letter A of appropriate dimensions cut out of the shock of hair on the head of the private, I sent him away under guard, with the good intentions I enter- tained concerning the captain and sergeant, dissipated in the crowding events that thickened and darkened until Pope's campaign was at an end.
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In carrying out the plans already referred to, Pope had ordered Gen. King of McDowell's Corps, at Fredericksburg, to send forward detachments of his cavalry to break up and destroy the Virginia Central Railroad, and at the same time, with a view of destroying the enemy's communications by rail in the direction of Gordonsville, Banks was, on the 14th of July, ordered to send an infantry brigade with all his cavalry to Culpepper Court House, from whence the cavalry were to take possession of Gordonsville and destroy the rail- road for ten or fifteen miles east, while another detachment was to move on Charlottesville, destroy a railroad bridge there, and break up communications. But on the 17th of July, Banks reported that Gen. Hatch, commanding the cavalry, had started on his march with infantry, artillery, and train- wagons, and had at that date succeeded in getting no farther than Madison Court House. The arrival of the enemy at Gordonsville on the 16th of July rendered the contemplated movement impossible.
On the 19th of July we had moved our camp to Little Wash- ington, a small town east of the Blue Ridge, on a line from Luray to Warrenton. The following are the points our army occupied on this line, which was in length thirty and one third miles. The two divisions of the Second Corps were at Wash- ington. Gen. Sigel with the First Corps was at Luray, and Gen. MeDowell with the Third Corps at Warrenton. We were concentrating on this base. There, in that summer season, scenes of rural loveliness became desolate and unsightly by the occupation and destruction that ever marks the devasta- tion of armies. From my tent I could see on the west, the wondrous beauty, famous in Virginia scenery, of the Blue Ridge ; and towards the south a rolling country from which, ou n'my felds, the grain, carefully shocked up upon our arrival, had all been appropriated by our soldiers as straw for bedding. Tents whitened the hills, and thousands of men were wandering around, knowing no man as owner of field,
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forage, or domain. From the hill we could look for thirty miles towards Richmond, the bourn of all our . hopes and many of our bodies.
The remaining days of July were passed in drills, brigade and regimental ; and when the latter, Col. Andrews (who had received full promotion to the command of our regiment) practised his men in aiming, to enable them to do better than at Winchester, when not one of the enemy could show him- self with impunity at a thousand yards. My military family consisted of officers taken from the Second Massachusetts Regiment. This was due to the kindness of the Secretary of War, who promoted at my request, to the rank of cap- tains, Lieut. II. B. Scott as assistant adjutant-general, Lieut. Wheaton as commissary of subsistence, and Lieut. M. M. Hawes as quartermaster ; Lieut. Robert G. Shaw, who subse- quently, as colonel of the First Massachusetts Colored Regi- ment, was killed at Fort Wagner, served as an aid on my staff.
Although Gen. Pope was at Washington, in the District of Columbia, we began to receive at Little Washington, through the newspapers, furious orders, intended to inflame his army with zeal : " No lines of retreat," " No bases of . supply," " Live upon the country," "We have always seen the backs of our enemy," "Discard your false notions," etc. etc." We knew well enough that this was a fling at the com- mander of the Army of the Potomac, and was intended to please the Chandlers and such-like war-horses of the Admin-
* On the 14th of July, 1862, Gen. Pope issued the following order to the oni- cers and soldiers of the Army of Virginia : --
" I have spent two weeks in learning your whereabouts. I have con.e from the west, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies. Dismiss from your minds certain phrases I bear constantly, - of taking strong positions and holding them, of lines of retreat, and base of supplies. Let us discard such ise is. The strongest position a sollier should desite to occupy is che from which he can. inost easily advance upon the enemy. Let us study possible lines of retreat of our opp nests, and have our own to take care of themselves. Let us look before an ! not behind. Succes and glory are in the advance."
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istration, who were then comparing Mcclellan to an old woman with a broom.
Although the newspapers laughed at Pope, and criticised his Falstaffian pretences, and dubbed him five-cent Pope ;* and although every man in his army wondered if he were not a weak and silly man ; there were none who fell away in fervor or determination to do all that mortals could to retrieve the losses sustained by the Army of the Potomac, be it under Pope or the Devil himself. On the 29th of July, we were favored with the actual presence of the commander-in-chief of the Army of Virginia. He had come to take up his abode with us. As recorded at that time by an observing officer of my staff, the following description of Gen. Pope may serve to recall him to your minds : " Pope is a thick-set man, of an unpleasant expression, of about fifty years of age, average height, thick, bushy black whiskers, and wears spectacles." The savage orders that had preceded our commander created an intense curiosity to actually look upon him, and we were gratified on the 3d of August, for he came to inspect the troops of our corps in a review. Upon this momentous occasion, which had been preceded by many drills, in some of which Gen. Banks attempted and performed creditably division movements, we were anxious to excel, as we knew we ought, and so were ready long before the arrival of the Pope, and long after the time assigned in orders. "Napoleon did not fail to keep his appointments to review his troops," said a critical officer, somewhat melted by the heat. "Nor did Wellington," was the
* HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF VIRGINIA, WASHIN FION, July 26, 1553.
Capt. Samuel L. Harrison, of the Ninety-Fifth Regiment of New York Volim- teers, is reported by his commanding general as having deserted his company on the 21st of the month, and gone to New York. A reward of five cents is offered for His apprehension.
By order of MAJ-GEN. POPE. Gro. D. REGOLES, Chief of Staff.
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amiable reply of another. Further comparison was checked by a rising cloud of dust, within which Pope and a numerous staff drew rein, while the cannon roared, the drums sounded, and the horses pranced or cavorted so vigorously that it took about ten minutes to quiet their demonstrations of admira- tion for Pope. Then the review began in column of brigades, of which mine was the last.
As the General rode in turn in front of each brigade, he was to be received by each regiment in the orthodox style of the regulation, -- three ruffles from the drum, the march, the colors drooped, and a present arms. Now when Pope was receiving these regulation tokens of respect from the left regiment of the brigade in my front, what did that incor- rigible Twenty-Seventh Indiana, on the left of my line, do, but put the whole paragraph of ruffles, marches, and droops in, and all in the wrong place; the colonel commanding looking on meanwhile as blandly as did Pickwick when he awoke in the pound as a trespasser upon the lands of the fierce Capt. Boldwig. My feelings were indescribable. I fancied Hope looked like Capt. Boldwig, when that worthy discovered the handbarrow and heard the words "cold punch " muttered as his baptismal name by the unhappy Pickwick; at all events, we knew that we had lost what otherwise would have been an easy victory.
There was no reserve about Gen. Pope; he "let out" in censure with such vigor, that if words had been missiles our army would never have failed for want of ammunition. In a long talk with me at his headquarters on the 5th of August, he attributed our want of success at Richmond to mismanagement by MeClellan, for whom he seemed to enter- tain a bitter hatred, which might have pleased the Adminis- tration, but found little favor with us.
I think Gen. Pope's freedom of speech infected his com- mand with a general mania for discussing men and measures. It was not an uncommon event for generals and colonels
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to meet at my tent, and express their views in words stronger than those generally used in war councils, - " cuss words " of such vigor, when they fell from the lips of our division com- mander, that all were appalled into silence, save Col. Knipe of the Forty-Sixth Pennsylvania, and when he began, Wil- liams was silent. Ordinary words being totally inadequate to express one's feelings, swearing became an epidemic.
While here in our camp at Little Washington, we heard of the promotion of Capt. Underwood, of Company I, to the rank of major in a new Massachusetts regiment. Perhaps, had this officer encountered Stonewall Jackson, he might have ad- dressed with hearty thanks the one who, when he drove us out the valley, did not make Underwood unhappy, since it scemed there were more compensations for Jackson's acts in Massachusetts than he ever dreamed of.
On the 6th of August the Army of Virginia began its march for Culpepper Court House. Gen. Pope's main purpose in thus moving forward was not to fight. His instructions required him to be very careful not to allow the enemy to interpose between him and Fredericksburg, to which point the forces from the Peninsula were to be brought; and it was to cover the Army of the Potomac that we were now in motion, following up with our corps a brigade of Williams's Division that had moved from Cuipepper on the 4th to support the cavalry. The day was hot, the roads were dusty; and when the men of my brigade came into bivouac at Woodville, some ten miles from where we started in the morning, they were so tired that they wilted away in a merciless manner, until the sun had turned his hot face towards another quarter of the world, when a cooler and more refreshing atmosphere replaced the fierce heat of the day. Then the crickets began to sing, and all the soothing sounds of night hushed our senses to such sweet repose that our men entered upon the next day's march with refreshed spirits. .
Our march on the 7th was short, but a very tiresome one.
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Gen. Augur's Division of our corps encamped in advance of us the night before, and thus claimed the right of precedence. It was my wish to move at three o'clock, A. M., and thus com- plete our work before the heat began ; but Augur did not get off until eight o'clock, as this was the time designated in one of Pope's long orders. When we were off, and had proceeded about ten rods to a corner, we found the rear of Augur's bag- gage-trains at a halt. After waiting fifteen minutes, we pushed the train one side and went on a quarter of a mile farther, until we came to another train standing still in the road. The sun by this time was pouring down so hot and fierce upon us that I put all my men in the woods, unhitched all my horses, and gave a general rest until twelve at noon, when, the road being clear, I pushed on. It was then the hottest part of the day. Clouds of dust hung over us, there was not a breath of air, and the road was like a furnace. We did get over the six miles that made that day's march, but many of our men fell out from weakness. Diarrhoea was more prevalent than usual. The atmosphere of our camp while we were at Little Wash- ingion was like that of a pest-house, from the number of dead animals lying about. In Augur's Division of our corps, two entire regiments had been sent to the hospital. In the Sixtieth New York, men died eight and ten a day. In a single day from that regiment two commissioned officers were buried. The drum and fife, constantly sounding the dead march, made the evenings seem sad and solemn. If we were not conform- ing to Pope's order to live on the country, we were doing the next thing to it, - we were dying on it. Gen. Augur's Division was made up of troops whose officers had little or no experience in discipline or hygiene. The men ate every miserable, crabbed green apple they came across, and, in short, so violated every sanitary regulation that it was no wonder typhoid fever marked them for its own. We suffered in the Second Regiment, but in a less degree. Poor Capt. Goodwin, having been sick for nearly two months, applied at
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at Little Washington for a leave of absence ; but was answered, it is said, that if he was as sick as he represented, he had better resign.
On the 7th, Pope's army, a force numbering about 28,000 men, had assembled along the turnpike from Sperryville to Culpepper. King's Division of McDowell's Corps was still at Fredericksburg, on the Lower Rappahannock, but Rickett's Division arrived at Culpepper on the 7th from Waterloo Bridge. Pope's cavalry was distributed as follows : Gen. Buford, who had relieved Hatch, was, with five regiments, posted at Madison Court House, with his pickets along the line of the Rapidan from Barnett's Ford as far west as the Blue Ridge. These were supported by a brigade of infantry and a battery of artillery from Sigel's Corps, stationed where the road from Madison Court House to Sperry- ville crosses Robertson's River .. Gen. Bayard, with four regi- ments of cavalry, was near Rapidan Station, the point where the Orange and Alexandria Railroad crosses Rapidan River, with his pickets extended east to Raccoon Ford and connect- ing with Buford at Barnett's Ford. The Rapidan was lined with cavalry pickets from Raccoon Ford to the forks of the Rappahannock above Falmouth, and in addition thereto, on the top of Thoroughfare Mountain, about half-way between Bayard and Buford, there was a signal station, which overlooked the whole country as far south as Orange Court House .*
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