USA > Massachusetts > Wearing the blue in the Twenty-fifth Mass. volunteer infantry, with Burnside's coast division, 18th army corps, and Army of the James > Part 17
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The death of Finsser was keenly felt by the gallant naval officers who knew his worth, one of whom, Captain Henry A. Phelon, of Springfield, Mass., who served with Flusser on board the Perry, and afterwards commanded the Shawsheen, Monticello and Daylight, voiced the sympathetic feeling of his comrades in some lines, one stanza of which we give, and so close our notice of the brave Flusser :-
"Well may our bleeding country mourn to-day, When such as Flusser falls, the true, the brave ; Our country's pride, our country's hope and stay, "Tis hard to lay such in the silent grave. Sad is the wail from over land and sea ; Brave Flusser falls-he died for Liberty !".
May 4th, at six o'clock, P. M., the Massachusetts Twenty-fifth reached New Berne and marched to barracks formerly occupied by the Forty-fourth Massachusetts, which the regiment used for the night and the next day moved to Camp Oliver, where tents were once more pitched on the old camp ground.
At midnight of May 21st, the regiment marched for Bach- ellor's creek, to join in an expedition to Gum swamp, under command of Colonel J. Richter Jones, of the Fifty-eight !! Pennsylvania Volunteers. We reached the camp of the Fifty- eighth Pennsylvania at the creek, soon after daybreak.
WHAT WAS IT ?
In marching to Bachellor's creek, having proceeded about four miles, the column was halted for a short rest. It was far beyond the midnight hour, and therefore, the wonted time had passed, when church-yards are supposed to be haunted by all sorts of sprites, and the air is said to be filled with the harmo-
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WEARING THE BLUE. 203
nious music of the spheres. It is not to be supposed that the men forming the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteers, edu- cated as they were in the schools of New England, possessing all the general intelligence marking the New England char- acter, had gone down to North Carolina to be frightened by owls, ghosts or live rebels, or that they would be over- inclined to believe in stories about ghosts, fairies, witches and apparitions. We say this while we well remember that so great a poet as Robert Burns, under the influence of Betty Davidson's ghostly stories and songs, was so strongly excited in mind, that he was continually keeping a sharp look-out in dark and suspicious places, and, as be has said-" though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors." But, if poor Betty Davidson had concentrated all her ghost stories upon the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment, as it was halted in the woods on that darkest of dark nights, the terror could not have exceeded that occasioned by the swift passage of the apparition, the phantom rider, the frightened deer or whatever else it was or might be supposed to be.
Briefly, while the battalion stood halted in the road, some- thing struck the flank just below Company K, which had the advance. It came like the rushing of a mighty wind, and, suddenly, the regiment opened ranks to the right and left, and, just as suddenly, the men were heaped up promiscuously in either ditch, without order and with no sort of regard to .rank- captains and lieutenants, sergeants and corporals, men of the front rank and men of the rear rank, number one men and number two men, indiscriminately piled together like the " pieing " of a printer's form, while each man's hair upon his head stood ercet like quills on the fretted porcupine.
We had better stop here. We have stated the facts, and respectfully request each reader to draw the conclusions.
At five o'clock, P. M., of May 21st, we reached Core creek on the Dover road and bivouaced for the night.
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The column marching was Lee's Brigade, designated at the time as the Second Brigade, First Division, Eighteenth Army Corps, comprising the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-seventh Massa- chusetts Volunteers, the Fifth and Forty-sixth Massachusetts Regiments [nine months' troops] also the Fifty-eighth Pennsyl- vania Volunteers, three pieces of Riggs' Battery and some Cavalry of the Twelfth New York. Colonel Jones com- manded the entire force, and Lec's Brigade was commanded by Colonel Pierson of the Fifth Massachusetts Regiment. Late at night, the Twenty-seventh Massachusetts under Lieu- tenant-Colonel Luke Lyman, and the Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania under Lieutenant-Colonel Curtis, both battalions under immedi- ate command of Jones, left the bivouac to gain the rear of the enemy's intrenchments at Gum swamp, the remainder under Pierson moved forward on the Dover road and met the enemy at daylight [May 22nd] the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts com- manded by Colonel Pickett, having the advance with Company K. thrown out as skirmishers.
We quote from the diary of E. T. Witherby, a very interest- ing account of the advance upon Gum swamp, which describes the feelings of those selected to lead the way, certain that they will be the first target for the enemy's pickets : -
"The Twenty-fifth was to lead the advance, and K was pushed out to feel the way. Tenney, Al. Clark, Brown and myself, were the first four, and were to move considerably in advance of the company. We stretched out along the road, capped our guns, swung our haver- sacks back out of the way, worked our canteens well to the rear, so that they should not jingle out ' music in the air' in company with our bayonets, and with still greater care stowed our tin dippers in our haversacks. Then came the very unmilitary order, 'you can start right along now' in a subdued tone, and we four strode away, followed by the column.
" The night was dark and dismal, the moon down, and not a star to be seen, as we plunged down into the ravine and moved into the dense woods beyond. Our nerves are strung to the tightest tension
Capt. EMERSON STONE. 2.19:6
Capt. C. C. MURDOCK.
Capt. ARTHUR P. FORBES.
WILLIAM E. MURDOCK.
EDWIN T. WITHERSY.
COMPANY K.
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-almost on tip-toe, breathless with anxiety we feel our way around the curves with that cautious tread inherent in men who know they are marching in the jaws of death. Not knowing the position of their pickets we creep along in the most unpleasant uncertainty. As I march on, I wonder if they will hit Brown first, as he is our broadest man -a rustle in the leaves and grass ! Well, it was nothing, after all. Hurrying on, an officer comes up and whispers we will meet them a half mile on, and then falls back. I don't believe anybody enjoys this. I would go home myself, if I could, honorably. Tenney stops and listens - we all do the same. None of us can make out anything but the sound of tramping men in our rear. A careless fellow behind, drops a cup -how it rings out ! If he were with us, he would be more careful. All right -forward ! and we plod on. How often we strained our eyes to catch the first streaks of dawn. At length there came the faintest flush which widened out, tinting the scattering clouds until it o'erspread the entire heavens. Then the long rays of the sun shot over the distant tree tops and the broad daylight found us still moving unmolested towards Gum swamp. We were in open order when a horseman galloped down our ranks. It was Bartlett of the Twenty-seventh Massachusetts, the assistant adjutant-general of the brigade. Halt- ing in our midst, he broke out, ' Where is the advance ?' 'Here !' replied Captain Denny : 'Is not that a man !' he exclaimed, pointing to a clump of pines, from which, as he spoke, two bright flashes burst forth and two bullets hissed into the trees on our right. Returning the fire, we hurried forward, greatly relieved that we had found the enemy, received the first fire, and nobody hurt. We heard the alarm as it was caught up by distant picket posts. Soon we turned into a large field on our right, deployed as skirmishers and advanced."
The enemy was driven to his earthworks and Company E, Captain O'Neil, and K, Captain Denny, occupied the front in a sharp skirmish from seven to ten o'clock, at which latter hour, the column moving around the enemy under Jones, after a fatiguing march through dense thickets and swamps, the pioneers being employed to cut their way, and where, for two miles both regiments marched in single file, reached the
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enemy's rear and opened fire, followed quickly by a charge. Our forces in front advanced, and Company A, Captain Goodwin, having been sent forward to strengthen our skirmish line, was the first to leap over the intrenchments. The enemy retreated with alacrity and many escaped by paths known only to themselves. General Ransom was in command of the enemy and came very near being captured. We secured (165) one hundred and sixty-five prisoners, one twelve-pounder howitzer, fifty horses and mules, etc., destroyed the earthworks and then rested, while we should have been travelling back to New Berne. Jones however, would not listen to any suggestions abont returning, and so, for hours, until late in the afternoon, we remained there looking into each other's faces and wonder- ing at the great imprudence that continued us in that position within about eight miles of Kinston, the enemy having a railroad at their service with which to concentrate troops against us.
As we thus rested in amazement, no pickets having been sent forward beyond the woods, there suddenly came a shell from the enemy, and another, and still others came crashing over and through the belt of timber in our front, and there'was hurrying to and fro, a hasty gathering of companies and regi- ments, and then-Jones was all ready to start for New Bernc. Riggs unlimbered his guns and the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts lay down behind them, and then the pieces belehed out solid shot and shell while all the force except the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts had left the field. At last the Twenty-fifth retired, and the writer was given the not enviable position in command of the rear guard consisting of Company I, Captain Parkhurst, Company K., and one piece of the Third New York Battery, with about twenty mounted men or boys mustered in and attached to the Twelfth New York Cavalry. The enemy followed us closely and the cavalry was ordered to protect the rear and flanks, but every time the enemy made a movement for our rear, the mounted men or boys came " skedadling " upon us without firing a gun-finally we sent them ahead
Serg't OSCAR TOURTELLOTTE.
Corp'l EDWIN D. GOODELL.
Lieut. Jos. B. KNox.
JOHN E. BASSETT,
GEO. R. BROWNING. Signal Corps.
COMPANY D.
Licliotype Printing Co., Boston.
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where they would be out of the way and comparatively safe. Several times the rear guard charged bayonets to receive the enemy, both companies behaving with their usual coolness. At one fire of our gun, the piece being double-shotted, five rebel saddles were emptied. Some of our men, prisoners for a few hours, reported their observation of the result of the firing. The enemy shelled our column until we reached Core creek, where, crossing the bridge, Jones ordered a halt and bivouac. This was another sad mistake. With the enemy hovering in large force upon our rear and flanks, our march should have been continued down the county road until the column was safe.
When the battalions had accomplished the work given them to do at Gum swamp and were resting from their labors, one of the non-commissioned officers of the Twenty-fifth Massa- chusetts Volunteers, Corporal Oscar Tourtellotte of Company D, with that love for adventure and patriotic desire to accom- plish something for the cause which animated so many of our soldiers, moved off on a secret hunt of his own into the woods and swamp upon the left of the enemy's late intrenchments. He had with him only his true and trusty rifle. Moving slowly and cautiously through the timber, he thought he heard footsteps, and was certain he heard the cracking of sticks. He had fol- lowed a trail which was conducting him deep into the pocoson. Halting, he listened. He was sure he heard steps: he gazed into and through the bushes and saw inen. Ile moved a few paces forward, looked again and saw not only men, but men who wore the grey ! He was on an easy-go hunt after rebels. But he was alone, and before him, huddled together, he counted twenty-six men! One Yankee against twenty-six of the chiv- alry ! He had but a moment to think. If he returned to our lines for aid, the rebels would be gone : he therefore resolved to act, perhaps inspired by and repeating those burning words of the great revolutionary orator and patriot, " live or die, sink or swim, survive or perish, I give my heart and hand " to this
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cause ! He pushed forward and cried "Halt!" and then and there in that isolated spot, halted one first lieutenant, one sergeant and twenty-four privates of the Fifty-sixth North Carolina Volunteers! Our undaunted corporal brought his rifle to an aim and demanded an unconditional surrender. With this demand the Confederates complied, and then com- menced a discussion as to how they should be conducted into our lines. The rebel lieutenant allowed with considerable force of language, that no one Yankee corporal could take him and twenty-five men through the woods to the Yankee forces. Such a "taking in" did not quite comport with his ideas of dignity and the eternal fitness of things. He would obey the orders of a commissioned officer of equal rank, com- manding a company, but could not possibly follow a single corporal into the Yankee lines, though he admitted that the corporal was very good looking and a decidedly clever Yankee, which nobody would deny. Just at this moment, which was exactly the nick of time, a drummer boy of the Twenty-seventh Massachusetts Volunteers put in an appearance. Reënforced by these drum sticks, the corporal saw his way out of the diffi- culty. He directed the drummer boy to go to our lines, report the capture, and obtain help. The boy, entering with zest into the business, soon returned, accompanied by Captain Parkhurst and Company I of the Twenty-fifth Regiment. Parkhurst, not knowing what he was to find, advanced cautiously, with an advance guard. He found the corporal and his prisoners, and after returning the compliments of the season, the lieuten- ant and squad of twenty-five, formed between the platoons of Company I, and were formally marched to our lines and delivered over to the proper authorities, but, previous to this, the rebel lieutenant surrendered a Colt's revolver and the sergeant a new rifle to Corporal Tourtellotte. The corporal gave the former to the drummer boy, and retained the rifle and still keeps it as a valuable memento of that occasion. Corporal Wilson of Company G, engraved upon its stock these
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words-" Gum swamp, May 22d, 1863. Captured from one of the Fifty-sixth North Carolina by Corporal Oscar Tourtellotte of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteers, Company D."
IN THE POCOSON.
The next morning the march was resumed in the direction of the railroad, the artillery and some of the troops (Twenty- seventh Massachusetts and Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania) having charge of the prisoners, marching directly towards New Berne, taking the county road. Proceeding towards the railroad, the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts had the advance, and Company K was thrown forward as an advance guard. Scouts under Ser- geant Emerson Stone, were promptly moved out to ascertain the condition of affairs at the railway crossing. The scouts soon reported that three Confederate regiments held the road at the point of its crossing the railroad. There was then firing on our right flank and in our rear, and a force equal to our own in front. Pierson, who was in command of the column, deeming it impolitic, considering the tired condition of the troops and the position of the enemy in our rear and upon our flank, to attempt to force a passage at the railway crossing, ordered a detour through Dover swamp, taking a direction to come out as near as possible to Tuscarora depot. Dover was a most dismal pocoson. The probability is that no man had ever passed through it. It was four miles of mud and slush, knee deep- four miles of thick underbrush, of tangled wild-wood, of brambles, of thorny copses, of water courses and stagnant pools alive with creeping things, and crawling things-of snakes that hissed and adders that forced their villainous . tongues into sight, if not into legs. Through this terrible place we cut and slashed our way, slowly, tediously, griev- ously. The sun, as if to make our effort more unendurable, poured down its burning rays and not a breath of air came through the thick foliage to our relief.
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TWENTY-FIFTH MASSACHUSETTS.
Burning with the heat, exhausted from fatigue, men called for water-give us water! Men scooped up the thick mud- water in their tin dishes, water black with the poisonous roots and the slime of the swampy pools, and, covering the dish with a dirty towel or a long-carried pocket handkerchief-anything that could be utilized as a strainer, sucked the black water into the stomach. Oh, the horrid taste as if drinking pulverzied snakes and lizards, and oh, how it griped and served like an emetic or a purging powder upon those who imbibed the noxious compound. In that fetid pocoson, the mixture our soldiers imbibed had been seething for a century, and its ingredients must have been similar to and not a whit more palatable, than the cauldron broth of the witches of Mac- , beth :
"Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf ; Witch's mummy; maw and gulf Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark; Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark; Liver of blaspheming Jew; Gall of goat; and slips of yew, Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse ; Nose of Tark, and Tartar's lips ; Finger of birth-strangled babe, Ditch-delivered by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab; Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron."
A man dying from thirst would drink the decoction from such a cauldron, or even the liquid fermentations of the Dover pocoson. We know it by experience.
Through such a swamp the Twenty-fifth, Fifth and Forty- sixth Massachusetts regiments marched single file, one following another, Indian fashion. Officers and men fatigued, exhausted, halted. Some said they could march no further. Captain A. H. Foster, of the Twenty-fifth, came along and pushed on. Soon his voice was heard giving the welcome sound,
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" Railroad ! railroad !" It was an inspiring word, and men toiled on until the railroad was reached. After four hours in the pocoson, we touched dry land, finding a long train of cars-freight cars, into which the exhausted men laid themselves down. Very soon, men came along with great pots of beans -- the old-fashioned New England baked beans, which were grecdily devoured, and then, after a long delay, the train moved on and reached New Berne at five o'clock, P. M. The Twenty-fifth Massachusetts marched immediately to Camp Oliver, but during the evening, were under arms prepared to march again to Bachellor's creek.
The march of four hours through Dover swamp was some- thing never to be forgotten by those who made it. A number of men fell exhausted, and were taken out on stretchers, and two men died in the pocoson before they could be brought out. Several of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts did not reach Camp Oliver for two days.
DEATH OF COLONEL JONES.
Just before dark of that day the enemy attacked the force at Bachellor's creek. The Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers and a portion of the Forty-sixth Massachusetts held that position, and the defence there made was a brave one. Company A, and a part of Company I of the Forty-sixth Massachusetts, held an earthwork in the extreme front of our line, and continued to hold it under command of Captain Tifft, of the Forty-sixth Massachusetts, after the balance of the force had retired two miles to the rear. When the enemy appeared in front of the Bachelor creek outpost, Colonel Jones moved out with two companies of his regiment, to dislodge them. In this movement, Jones was shot dead, falling into the arms of his faithful orderly, Michael Webber. The death of Jones was deeply lamented by his regiment, and was a serious loss to the department of North Carolina.
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SHOVEL BRIGADE.
About June 1st, [1863] the regiments in and about New Berne were called upon to furnish details of working parties employed in erecting earthworks around the town. Captain Foster, of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts had charge of the details. The detailed meu went out early in the morning, returning at eleven o'clock, going again to the trenches late in the afternoon, thus avoiding the excessive heat of mid-day. At dress parade, June 14th, a General Order was promulgated, urging increased activity with the shovels. With the mercury averaging one hundred and one degrees in the shade, the men had a hard time in that shovel brigade, and there were some who ventured an opinion that it would have been as well to have employed some of the surplus population, colored men inured to the heat, fed by the government, and required to make no return for it. But the commanding General required the soldiers to do the work, and they did it well and quite as cheerfully as could have been expected under the circum- stances.
TWENTY-FIFTH MASSACHUSETTS AT CAMP OLIVER.
Camp Oliver, so long occupied by the Twenty-fifth Massa- chusetts, was one of the best located and most conveniently arranged places ever occupied .by the regiment. It furnished an extensive parade ground and ample room to allow company. streets of more than " Regulation " width, and a camp frontage of almost double the prescribed paces. Upon its right flank, on somewhat elevated ground, the surgeon had made all necessary arrangements for those of the sick not sent to the regimental or general hospital in town; and upon this flank was also established the quarters of the regimental commissary department. Upon the left flank, the regimental sutler, Mr. Henry O. Clark, with his genial assistant, Alanson H. Ward, (afterwards captain in the Sixty-first Massachusetts
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Regiment, a one year battalion) occupied spacious quarters with every facility for furnishing the troops with necessary articles required, and unnecessary articles in demand. Be- tween the commissary quarters on the one flank, and the sutler upon the other, there was no opportunity for much suffering in Camp Oliver.
Camp Oliver was always a model of neatness. Every officer and man in the regiment took special pride in keeping every part of the camp particularly clean and sweet, including the kitchen and the sinks. The latter were covered daily with fresh earth, and during the warm season, two or three times per day. The guard-house at the south-east corner of the camp, was a well arranged wooden building : a building, we are happy to say, that will be remembered unpleasantly by only a very small number of the Twenty- fifth Massachusetts, for, we may as well say here as in another place, that the men of the Twenty-fifth were always upon their good behavior, and that if there were any exceptions, it was only at such rare times as some men allowed something to steal away their brains, thus depriving themselves of their usual good sense and discretion.
While at Camp Oliver, the regiment was drilled daily, the forenoons being occupied with company, and the afternoons with battalion drill. The excellence and precision of the regimental drill, was the admiration of the large number of visitors upon the parade grounds. The dress parades in particular, were honored usually by the presence of General Foster and members of his staff. When other duties permit- ted, the field, staff and line officers of other regiments, and often a large number of citizens and ladies, honored and enlivened the parade with their presence. The soldierly appearance of the men, the exactness of every movement, and, specially the rapidity and automatic uniformity of the drill in the manual of arms, was the admiration of all witnesses, and drew from them hearty applause.
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Many of our Massachusetts regiments were probably as 'good, but none better in drill and discipline, and all other qualities making up a first-class battalion, than the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts. Those who stood in the ranks of the regiment were a credit to the honored State that sent them to the field. While we claim this for the enlisted men, we must add another word, and it is very pleasant to be able to do it truthfully, and that is, that the commissioned officers of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts, as a rule, were well fitted for the command they held. It is almost a remarkable circumstance, only one commissioned officer of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts was ever accused or tried before a court-martial, (Captain W., of G Company) and only two, Captain W., (and Lieutenant S., of E Company) found it necessary for any reason, to seek retirement at home. In thus pointing to individuals by name, which we are forced to do, because if we leave it indefinite, the good name of the innocent might be clouded with suspicion, we only add, that the Captain was a true patriot and a warm defender of the cause he served. He was thoroughly well educated, and at heart, one of the best men living. He had only one fault, and that fault has ruined the greatest intellects our country has produced. The Lieutenant was troubled with the same complaint. He had just been promoted, and was unable to bear prosperity.
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