USA > Massachusetts > Reminiscences of military service in the Forty-third regiment, Massachusetts infantry, during the great Civil war, 1862-63 > Part 7
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The teamsters, however, were not so much to blame as the system which deprives so large and important a body of men of the advantage of honorable organization. When the first
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Napoleon planned his battalions of the train, he took a step which should be copied in every army. Those drivers should have been uniformed and armed, and they should also have been numerous enough to defend themselves, with the assist- ance of a small body of cavalry, against any ordinary attack, until infantry could be brought to their support. Such a . corps as this could ride on their own wagons, or at least take turns with each other in doing so.
On Tuesday night we encamped as usual, without opposi- tion. Resuming the march on Wednesday, we were told early in the forenoon that we were approaching Golds- borough. The pickets of the enemy gave warning to their side of our presence by large fires sending thick black col- umns of smoke high up into the air. Here the regiment was detached from the main column, placed under the charge of a staff-officer, Major Gourard, and sent several miles to the right, to a place called Spring-Bank Bridge. We were accompanied by a section (two guns) of artillery (Ransom's Battery, Twenty-third New-York) and a company of caval- ry (Third New-York). The rebels burned the bridge as we approached it. The regiment halted on a small plantation about a quarter of a mile from the river, Company H remain- ing with them. Two companies, under Major Lane, were sent to the river with the artillery, and afterwards re-enforced with two more. These companies skirmished with the enemy across the river all day, losing one killed (Corporal Sparrow of Company I) and one mortally wounded (Corporal Fuller Morton of Company E). The body of Corporal Sparrow was necessarily abandoned, as the enemy fired persistently at all who made the effort to approach it.
Our company lay through the day in our camp in a condi- tion of suspense and expectation. We heard an occasional cannon-shot from up the river, at Goldsborough, whither the main army had gone ; but no intelligence came to us. Our interest was heightened just at nightfall by rapid artillery- firing at the front. This firing was sustained for about half an hour, and then suddenly ceased. We, of course, in our isolated situation, were intensely interested to learn its cause
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and consequences. Our consumption of ammunition had been very great, particularly at Whitehall. We felt that the struggle, whatever it was, must have been forced upon Gen. Foster, as we could not account in any other way for the late hour at which it happened, and we knew that there must have been urgent reasons for such a free use of powder so far from our base of supply.
As the evening drew on, and no word came to us, it became manifest that we must prepare to pass the night where we were. Guards were stationed at short distances into the forest, and the usual fires were built for warmth. The hon- orable position intrusted to us impressed us deeply with a sense of responsibility. We knew, that, if the rebels forded the river, we must fight with the utmost determination in order to protect the flank and rear of our forces at Golds- borough. Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that we were thoughtful as the darkness closed in upon us in the centre of the little plantation. Just as we were retiring, Capt. Hanover came to me, and, after alluding to the exposures of our position, he spoke with deep feeling of the wonderful preservation of life in our regiment, and asked me to lead the company in thanksgiving to the Almighty. I consented at once, for I felt as he did, as I remembered how we had skirted the edge of battle at Kinston without harm, had plunged into its vortex at Whitehall, almost to the line of skirmishers, with slight loss, and now, here at Goldsborough, had so far escaped wholly as a company, and partially as a regiment.
After the men were called together, the captain spoke briefly, and led in singing a hymn. I then knelt upon my knees at the camp-fire, and read the Hundred and Twelfth Psalm, selected very hastily, which I will here quote by its most appropriate verses.
1. Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.
4. Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness : he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.
6. Surely he shall not be moved forever : the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.
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7. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings : his heart is fixed.
8. His heart is established ; he shall not be afraid until he see his desire upon his enemies.
9. He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor ; his righteous- ness endureth forever ; his horn shall be exalted with honor.
10. The wicked shall see it, and be grieved ; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away : the desire of the wicked shall perish.
This was followed by a standing devotional exercise, of which I can only dimly recall the emotions of gratitude for the past, and supplication for the future ; our dear country, our friends, our homes, ourselves, and our remarkable preser- vation, presenting themselves as fit themes for naming with thanksgiving and intercession in the Divine presence.
The members of other companies pressed around, and joined quietly and reverently in the exercises. I have been in thousands of religious meetings during my life; but of them all I think that was the most sincere and heartfelt. Capt. Hanover wrote of it in a private letter, of which the following paragraph found its way to "The Pioneer" of Jan. 31, 1863 : -
" After the battles of Kinston and Whitehall, while our regi- ment, with a battery and cavalry force, were away from the main army, to look after the rebels this side of Goldsborough, I felt that I could not lay down to sleep, nor that my men ought to do so, without an acknowledgment to God for our almost miraculous preservation from death and wounds. I mentioned my feelings to privates -, -- , who heartily sympathized with me. I called my company together, and told them in brief how I felt, and asked their attention to Mr. - , who had very kindly and promptly responded to my invitation to read from the Psalms, and offer a prayer. I need not say with what attention the men listened to him, nor how many eyes were moistened, nor how much better we all felt after the exercises were over."
We retired to rest, and lay until after midnight, when an officer came from Gen. Foster with orders for our force to fall in, and rejoin the main body of the army on its return to Newbern. We were instructed by our officers to act quickly
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and quietly. We did not wait for a second invitation, but were soon in line, after throwing all our remaining rails on the fires. We then proceeded out into the road, and were halted at the point at which we had come upon the place.
At first we were at a loss to understand this. We had learned from our companies, which had been skirmishing on the bank of the river, but had now returned, that the enemy appeared to be gathering on the other side in force, and we had reason to believe that matters would be lively in that vicinity if we remained till daylight. But still we waited. It was cold, and we were quite impatient, until we learned that the officers of the guard had a very trying job on their hands in calling. in the sentries, under somewhat peculiar circumstances.
They had been obliged to post them, on the evening before, in obscure pathways in the forest, and to give them orders to fire upon any thing approaching from outside the camp. The difficulty lay in finding all the guards in the darkness, with- out going outside of them and drawing their fire. The cir- cumstances did not allow of shouting, so that they were obliged to move slowly and with great caution; but they finally accomplished their object.
The sentries themselves, it should be said, were somewhat mystified, and so were put upon their guard. They were not so far into the forest but that some of them could see all that took place in camp. They noticed the muster of the regiment, and finally saw it moving off without them ; and some were for a time sorely perplexed. But an hour's waiting brought all things out right, and we moved on with an alert step; for the mystery as to our destination, which had hitherto envel- oped us as a cloud, had been removed. We had a new, and, it must be confessed, a delightful sensation. We were to return to Newbern.
But there was hanging over two of our number, even at this moment of joy, an experience, - that of losing their way, - which they both declare will abide until their dying day. And it was the two of all others whom we should have missed the most, both in respect to their official position and the
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manner in which those positions were filled by them. Just after starting, Capt. Hanover spoke to Orderly Edmunds, telling him that he felt miserably sick, and desired him to wait a few moments with him. They fell out, together with the captain's colored boy, a young lad named familiarly "Jim." Their halt was but for a few moments, and, while they waited, Major Lane came along, and advised them ear- nestly to hurry up, as they were behind every thing else. They endeavored to do so, although the captain was very weak. As they passed along, having no apprehension at all, all at once they were involved in anxious doubt, which was not altogether dispelled until they reached the main column on the evening of the next day, after fifteen hours of terrible fatigue and apprehension.
In a few moments after they resumed their march, they came to a divergent road, and in the darkness could not tell which was the right one. One went up hill: the other turned toward the right, and was more level. They were so unfor- tunate as to take it; and every step thereafter led them towards Goldsborough, instead of Newbern. Our army had already begun its return march when we heard the firing in the carly evening, and its front had passed far toward our left, as we were heading southward, when our friends were lost. In quoting from a recent note of Capt. Hanover con- cerning the affair, I will say, that, perhaps of all the members of our company, they were the least prepared to wander about all those weary hours. They had both suffered so terribly from sore feet, that their condition in this respect was known to all of us, and had excited the liveliest sympathy on our part.
" But in time," he says, after describing his attack of sick- ness, " we started on after the boys, as we thought, although the sandy road prevented our hearing them, and the darkness our seeing them. Yes, we travelled miles and miles, only to learn ultimately that all those weary miles and all those weary hours were taking us directly from them, and towards the enemy. When daylight came, we still continued our course, until, upon consultation, we decided to take the back track,
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which proved to be the right one for Newbern, as we learned, after walking many more miles, from a sign-post, at the foot of which we lay down to rest our weary limbs, and which said, pointing the way we were going, 'Sixty miles to New- bern.' Well, it was a satisfaction to have our route indorsed, as we had been ' going it blind ' so long."
Mr. Edmunds says that at first they avoided houses and men, dodging into the forest to hide when danger was appre- hended. They made up their minds that they would not be taken prisoners by civilians, nor by any one, except by a number of armed opponents. But finally, as the day wore on, they became desperate, and were obliged to ask their way. To their surprise, they were met civilly at least, if not cordially. The most minute directions were given them, and they found roads and localities as described. Every thing appeared quiet as they passed along : no one molested them, or asked any questions.
As they travelled during the afternoon, they came across an army cracker-box, the first definite information they had that they were on our track, and finally struck the colunin some distance in the rear of our regiment, which they regained, much to their own and our satisfaction, about eight o'clock on Thursday evening.
Singular as it may appear, we had not been specially anxious in their behalf. We did not dream of their being lost. They were supposed to be with the column, and their absence from the company we ascribed to their footsore and exhausted condition. It is very difficult, as I have hinted before, for individuals to march faster than those in whose immediate presence they find themselves. If it is persisted in, it is necessary to crowd and jostle parties, who, many of them, are already jaded, and cross with fatigue. If it is light, they see at once by your regimental number that you are out of place, and in their surly mood they jump at the con- clusion that you have no good reason for falling to the rear, and give you a piece of their mind. This being the case. it becomes quite difficult to get up to a regiment which lias passed on towards the front, as we many of us knew ; and our friends had the same experience.
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As the regiment, with our companions of the cavalry and artillery, marched on, which we did for at least three hours before reaching the main army, we were interested by the first sight we had of what afterwards became quite a common thing with us; that is a forest-fire. It was the custom for our cavalry to ride rapidly several miles in advance of the infantry, and set fire to the trees on the sides of the road. Sometimes this was done on side-roads for strategic purposes ; but usually they only anticipated the presence of the column, its use, in this case, being to deceive the enemy in respect to the size and position of our forces. In certain conditions of weather, etc., these fires spread rapidly, and burned with great fury. The sight was very imposing from a distance, the sky for miles in our front being brilliantly illuminated ; and as we came up, and entered upon the roads which had been fired, the scenes we witnessed were impressive with the gloomy grandeur of desolation. We were enveloped in smoke, as when we lay before the flaming muzzles of our cannon during the actions. Now and then a tall tree would come crashing to the ground with a deafening noise ; and sometimes we halted, and watched our chance to creep warily past some monarch of the forest, fast tending to its fall.
What with fatigue, wakefulness, and unsuitable food, my imagination was taken captive by the scenes of destruction which I had for a week been witnessing, and, although per- fectly level in my conversation on all ordinary themes, my mind wandered as we marched on in the darkness of the early morning, prolonged, as it was, by the smoke, somewhat into the day. I fancied that I was in the streets of a great city during a conflagration. The trees, many of which were on fire to their tops, a hundred feet or more in height, answered readily to the draught my disordered mind made upon them to represent steeples and chimneys. The burning forest, having been so far complaisant to my wavering whims, moulded itself still further into roofless gables and open windows, with long serpent-like tongues of fire flashing through them; while the bronzed faces of my comrades, peering into the strange scene around us, answered for the crowd of spectators. The
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ponderous engines of war which rolled and rumbled along the road, with the artillerists upon their seats, filed, without any disturbing incongruity, into the avenues of my involun- tary mystical experiences as the organized force of firemen and the imposing machines with which our great cities fight their most terrible enemy.
As we marched away from the fire, and came out to the clear sky and broad daylight, these sickly and gloomy fancies ceased. My condition was such, mentally and physically, that I had virtually seen a mirage revealing itself in the forest-fire, although it was almost entirely subjective .. The imagination, for a time, got the better of the senses, and pre- vented them from exercising their usual functions.
I fancy that the trees and waving foliage, the fleecy clouds and rippling lakes, which sometimes float before the eyes of weary and thirsty travellers in the desert, owe much of their power to the disordered cravings of the mind to be relieved of its repulsive surroundings.
There had been a short halt after we joined the column ; and, while we waited, we ate our breakfast, after which. some of our lads dispersed themselves among the other regiments to learn what had happened during the day. The railroad had been torn up, and a covered bridge, on which it crossed the Neuse, had been burnt.
The artillery-firing which we had heard at sunset was in consequence of a most resolute and determined effort, on the part of the enemy, to capture a part of our artillery which remained upon the field while our troops were retiring. They were repulsed with great loss. Their advance was as heroic, and as disastrous to them, as their grand charge at Gettys- burg, and they made no further effort to annoy us; but we completed our return to Newbern without opposition of any sort. I copy below a full and most interesting account of what happened at this time, from " Wearing the Blue," by Major Denny of Worcester ; the book being a graphic history of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment.
" The army commenced to retire, Lee's brigade being directed
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BATTLE OF GOLDSBOROUGH.
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to cover the march in retreat ; and so we waited by the roadside until late in the afternoon, -- quite late ; for the earth was
'Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame.'
And not until then was the main body of troops in motion. The Twenty-fifth was awaiting the ' Attention !' of Pickett; while on the knoll in our immediate front Belger and Morrison with their batteries, and Mix with his cavalry, awaited with us the orders to move. We were feeling tired, and easy as to the future, for in a few moments we would be turned towards home. In an instant, on the knoll in our front, every living thing seemed to shake off the inertia which had possessed them. Even the horses, that had stood with their wearied heads drooping, curved their necks, and pricked up their ears, as if they knew that something was coming, as if they scented danger in the rustling branches of the trees. Startled by the change, we had barely time to note it, before every man of the batteries had sprung to their places. The cavalry, vaulting into saddles, drew up in line ; and in the clear sunlight on that crest we caught the gleam of their sabres as they drew them, and came to a 'carry.' Men came running back to the fence from every direction as the infantry straightened out into line of battle. There might have been a dozen (cannon) shots, so rapid they could not be counted ; and the smoke rolled back under gun and caisson, and over men and horses, until they all stood in dense clouds. The yells, momentarily smothered, broke out between the rapid discharges of cannon, and were answered by the cheers of our cavalry, as in that evening's sunset they swung their glittering · sabres over their heads, and defied the coming storm. This was a new experience to the men of the nine-months regiments at the fence ; and Belger, feeling a little nervous, sent back to the lane for one of the old regiments. The Twenty-fifth started off at double-quick, rapidly passing down the short lane, across the brook, into the field, and lay down in elose column by division. We were close up to Belger's battery, and flattened ourselves out as well as we could in the sand ; for one cannot well be too small or too thin on such occasions. Three rebel lines of battle came charging across the railroad over the ditches, sweeping on through the low land, and around the base of the little hill. They gained the slope, and were coming directly for the batteries. They wavered, for a moment checked, but on again with fearful persist- ency. The colors in the first line fall, but are again gathered up.
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Belger sights his right gun himself, and a great puff rolls out. Men in the advancing line throw up their hands, while headless and mangled men are rolled together. - a horrid snarl of mutilated humanity. The firing was repeated, and groups of gray dis- appeared ; but the gaps were filled, and they struggled on. The brow of the little hill was all aglow with flame. The smoke-drifts rolled in, but in a moment faded away, revealing the long line nearer than ever. 'Steady there !' 'Don't fire too fast!' 'Make every shot tell !' shouted Belger. His orderly sergeant limped to our ranks, smartly stung by a passing shot, but, after rubbing his leg a moment, thought he was not much hurt, and went back. . Give 'em grape double shotted !' rings out from the battery. ' All out !' the disheartening response. 'Give 'em shrapnel !' -' Not another round left, captain !' -' Give 'em shell, then !' cried the chief; which we knew well was the last resort. We strained our eyes into the cloud of smoke, expecting every moment to see the enemy sweep over the guns. Farther in front, Belger saw more than we could see. Wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement at the thought that his guns were in danger, the impetu- ous artilleryman spurred his steed out of those foggy folds, and, pointing to his pieces, cried in the agony of the moment, as he turned to the men of the Twenty-fifth, ' Boys, don't let them have those guns !' We must have looked our answer; for back he went, and was again lost to sight. On our right front the battery horses moaned in terror and in pain, tossing their heads as the fierce rain of lead and iron tore through their flesh, and furrowed the earth beneath their feet.
" From one of the enemy's field-pieces aimed at our colors, kept steadily in sight by Sergeant James O'Neill, the shots spun through our ranks with loud hums, or buried themselves with deadly thuds in sand and living men. . . . The crisis was soon passed, however. A few moments of surging to and fro around the batteries, and the decimated and demoralized rebel brigade was hurled back into the meadow, and over the railroad whence they had emerged.
" After this defeat of the rebel onslaught, our left flank was seriously threatened ; but two guns from our position were trained upon the flanking column, and to our left rear two thirty-twos enfiladed the enemy just as the Twenty-seventh Massachusetts wheeled into line to meet them. Lyman shouted, 'By file, com- mence firing !' The solitary cracks were soon merged into ore
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irregular rattle ; and a roar of musketry smothered every other sound.
" The enemy again fell baek into the depth of the forest ; the fire of the rebel batteries slaekened; our own batteries went to the rear, and opened again, firing over our heads. Some of our regi- ments, that had moved off the field before the rebel attack, had faced about, and joined in the defence; but now they again ' marehed off the field. Our brigade followed quickly.
"Oh the weariness of that night's march ! - who ean tell it? who ean remember it. but with pain? Tired, wretched, and sore ; chafed and fretted by the sand which had filtered into our shoes ; galled by our eartridge-boxes, which had fairly worn a place for themselves into our flesh, - we dragged our aching bodies over the rough and uneven roads, neither knowing nor earing where we went. Near midnight we turned into a cornfield, and sank down to uninterrupted rest.
"E. T. WITHERBY."
Some time previous to reaching Goldsborough, a strong cavalry force had been detached, and sent to Mount Olive, - a station on the Wilmington railroad, twenty miles to the south. They had succeeded in destroying the track in that vicinity, so as to insure our safety from any forces which might otherwise have been brought from Wilmington, and had returned without loss.
Our boys brought back an item which first fell upon my ears about as follows : " What do you think ? Those New- York fellows over there are all talking about the Seven- teenth and Barney Mann."
Inasmuch as our city had a strong representation among the officers and men of the Seventeenth, there is no occasion for any apology for a slight digression at this point, in order that they may speak for themselves through the official report of Col. Fellows to the adjutant-general of the State. This report is written with an unobtrusive reticence as to the real exposures and services of the regiment, so much so, that the ordinary reader will hardly realize how spontaneous and well- deserved the cheers were with which they were rewarded for their gallant deeds by their associates of the march. I make a few insertions between brackets.
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