USA > Maine > The story of one regiment; the Eleventh Maine infantry volunteers in the war of the rebellion > Part 3
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We will close this hasty sketch of the first months of our army
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WASHINGTON.
service, a sketch intended to be suggestive rather than complete, by recording a few incidents and anecdotes of general interest.
Captain Maxfield's diary notes, under date of March 11, 1862 : "Company K left in the evening to guard Chain Bridge, Com- pany D to guard part of a regiment of Zouaves that had become somewhat insubordinate." And after a record of days of drills, firing blank cartridges, and of dress parades and inspections, he notes, March 21st, that we had a division review by General Casey and staff ; and later on notes another review by Generals Keyes and Casey, and Governor Sprague of Rhode Island, when fourteen regiments and three batteries were reviewed.
Maxfield had not yet forgotten what day of the week Sunday comes on, for be notes, March 23d, that he attended divine service on the parade ground in the forenoon, a funeral service on the same ground in the afternoon, and went to a prayer meeting in C barrack in the evening.
Many of you remember the Stone Hospital, our division hospi- tal, a large stone house surrounded by trees and shrubbery-filled grounds. And you remember what a sightly place it was. I had almost forgotten this until I read in Maxfield's diary that it com- manded a view of Washington and of the Potomac as far as Alex- andria. What a beautiful picture must have been spread before the beholder from here ; especially in the night time. No wonder Maxfield was stirred into poetic thoughts while standing guard at this hospital one night, and, as he said in a little poem he then composed ---
" Watching the distant camp fires fade, The city lights expire."
Adjutant Pennell was a very popular officer, especially so with the First Sergeants of the regiment. To show their appreciation of his uniform courtesy, they made up a purse and bought a hand- some black horse and a fine sword to present to him. The pres- Putation took place on the parade ground. It was entirely unex- pected by the Adjutant. He received the handsome encomiums of the presenting sergeant with unaffected emotion, and returned his thanks in a hearty little speech, then backed the bounding war-horse, and, flashing the blade in the sunlight, gave his ad- mirers a living representation of the accomplishments of a gallant cavalier.
Lieutenant Budge, of D Company, wishes to have it recalled to
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THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
those of us who passed the winter on Meridian Hill that he com- manded a detail from the regiment that, under the direction of the Provost Marshal General, seized, and spilled into the gutters of Washington, some thirty thousand dollars' worth of ardent spirits. It would be interesting to have added to these figures a computa- tion of the value of the number of gallons of such fluids spilled by the men. of the regiment during its entire military history-spilled from canteens and other fluid receptacles ; especially of the num- ber of dollars' worth spilled by the reenlisted men on their famous furlough in the winter of 1864 .*
Life in Washington passed as briefly indicated until in March, when preparations were made for moving "on to Richmond." So eager were the men to make this movement, many of them fancying it would bring about an immediate ending of the war, that they chafed at the unavoidable delay that lack of transport service occasioned. Many considered the delay pusillanimous, patriotically declaring for an immediate taking of Richmond and the hanging of Jeff Davis, that all the farmers of the army might get home in tite to attend to their spring planting. And when there was one false start, the regiment in line, with baggage. packed, and all ready for the word of command, then was ordered back to quarters, there were curses loud and deep, even had-been deacons using language that would have shocked the sisters. But when our band joenlarly struck up, "Wait for the wagon, and we'll all take a ride," good nature was restored, proving that music indeed hath soothing charms.
* An event of the winter was the funeral of General Lander. He had been a prominent figure in the operations before Washington in the fall of 1861. He died March 2, 1882. His funeral was a great military pageant, one in which the Eleventh took a marching part. The long procession of slowly marching troops keeping step to the mournful music of the bands, the solemn- faced crowds that lined the Streets, the heavily draped coffin on which lay the dead man's hat and sword, while behind it was led his spirited war-horse -- all these accessories gave a touch of grandeur to the scene, few thinking that the sad-faced soldiers were mourning less for the dead gencial than for the weariness of their feet, tired and sore from marching over the cobblestones. the streets of Washington were then paved with.
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CHAPTER III. .
BEFORE YORKTOWN.
Planning the Campaign -- The Embarkation -- On Board the Constitution --. The First Hostile Shot-Newport News-Young's Mills-Engage- ment at Lee's Mills-Siege Operations-Evacuation of Yorktown.
THE winter had been passed by President Lincoln and General McClellan in forging the gigantic war machine that hammered ' at the gates of Richmond for so many campaigns. And as they fitted its parts together -- brigades, divisions, and corps ; horse. foot, and artillery-they debated the better way of using it. On one point only was President Lincoln strenuous, that, whatever route was taken towards Richmond, Washington should be cor- ered to a certainty -- that no risk should be run of the capital fall- ing into the hands of the rebels. Whether Mcclellan moved directly on Manassas, where the body of the enemy then lay, or, covering Washington with a force in the Shenandoah Valley, should make a brilliant flank movement by way of Urbana, strik- ing the York River and fairly turning the rebels out of Richmond, or should proceed up the James and the Peninsula, was not so material to Lincoln (though he preferred the direct route), so that it moved quickly and surely-always perfectly guarding what he wisely considered a vital political point-the capital of the coun- try. That taken, and the rebel flag flying from the Capitol building, what effect might it not have-not only on the people of the North, but on the onlooking nations-strengthening the enemies of the Republic both at home and abroad ? Finally, a council of war was held. It decided in favor of the Urbana plan. right of the twelve division commanders voting for this movement. Of the eight, Hooker, unavoidably absent, was represented by our afterwards brigade commander, General Naglec.
Almost immediately after the holding of this council, and the day after President Lincoln bad formally approved its action by issuing General War Order No. 3, dated March 8th, the rebels evac- nated the Manassas line, and fell back to the south bank of the
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THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
Rappahannock, taking a position calculated to enable them to oppose any movement by way of Fredericksburg, the lower Rap- pahannock, or Fortress Monroe. General Johnston, their com- mander, established his headquarters at Rappahannock Station. This change of position on the part of the rebels, a change to a point so much nearer the proposed line of operations, made Gen- eral Mcclellan doubt the feasibility of the Urbana plan.
Another council of war was held, this time at Fairfax Court House. It was composed of General Mcclellan and the four com- manders of the four army corps that had been just organized : McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes. This council's decision was to abandon the Urbana plan and adopt the Peninsula one, with the base of operations on the York River, the possession of the entire James River by the rebel gunboats making that route an impossible. one at the time. The action of this council was approved by the President on the 13th day of March, and on the 17th the embarkation began at Alexandria. Heintzelman's corps (the Third) led the movement, the others, except McDowell's (the First, which remained behind to guard Washington), following to Alexanderya embarking as transports could be procured for their espertikation. But so inadequate was the transport service that it was not until in the afternoon of the 28th day of March that our brigade, now the Third of General Casey's division of the Fourth Army Corps, was actually en route for Alexandria, arriving near there in the evening and bivouacking for the night within a mile of that city.
This was a hard march for green troops, unaccustomed to heavy marching order, carrying more, too, than the phrase implies ; for, besides guns, equipments, and forty rounds of cartridges, the knapsacks were not only stuffed with the ordinary kits of soldiers, but were laden with the remains of civilian wardrobes and the knick-kuack accumulations of a winter's garrison duty.
Reveille awoke us on the 20th of March, 1862, to see a spring snowstorm. half-rain and half-snow, beating down. Then fol- lowed a day of discomfort, and another night on a wet camp- ground. And it was not until after another day, one spent in marching and halting in mud about four inches deep, and of the consistency of soft basty-pudding (vide Maxfield's diary), the rain falling slowly nearly all the time, that we reached the wharf in the midst of a heavy thunder shower, having passed over a distance
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BEFORE YORKTOWN.
of a little more than a mile during the day. Glad enough were all to get on board the transport Constitution, with all its discomforts of wet decks, on which the men must sleep, and closely together ; four regiments of our brigade-the Eleventh Maine, the Fifty- sixth and One Hundredth New York, and the Fifty-second Penn- sylvania-with Regan's Battery, crowding the five-decked steamer to its utmost capacity.
According to Dunbar's diary we left Alexandria about eight o'clock in the forenoon of March 31st, moving down the river until eleven o'clock, when we went aground off Acquia Creek, where, despite the efforts of the steamers State of Maine, Daniel Webster, and Kent, we remained fast until seven o'clock in the morning of April 1st. And it was only after our regiment was temporarily taken on the Kent to lighton the Constitution that the latter steamer was got off the bar.
We arrived at Fortress Monroe, the evening of April 1st, where we dropped anchor. The next forenoon we were ordered to land at Newport News, to which place we were taken by the steamer Hero. In steaming across the bay the masts of the sunken war- ships could m standing above the surface of the water, sad remindevene the great naval combat that had so lately taken place in this beautiful bay.
Soon a cloud of smoke rolled out from a rebel battery off Sewall's Point, announcing the coming of the first hostile shot. It fell so far short of our steamer that the tell-tale spray of water its plunge threw into the air was received by us with a yell of derision.
Landing at about noon, the brigade marched two miles and went into camp, where it remained for a few days owing to lack of wagon transportation. It was here that the men first went ou picket, and Captain Maxfeld's diary records that there was a rush among them to go on this duty ; probably as great a one as there was in later years to escape such service.
The 6th of April our regiment proceeded to Young's Mills, sit- uated near the James River, at a distance of from ten to twelve miles from Newport News. We occupied the log barracks that rebel troops had occupied the previous winter. The regiment was paid off the 5th of the month, and where they had learned it is a mystery, but it did seem as if the men of every company of. the regiment were adepts in the mysteries of the game of poker ;
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THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
for wherever you went through the thick woods surrounding the barracks, you would come across groups of men squatting around the tops of hard-bread boxes laid on the ground, and hear such mystic phrases as " Ante up or leave the board," " It's your deal," " I'll raise you five cents," " I see you and go you five botter.". Some of the men lost their available fortunes in a few hours at the gaine, then would borrow a quarter from some friend, and perhaps regain all they had lost, only to lose all again before nightfall.
While at Young's Mills we established a picket post at Young's honse, on the James, about two miles from camp. This was an abandoned plantation mansion : typical large rooms, surrounded by the remains of a beautiful flower garden and once well-kept grounds. From here our men first fired at the enemy. They were on the rebel gunboat Teazer, a small one-gun craft, that had participated in the naval battle of Hampton Roads. This craft justified its name by keeping just out of rifle range in its steaming up and down the river in observation of our positions. We fired uselessly at it, elevating our sights to their highest degree in the hope of reaching the tantalizing craft, but always in vain.
Lieutenant Finbar's diary records that one day the Teazer shelled manoket post, and Private M. S. Berry, of H Company, writes that the first engagement of Company H was with the Teazer. The company was on duty at " MeIntosh Landing," on the James. Comrade Berry writes : " There was a high sand bluff, on which we were stationed as pickets. The gunboat came down near us, and some of the boys commenced firing at her. The tide was out, and the most of the company were on the mud flats digging clams, and when the gunboat opened fire with her big rifled gun, the way the clam-diggers made the sand fly climb- ing the bank to take to the woods was a caution. I am pretty sure they left a lot of caps and other loose gear along their line of retreat."
Maxfield's diary : " The boys killed a great many cattle, pigs, and fowls, bringing them in with other things." I have a recol- lection myself of eating fresh Peninsula beef here, and that it tasted most vilely of the wild onions the cattle browsed on. MePherson, of Company H, relates that he had an opportunity of showing his skill in the culinary art by roasting a good-sized
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BEFORE YORKTOWN.
porker, by hanging it up in front of a fire built in a stone fireplace with a log chimney.
The 17th of April we rejoined our division, now in position before Lee's Mills, situated on the creek known as the Warwick River. General Keyes reported of this line of defenses, now held by the Confederates, as follows : " It was nine miles long, strongly fortified by breastworks erected along nearly this whole distance behind a stream, or a succession of streams, nowhere fordable, one terminus being Yorktown and the other the James River, where it was commanded by the enemy's gunboats." He adds : " Yorktown is fortified all around with bastioned works, and on the water side and at Gloucester Point the works are so strong that the navy are afraid to attack either."
Magruder states in substance that around Yorktown the old embankments thrown up by the British in 1781 were substantially revived by him, and that works-redans and curtains -- were thrown up outside of those lines. To the west of these works the War- wick River takes its rise, and flows in a southerly direction to the James. There were two mills with dams in the Warwick -- Wynne's Mills. three miles from Yorktown, and Lee's Mills, five and a half miles farther down the stream. Three additional dams were consta by the Confederates, making five in all. These dams hade de effect of backing the water up, rendering the passage of the Warwick impracticable for artillery and infantry for three- fourths of its length. Each dam was well covered by artillery and earthworks.
This formidable line of defense was not anticipated by our generals ; who, indeed, did not know of the strategic value of the line of the Warwick at all, really supposing, from an antiquated map they based their advance on, that the Warwick ran parallel with the roads leading up the Peninsula, instead of crossing them, as it really does. And it was not until April 5th, when Keyes advanced with the divisions of Smith and Couch to sweep around Yorktown and gain a position between it and Williamsburg, while Heintzelman advanced on Yorktown itself with Porter's and Hamilton's divisions of the Third Corps and Sedgwick's division of the Second Corps-it was not until this attempt to envelop Yorktown was checked by the works on the Warwick, especially by those at Lee's Mills-that the necessity of besieging Yorktown was even dreamed of.
THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
We were not directly engaged in the siege operations. These were conducted by General Barnard, Chief Engineer of the Army of the Potomac ; by General Barry, its Chief of Artillery, and by General Fitz John Porter, " Director of the Siege," whose division guarded the trenches, and largely provided the working parties that pushed the approaches forward. The work of our division, and that of the other divisions to the left of Yorktown, consisted in opening and corduroying roads across the marshes and in mak- ing reconnoissances of the ground beyond them in preparation for the general attack to be made on the completion of the siege works.
The following extracts from Maxfield's diary will give an idea of the life led while waiting for the general advance : " April 18th .- About midnight whispered orders were given to turn out and load our rifles, put on our equipments, and then to lie down with them on."
" April 19th .- About midnight we were turned out ready for action. It was probably caused by the heavy firing we could hear in the north. We were soon sent to our quarters, where we lay in harness ready to turn out at a moment's notice. The firing was kept up the rest of the night."
"April 22-Regiment sent out a mile and a half as reserve pickets wefree o'clock P.M. It commenced raining about then, rained snower-like until about ten o'clock. We passed the night in a dense forest, without any protection but that afforded by woolen blankets stretched over poles. Were not allowed to build fires."
" April 22d. - Remained in the woods until four o'clock P.M., when we were relieved. There were two showers in the afternoon."
" April 230 .- Our company (C) detailed to work on the road towards Yorktown. We had to cover the entire road with logs, and some that we put in were two feet through."
" April 24th .- Regiment received tents ; small shelter tents for two men, cach man carrying half a tent when on the march."
"April 28th .- Five companies of the regiment sent on picket. Our company (C) placed in advance, two and a quarter miles from camp. From some of the posts a fort with a rebel flag flying over it, and soldiers drilling near it. could be seen."
" April 29th .-- Got in from picket about cleven o'clock A. M. and were informed that we were to be inspected by our new brigade
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BEFORE YORKTOWN.
commander, Brigadier-General Naglee, at two o'clock P.M. The companies fell in at that time, but it commenced raining, and we were ordered to our tents. It soon stopped raining, and we were ordered out to make a reconnaissance beyond our picket line. A line of battle was formed in the woods, and Company A was de- ploved in skirmish line, and sent across a clearing, the regiment following. Two shells were fired at us from the opposite side of the clearing, both passing over our heads."
Newcomb's diary describes this engagement as follows : " Com- pany A deployed as skirmishers, with D as a reserve. These companies moved across a field and through a point of woods, up within sight of a fort, the battalion following. Another fort opened on the battalion, throwing two shells over it. The skir- misbers were now under a heavy fire of musketry and shell from both forts. The object of the movement having been effected, it was to unmask the rebel line of defense, General Naglee ordered a retreat."
Company D, with the writer in its ranks, followed the skirmish line as its reserve, marching by company front, trying to keep a per- fect alignment. Keeping step as if on parade, we crashed through bushes, quite wwwfannted until a shell came screeching towards us. It fell some enty feet before us, burst in a cloud of smoke, and the piece ut flying into the air. We heroes waited with open mouths for half a minute perhaps, certainly long enough for all danger to have passed, then at one and the same time we each and all, as if by a common impulse, threw ourselves on the ground and, digging our noses into the soil, lay there for another full half- minute, before arising to march on our dignified way. I am told by one who was with the battalion that the experience of D was largely that of the entire regiment.
It was in this reconnoissance that the first man of the regiment was killed-Private Andrew C. Mace, of Company A. As the first comrade killed, his body had a fascination for all of us as it lay in camp, and few of us but were awe-struck as we looked upon the waxen face now drained of blood, but yesterday blooming with health and spirits.
Although our camp was a mile or more from our picket line, and the intervening space was covered with thick woods, there was a ludicrous fear that night fires might attract the attention of the enemy to our undoing. Maxfield remembers one night that Com-
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THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
pany O was doing camp guard duty, a duty intrusted to first one company and then another, during the early part of this cam- paign. It was a cold, misty night, and the men around the guard- tent thought a little fire would make them more comfortable, so they started one ; a little one with a weak flame that would not have shamed that of a candle. But small as it was it served to impart a touch of cheerfulness to the gloomy surroundings. The men were cuddling around it when the officer of the guard rushed down upon them and kicked the brands of the fire right and left, while sternly rebuking the temerity that risked building a fire in the face of the enemy. Fred. W. Carnon, one of the guard, sat silently in the gloom for a few moments after the departure of the officer of the guard, then blurted out, "Well, if we can't have a fire we'll have a song," and began to sing a song that he described in a preamble as having thirty-five verses, cach verse exactly like every other verse, except the last verse, which was a repetition of the first :
" O ! the horse he crossed the road, The horse he crossed the road ; And the reason why he crossed the road Was because he crossed the road."
He roared this dogge el in his mighty voice, a voice subsequently put to its legitimate ve, that of exhorting heavily loaded mule- teams through des of Peninsula mud. Its volume speedily disturbed the nervous officer of the guard, who came flying to the guard-tent to close the singer's mouth, crying that the noise would ronse the enemy, two miles away.
'The Peninsula campaign was the apprenticeship of the men of the Army of the Potomac. They learned many things about war during its progress, and one thing was, that camp fires were com- fortable necessities day and night, in no way affecting the strategy of the campaign, and no more did the roaring songs we heard around them, or the noisy frolies we participated in within the flaming circles of warmth and light of innumerable camp fires.
During this time our engineers, though slowly, were surely com- pleting their batteries, and it was finally known that on the 5th of May the nearly one hundred Parrott guns, mortars, and howitzers that would be then mounted within ranges varying from fifteen hundred to two thousand yards of Yorktown would open and
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BEFORE YORKTOWN.
continue to pour destruction until a grand assault would seem practicable. Unfortunately, the expectation that the fleet would be able to take position as floating batteries had not been realized. 'The excuse seems to have been that the unexpected appearance of the Merrimac made this cooperation impossible, as the greater part of our naval armament stayed in Hampton Roads watching that vessel. But the gunboats that were on the York River did not seem to relish getting within the rebel range. Indeed, instead of aiding the army by an early bombardment from their guns, it is of record that the fleet preferred waiting for the land batteries to dismount the rebel cannon bearing seaward before taking an active part in the siege.
But the rebels had no idea of waiting for bombardment and assault. They had taken this line of opposition rather to gain time needed to gather troops into and to throw up lines of carth- works around Richmond -- to strengthen their army and their defensive positions generally -- than with any hope of making a successful resistance at Yorktown. Having gained a much-needed month by their boldness, and shrewdly surmising what a few days' further delay would bring upon them, early on the morning of the 4th of May, after an unusual cannonade of our lines during the previous night, they abandoned Yorktown and the line of the Warwick, and retreat up the Peninsula to Williamsburg, where another line of defe y had been thrown up.
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