USA > Massachusetts > Reminiscences of military service in the Forty-third regiment, Massachusetts infantry, during the great Civil war, 1862-63 > Part 13
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While we were in process of forming our line as a company, Major Lane, who had come at full speed to his regiment as soon as his special duty was finished, rushed among us on foot, and received a welcome from Col. Whiton, which it did our hearts good to see. I think that both officers would have
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been pleased to " waive ceremony," and have a hand-shake all round. I am sure that there would have been no lack of cordiality on our part.
The march that followed before we halted for the night was one of the most memorable that we made. There were inter- secting roads which might have been, availed of by the enemy to cut us off on our return, and it was necessary to move with great rapidity in order to prevent this. It seemed as though our cavalry had set the whole of Craven County on fire. I think we made no halt for supper, and we had no word in respect to the length of the march, which proved to be fifteen miles. What with hunger, the heat of the weather, the smoke and heat of the burning forest on all sides of us, we made quite a repetition of the experiences of the Great March, with some additional ones.
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CHAPTER IX.
PAMLICO SOUND.
T HE two letters which follow give the outlines of our further operations in the relief of Washington.
ON BOARD A TRANSPORT SCHOONER IN PAMLICO SOUND, April 15, 1863.
Another strange mutation in our soldier-life brings me into the hold of a schooner, "The Anna M. Edwards," along with three companies of our regiment, G, I, and K; the rest of it being similarly situated in other schooners alongside. There are six of our gunboats here, besides some up at Little Washington. We ean see, about three miles up the river, a strip of new earth, which is the rebel fortifieation ; and there is said to be another one farther up the river. They are not very effective, however, as the passage of the river has been made by small schooners loaded with pro- visions and ammunition ; and night before last a steamer, "The Eseort," passed up with the Fifth Rhode-Island Regiment, so far as we know, without loss.
We are the only regiment in the river below the batteries, and thus far we have been of no use since our arrival here, on Sunday morning, exeept that volunteers from our number have been en- gaged in loading and running up the small sehooners of which I have spoken. We don't know as yet what will be done with us. Yesterday, officers of Foster's statt came down, and oue steamer was despatched to Newbern, and one to Plymouth ; and, as we have the story, troops are to be brought from Suffolk, and also from Newbern, by land, to trap the rebs, or oblige them to run, as their position exposes them to a fire in the rear. We could do this our- selves from Newbern, if we were numerous enough. When I wrote you my letter of the 10th (begun April 7), I was too much fatigued to give partieulars, and also too much pressed for time and the multiplied personal needs after so fatiguing a mareh as we had
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had. It was fortunate that I took right hold of fixing myself up, as in twenty-four hours from our arrival in camp, at an hour's notice (April 11), we were off again. I had rested well, but thought I was terribly sore from a blister on the sole of my foot ; but somehow or other the excitement cured it, for I have not had any pain from it since.
We were told that all must go who could crawl to Newbern, as we should not have any marching to do except that ; and the promise has been kept, for we remained on board the steamer on which we came, " The Thomas Collier," until yesterday (the 14th), when she was wanted to go to Plymouth, and we were put into the schooner.
It is rainy, and we are obliged to keep below deck much of the time, and, of course, are much crowded ; but we have suffered the fatigues of a march so recently, that the men are disposed to be contented.
THURSDAY, A.M., April 16.
This letter had been partly written, when "The Escort," to our extreme surprise, came alongside, and took three companies of the four on board, leaving us, and then went to the other two schooners, serving them in the same way, leaving the three largest companies of the regiment, H, C, and D, and returning to Newbern with the rest, as is understood to come out on another land-march, we will hope more successful than the last. It appears that we are to remain here for the present as a sort of marine guard for the fleet, under the command of Major Lane of Abington, a most estimable officer. In the event of a naval attack in connection with the land- forces, it is said we are to be distributed among the gunboats to act as sharpshooters.
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"The Escort" reported that she passed up with perfect safety, not being hit at all ; but, on coming alongside of our schooner, she bore sad evidence of the perils of her downward trip, having been hulled by cannon-shot several times, and losing her pilot by a musket-ball, and having one of her deck-hands badly wounded, besides a narrow escape from disabled machinery. The rebels built fires close by the river-bank, so as to make her a fair target, which accounts for the difference between her upward and down- ward trips.
A rebel deserter, an impressed Northerner, came on board one of the gunboats last night, and says the rebs are ready to leave at short notice ; and if it is true, as is currently reported, that Foster
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went down to Newbern yesterday on "The Escort," they are likely to have all the notice they want by a fire in the rear more effective than that the other day. His name is a tower of strength.
CAMP AT HILL'S POINT, April 19, 1863.
I am writing in a little coop constructed of old boards taken from an outhouse at a distance of a quarter of a mile. This coop or hut is located a few hundred feet in the rear of what was a formidable rebel battery. We landed here on Friday morning, the 17th. The earthwork is at the mouth of the Tar River, on its south side. Our hearts are swelling with joy at the news which Gen. Foster has brought this morning, that Rosecrans has won the greatest victory of the war in Tennessee, and also in our triumph, without much loss of life, over the recent rebel attack on Little Washington, which has kept us in motion all this month, but which seems now happily ended by the passage through from Newbern of our troops, under Gen. Foster ; the Ninth New-Jersey and the Twenty-third Massachusetts Regiment being here in the same field with us, having come in this morning, both of them just from Hilton Head, S.C., by way of Newbern.
Yesterday the rest of our regiment passed up the river, on " The Escort," to Washington ; and it is said that they went out immedi- ately on a reconnoissance north of Washington, which is in plain sight about three miles off.
Three companies of the Forty-fourth, C, D, and I, landed here about the same time we did, and are doing duty with us. They are prolific in stories of their seventeen days' siege. They lost but few men ; I think none killed, and but one or two mortally wounded, although under an artillery-fire from several directions. Their earth- works saved them. Our gunboats shelled the enemy away from their guns many times during the blockade ; but the largest bat- tery, this one where we are, was well provided with bomb-proofs, having been one of the original rebel defences of the place ; so that they could not be dislodged without a land-force. The enemy had only twelve-pound field-guns in this earthwork; but these were sufficiently formidable to interrupt the usnal navigation of the river, and even to make our gunboats ratlier cautious of coming to close quarters on account of the exposure of their boilers, the boats being of such light draught of water as to make them more liable in this respect than sea-going men-of-war. They are mostly New-York
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ferry-boats, with their cabins shortened at both ends about a quar- ter of their length, and from three to five eight or nine inch guns at each end, and in two cases at least a hundred-pounder rifle pivot- gun. There are also three or four small propellers quite efficiently armed with Parrott rifles, and clad, about their upper works, with boiler-iron, as a shield against musketry.
The schooner referred to in the letter of April 15, upon which we finally found ourselves located, was about half full of " hard tack " in boxes. There was also a considerable num- ber of bales of hay on deck : some of these we broke open, and spread upon the boxes in the hold, making our beds quite luxurious compared to what we had been accustomed to. We were fearfully exposed to fire from the matches or pipes of our smokers ; but we resolved ourselves into a committee of the whole to watch each other in this respect. Drill was dispensed with. The small schooners we sent up the river in the night had been loaded from the steamer we came in, before we left her, and we had little or nothing to do. The east wind blew softly and warm up the Sound, and we were obliged to wait for whatever might turn up. The resources of the quartermaster's department were strained to the utmost to find food for us. Sergeant Thomas King, who attended to the victualling of our company, found himself obliged to itin- erate among the gunboats for supplies of various sorts, not excepting tobacco, of which there was a famine among us. Ordinarily soldiers buy this of the sutler. When this resource failed them, the smokers made a desperate onslaught on our friend the commissary sergeant for relief. To the great sur- prise of those of us who did not use it, we all had " a hand " in the ration which was issued, whether we smoked or not. For the first and last time in my life I was an owner of the offensive weed.
Some notice is due the brave volunteers of Company E from the Cape, with some from the South-Shore companies, thirty in all, for their gallantry in running the blockade with provisions, guns, and ammunition. The cannons were lashed outside of the boats, so as to be cut loose in the event of their capture, and the boats were loaded to the gunwale. During
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the passage up, they grounded, when they were so near the rebels that their talk could be plainly heard. They were fired upon at this time. A ball passed through the cap of one of them, and another was severely wounded ; but they succeeded in getting through. They were highly complimented by Gen. Foster for their skill and courage .. After the excitement of loading the schooners, and seeing " The Escort " off with the Fifth Rhode-Island Regiment, was over, the little steamer " Whitehead " went up within a mile of the rebel earthwork, and signalled Little Washington for some time in vain, getting no answer. We watched her motions with special interest, as our lieutenant, Colesworthy, was on board as a volunteer, and we supposed that she would be fired upon. The enemy were silent, however. They may have suspected a trap to get them into their works, and then open fire on them from the gunboats near us.
In the daytime we could see a light haze, and in the night a faint light, arising from a point in the forest some distance to the rear of the fortification. When we landed, after they left, a large camp was found about a half mile from the river, the fires of which were still smouldering. They had used hardwood altogether, so as not to draw the fire of our heavy guns, as they would have been exposed to this, if their loca- tion had been well defined by the free use of pitch-pine.
The rebel artillery in the forest near us was part of the same force which was engaged at Gettysburg a few weeks later, and it would be a natural question to ask whether they annoyed us any as we lay helpless in the schooner. One day, while I was below deck, I heard the sudden discharge of one of the eight-inch guns on board of the boat which carried Commodore Flusser's flag, I think " The Miami." She was close alongside, and she lay between us and the shore. I jumped on deck as soon as I could ; but I was not quick enough to see the shell explode, though I could trace its course by my ear, for it went through the air with a musical whistle pitched upon a high key. My comrades pointed to a large old-fashioned house close by the bank of the river, and said that the shell burst just beyond the gable of that house.
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I could myself see the colored people scampering away from the building in evident terror. I was also informed that a piece of artillery had been noticed from the deck as it passed a gap in the forest, moving down the river, apparently with the intention of finding a suitable position to open upon us. The connection between the above incidents, I presume, was something as follows : -
Flusser was as loyal, and as full of fight, as Foster was ; and the rebels knew it. The south bank of the sound was lined at short intervals with large plantation-houses. In directing the shell against the house, instead of the gun, he said in un- mistakable language, " If you don't go back, I will open my broadside upon the buildings, and burn or destroy every one of them." At any rate we saw no more of the enemy.
One word here in respect to the clear, musical whistle of the shell, and the precision with which it burst just beyond the house. Fragments of shell are not supposed to fly back- wards. The poor colored aunties, though terribly frightened, were not in much danger of being hurt. This accuracy was obtained by turning the shell, I might almost say by polish- ing it. If the ridge which the two sides of a mould leaves upon all castings had been allowed to remain, the shell would have made a whirring noise, and would have been deflected more or less from a straight line ; but our round shells for the heavy smooth-bore guns of the navy were placed in lathes, and all projections were turned off: the guns themselves were thus relieved from much injurious friction, in addition to the increased accuracy of aim.
"The Escort " presented an interesting sight to us as she ran alongside on her downward trip, after having passed the battery at Hill's Point. Foster was really on board, though he kept out of sight. I suppose he did not wish that we should know that he had escaped, as he hoped to surprise the rebels with a determined attack in the rear before they knew that he was at liberty. She ran past the battery just before daylight. Those who were on our deek knew that something was going on up the river. But a mist overhung us, and the guns were not heavy enough to attract attention at the dis-
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tance (three miles) at which we lay. We soon saw her, however, as, after stopping a short time at a gunboat above us, she came alongside. She was well spattered with bullet- marks, and had been hulled several times by cannon-shot. Her pilot, who was at the helm when he was killed, lay upon the deck a corpse. Bales of hay were piled around the wheel- house, high enough to cover its windows, except just enough space to look out of; but the fatal bullet entered, neverthe- less. The course of the channel was such, that, for a mile before she reached the battery, the boat must run directly head on. This would take at least five minutes, and would bring her under the fire of the battery not more than five hundred feet away : at this point she must turn sharply to the east, presenting her full broadside to a six-gun battery and the fire of infantry. During the terrible exposure, the vicinity all along the river-bank was illuminated by lighting fires prepared beforehand; so that she was probably as plainly in sight as if it had been in the daytime. Into this shower of lead and iron her fearless pilot guided her; and, when he dropped lifeless from her wheel, some one must have been ready to drag his corpse aside, and step with composure into his place.
She had a walking-beam ; and the panel-work of the wheel- house extended aft, enclosing the machinery, as is customary in boats of that kind. I noticed that a three-inch ball had struck the pilot-house on its side, and passed aft, through the stiles of the doors and panel-work, at least twenty feet, gradu- ally lowering until it reached the deck, which it hit at such an angle as to rebound overboard at the stern. This must have been done while the boat was running directly for the battery.
Capt. Graham, of Foster's staff, was the only officer who showed himself. His nerves were quite well braced; but it was difficult to realize that he had just passed through such an exacting experience. Some of our men grumbled at being left on board the schooner; but he told them, that, if they knew when they were well off, they had better keep still. And the event justified the hint he gave us, that we were
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going to have an easy time, compared to those who went back to Newbern.
The above account is qualified by a member of the Fifth Rhode-Island Regiment who was in Little Washington at the time. He says that "The Escort" grounded shortly after she left the wharf, and was so much delayed, that it was broad daylight when she reached the battery.
Our last experience in the river was on the afternoon of the 16th. While we were lying listlessly about the deck, we saw one of the gunboats above us get up steam, and proceed slowly up the stream, frequently altering her course, as they moved cautiously onward, reconnoitring every suspicious locality. She met with no opposition, and finally disappeared in a bend of the river. The siege had ended !
This reconnoissance in force, of Longstreet, into North Carolina, and Suffolk in Virginia, is now supposed to have had very profound relations to the circumstances of the war at that time. The hopes of the rebels were at the highest. The army and the people were dazzled at what they regarded as the invincible prowess of Lee. The higher circles of so- ciety were elated at the growing disaffection in the North, and the rebel government felt sure of European mediation. Under certain circumstances which might have occurred, but which did not, a sudden assault on Norfolk, if successful, would have placed a seaport in the hands of the Confederacy. If there had happened to be a large Anglo-French fleet at hand, what then? We cannot tell; but we know that the blood poured out so freely at Gettysburg removed this bitter cup from our lips.
On the morning of the next day, the 17th, one of the gun- boats brought down the three companies of the Forty-fourth, noticed in letter of April 19, to Hill's Point, the location of the rebel earthwork, and then came down to us, and towed our schooner to the same place.
When we landed at the battery we had an interesting study of the effects of heavy artillery. The gunboats had been firing a hundred-pound Parrott shell before our arrival. About a dozen of them had failed to explode, and they had
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been collected by the enemy, and placed in a pond-hole in a deep depression just in the rear of the earthwork. Many of them had passed over the battery, and buried themselves in the opposite side of the valley. They had exploded in the ground, each one of them, making a hole large enough for a small cellar. I noticed that one of them had cut its way for quite a distance, diagonally, on top of the parapet, leaving an impression, or track, in the earth, resembling the furrow turned by a plough. The earthwork had not been injured in the least ; or, if so, the damage had been repaired during the nights. The platform for the guns, inside of the parapet, was of earth, at least four feet deep, and it rested on hard- pine timbers as large as twelve inches square, and twenty feet long, which were placed close together, and they thus formed the roofs of the bomb-proofs under the guns, to which the artillerists retreated when driven from their pieces.
We saw no evidence anywhere of any loss of life on the part of the enemy, a single grave excepted, under a tree, close by the fort ; the circumstances of its location being such as to favor the opinion that the occupant was instantly killed while in or about the fort. The epitaph was as follows : -
"To the memory of Henry Devinport, Co. C, 52 N. C. Regiment."
The earthwork of which I have been writing was built by the rebels as one of the original defences of Little Washing- ton. It was a very grave error on our part to allow it to remain intact when the place was captured. Before we left it, we had the satisfaction of seeing the earth and timber of which it was composed "go up" at least sixty feet into the air; a cask of powder, as we understood it, being placed in each of its four or five chambers, so as to explode one after the other.
We were a few hundred feet in the rear at the time, and, after the first explosion, we were glad to lay as close to the ground as we could get.
The sight and the sound were awfully grand and impres- sive. It was as if we had been treated to an exhibition of five volcanoes springing suddenly, in rapid succession, out of
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the ground. First a low, earthquake-like rumble, then an explosion so massive in its character as to rise entirely above a comparison with the heaviest artillery, and then the vehe- ment extrusion of a great body of the reddest and most lurid flame, bearing large volumes of thick black smoke, as well as earth and heavy timber, aloft, to be followed with an instantaneous collapse and silence.
During the time we were here, we picketed the only road which led to the place. The men who were on our outer post fired during the early part of one night, and fell back to the barricade. This unsettled the guard somewhat, although we did not believe there was any real cause of alarm. Those who were on duty went out again, while the rest of us slept.
When the Confederates went off, they left a large forest- fire burning somewhere within a quarter or half mile of us. It illuminated the forest all round with a dim light, and we were near enough to it to hear a constant dull, furnace-like roar. My companions (six of them, I think), under command of acting Lieut. Edmunds, were supposed to be asleep in a small hut close to me, - the reserve post. I was in a sitting posture outside, near to them, dozing, but conscious. In an instant of time I was put upon my feet, wide awake, by one of the most tremendous crashes I ever heard. I suppose that the concussion of the falling buildings in our great Novem- ber fire was no heavier than the shock with which I was thus suddenly assailed. Some great giant of the forest had gone down, and in its fall had dragged an acre or two of trees with it. I comprehended the situation at once, and was not, of course, thrown off my balance by it ; but not so my comrades, every one of whom were naturally cool and brave men. I judge that they were really soundly asleep, yet with the monition upon their minds appropriate to the situation, and that the inward voice was more than ordinarily alert in con- sequence of the alarm we had already experienced. At any rate, they were for an instant or two scared out of their wits. I had never seen the hair actually rise on the heads of men, and their eyes look like saucers, but once in my life before, and that was under circumstances of extreme danger, on board
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ship; but I saw it then. It was ludicrous in the highest degree ; and yet it was a fearful sight. For a few seconds I thought they would get away from me, and go back to camp on the dead run without their guns; but the tones of my voice, as much as any thing I could say in such a situation, soon calmed them, and then the laughter was as uncontrolled as the terror had been. What a sight it must be to see a brave regiment stampeded in the night, in a panic! It hap- pened to such regiments in both armies, from less impressive reasons than in this instance.
During the forenoon of April 24, the steamer "Long Island " came down from Little Washington, with our regi- ment on board. We gladly rejoined them, having been sepa- rated eight days ; the only detail of our company during our connection with the regiment.
After we were on board, she proceeded down into the Sound, and round to Newbern, reaching Camp Rogers the next day at noon ; our company having been absent two weeks. The following letter details the exterior circum- stances of the next call which was made upon the regiment. This march was made in connection with the battle of Chan- cellorsville. On this very day, our friends of H, First Regi- ment, received orders to have eight days' rations ready ; and they began their march on the next day, the 28th.
CAMP ROGERS, May 3, 1863.
When I wrote you last sabbath (the 26th ult.), we hoped, to say the least, that we should be allowed to remain in camp long enough to thoroughly recruit ourselves ; which seemed a reasonable desire, as there had only been an interval of ten days since the first week in March, that we had been free from the discomfort of marching orders. But at ten p.M. that night we were aroused by Capt. Hanover coming to our tents, and telling us that we must be ready to march at daylight on the 27th, with three days' rations and one hundred rounds of ammunition. We composed ourselves again to such sleep as we could get under the circumstances. When we awoke, toward morning, we were told that our march had been postponed until teu A.M., before which time we were in line, and started, as we had come to understand from various sources, for the depot in Newbern.
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