USA > Maine > The story of one regiment; the Eleventh Maine infantry volunteers in the war of the rebellion > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
" The Story of One Regiment.
" When the Maine Eleventh passed through Broadway, last November, the ' Hallelujah Chorus' chanted by eight hundred and fifty sturdy fellows, few persons who saw them could have anticipated that those tall lumbermen would, within a twelve- month, be almost decimated. Arriving in Washington, they built those famous barracks which were visited by so many strangers ; but in spite of the fine shelter the typhoid was soon busy in their ranks, and when they went down with Cascy's division they were only seven hundred and fifty strong ; one-eighth died of disease. While on the Peninsula they lived on hard biscuit and water for five weeks, owing to the inefficiency or rascality of someone, so that when they took up the double quick for Williamsburg the men fell on the road, and died from sheer exhaustion. At the Battle of Fair Oaks they numbered, fit for duty. only one hundred and eighty men. One half of this number were in action, and were nearly all killed and wounded."
But the recruits and the new company-both the results of Colonel Plaisted's absence in Maine-put us in formidable condi- tion again. And the men we received were good and true men, too-none better ; brave soldiers and true comrades. For one, Captain Baldwin, afterwards Major. and then Lieutenant-Colonel. proved himself to be as brave and efficient a soldier as he was an accomplished gentleman. And it is a matter of pride to us all that his gallant services were recognized by the War Department with a brevet as Brigadier-General.
It was comical to see the airs the "veterans " put on over the
-
84
THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
recruits. And many was the strange and wonderful tale toldl the newcomers of our campaign on the Peninsula. In view of our few months'active service, we did rather take to stilts. Even Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, in writing an official letter to Gov- ernor Washburn from Harrison's Landing, solemnly pens this : "The recruits that joined us at Yorktown [a small body of recruits that joined us in April] fought nobly at Fair Oaks. In company with trained men they soon became very efficient." And these " trained men" had but the advantage gained at Carver Barracks over these April-joining recruits. Is it wonderful, then, that our "veterans " crowed somewhat, with a whole campaign of advantage ? It was the same complaisant spirit that General Walker, the historian of the Second Corps, tells of as prevalent in that corps towards its recruits and now regiments. " It is not a little amusing," he writes, "to recall the feelings of superiority with which the troops who had been in the Battle of Fair Oaks greeted those who had not, how inexpressibly raw the latter seemed to the former, how great the distance between them." So our new men seemed raw and on a lower military plain to our veterans. But these recruits, like those of the Second Corps. if later in date, none the less thoroughly " took up their part in the great events " the regiment was plunged into, "and quickly be- came equals to the end."
It seems proper to call attention to a grievance of many of these recruits. Artemus Ward offered to raise a regiment of brigadier- generals within twenty-four hours. It is to be feared that some of our recruiting officers took a leaf from his book, for certainly a considerable proportion of the nes recruits not only anticipated holding higher rank than that of privates, but were dressed for the part they expected to play. Promises had been made to ambi- tious young men that could not be carried out. The resignations that seem to have been expected from among the company officers to provide vacancies to be filled by some of the new men were not forthcoming, and the company officers were strongly opposed to allowing non-commissioned vacancies to be filled by any but "veterans." Rightly, too. It must be said that the claims of the unfortunates were not forgotten, and that no opportunity was lost to raise them in rank. But the delay in arriving at the positions they really volunteered to till led to a bitterness towards those they held chiefly responsible for their mortification that not
85
YORKTOWN.
even the success of most of them in reaching even higher rank than that originally expected could quite dissipate.
To change the subject. When the Confederate cavalry dashed through Williamsburg on September 9th, driving the squadrons of the Fifth Pennsylvania stationed in that city from it, rather by the suddenness and audacity of their attack than by their num- bers, a fatigue party from Yorktown was in Williamsburg repairing the telegraph lines. One member of the party, an Eleventh Maine man, scaled a fence to escape the rebel cavalry, and in his despair dashed into a pigpen, not caring that his flight was ob- served by a pickaninny ; for was he not one of the race the fugitive soldier was there to save from slavery, and would not the sight of bis blue uniform strike a responsive chord in the young Afri- can's heart ? He didn't think it otherwise than right, either, that the youngster should scamper after him, or that he should osten- tationsly bestride the fence before the pen. Of course, his artless presence would make it seem impossible that a Yankee was hiding behind him. How thoughtful, how quick-witted, how, how-but this tender feeling was changed into one of gall and wormwood in an instant, as the young imp shouted to a squad of passing gray coats : " Hi, hi, massa, there's a Yank in h'yar with Unk Efum's shote !" The following named of the Eleventh Maine were taken prisoners on this occasion : Privates Robert H. Scott, Dummer Sylvester, Charles Watson, Samuel V. Wentworth, and Warren T. Whittier, all of Company K.
Chaplain Wells joined the regiment in September. Morton's diary tells us that this excellent man made a very favorable impression. Colonel Plaisted resumed command of the regiment the 21st of September. General Naglee arrived at Yorktown and resumed command of the brigade the 28th of September. The General left us at Harrison's Landing, going north on sick leave. Brigadier-General Emory, afterwards commander of the Nine- teenth Corps, succeeded Naglee as brigade commander.
General Emory was a regular army officer, and was of a stern disposition apparently. At first he was very much disgruntled at being left behind the main army, chafing to be in the forefront of the melec, and while in this impatient mood he was a rather heavy-handed commander. The works around Yorktown and Gloucester Point had to be strengthened and turned. The Gen- eral pressed this work on with vigor, and gathered guns and stores
86
THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
of ammunition, with an abundance of quartermaster and commis- sary stores ; for the Peninsula route by way of the James River was not yet an abandoned idea. His orderlies were kept flying here and there, regimental commanders were brought to book for any failure to furnish details of men for fatigue work, the post quarter- master was kept on tenter hooks, and the ordnance officer was in continual request. One day I answered the General's call of " Orderly," and was told to find some one or other ordnance ofli- cer, quick. I searched high and low, but could not find him. I had more than a dim suspicion that he was trying the speed of a horse in company with Captain Kreutzer, of the Ninety-eighth New York, but, of course, could not mention my notion to Gen- cral Emory, so I reported to him that I could not find the ordnance officer. "Can't find him ? Can't find him ?" The General swelled with indignation as he repeated the words. He then roared : " Orderly, when I send you for a man you must find him, and you must not come back until you do find him." I went to my tent and lay down to think it over, and, while doing so, fell fast asleep. When I awoke, I found a brother orderly in a perspira- tion of fatigue from having had to run all over Yorktown and its vicinity to finish my errand. The General had forgotten that I was supposed to be in search of the ordnance officer, and had called another orderly, and had sent him in search of the missing man. The General never mentioned my dereliction-nor did J ; only thereafter, if I could not find a man he sent me for, I didn't trouble him with a report of my inability ; just took a nap on it. trusting that he would have some other orderly finish my work while I slept.
A squad of convalescents reported at brigade headquarters from the hospital at Fortress Monroe. While waiting for the clerks of the assistant adjutant-general's office to look over their papers, the convalescents seated themselves on the steps of the office building. A broad piazza ran along the whole length of the building. The General occupied one end of the building and the assistant adjutant-general's office the other. Walking back and forth along his half of the piazza, noittering to himself as was his habit, General Emory spied the men apparently lounging in the shade of the sacred end of the piazza. and roared, "What in [sheol hadn't been invented then] are you men lounging on this piazza for ?" A pale young sergeant arose, and, while his
-
87
YORKTOWN.
scared companions were seizing their knapsacks and bundles for a hasty exodus, touched his cap and said, "We are convalescents from Fortress Monroe, General." "Oh-h-h ! Boys, sit down ; sit down, all of you, and sit there as long as you double d ------ please," answered " the old man."
We of his military household found out that he was a rough- mannered but kind-hearted old warrior, and we really did about as we pleased, letting him roar himself through his rages at our mani- fold shortcomings into good humor again. When he left us, he did so wrathfully, vowing that he would never take temporary charge of a man's brigade again, having really contracted an affec- tion for the regiments he had commanded for a few months. He bade us orderly boys a kind " good-by," and treated us to a lot of handsome apples. We had not grown to an appreciation of fermented juice, you see.
The apples he treated us to were probably some of those Colonel Van Wyck, " Old Charley," of the Fifty-sixth New York, gave him, from the schooner-load of apples and other fruit, and of various kinds of vegetables, that he had procured from New York for his regiment. Colonel Van Wyck, M.C., could only spare time from his congressional duties to soldier with us when Congress was taking a recess, but he did enjoy camp life hugely. And he had all its experiences. "Oh, I say, orderly," said he, beaming on me through his gold-bowed spectacles, one time when I took him a headquarters order, "oh, I say, orderly, what do you do when you -- you're, er, er-lousy ?" Graybacks were not respecters of rank ; private or general, it was all the same to them.
The diaries for October, and for nearly all of November, are but records of guard duty, sickness, drills, chills, rain, deaths, target-practice, policing, and fatigue duties on roads, and in cut- ting wood for the cook-fires.
On the 2d of October the regiment moved to still another new camp ground. It was now located on the bank of the river, about a mile below the fortifications.
On the 22d of November a raid was made into Mobjack Bay. Captain Maxfield gives us this graphic account of this expedition:
" Matthews County.
" Nine companies of the regiment left camp between 8 and ? P.M., and, embarking on the gunboats Mahaska and Putnam, and
88
THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
the tug-boat May Queen, proceeded down the York River and up the Chesapeake Bay. The boats entered Mobjack Bay about 8.30 A.M. on the 23d, and proceeded up the East River. The troops landed at 11.30 A.M., at a point in Matthews County, Va., near Matthews Court House. The force was divided and sent to differ- ent plantations, where they destroyed large quantities of salt and salt-works, or salt-kettles. The male portion of the community were taken, and held as prisoners while we remained. The writer was in a detachment commanded by Captain Libby, of Company A, and went to the plantation of Sands Smith. We shall never forget the warlike picture of little Pete Neddo, of Company A, breaking the big kettles with a sledge hammer. Nor shall we forget the poor old negro woman, whose son had run away a few months previous, and now accompanied us as one of the guides of the expedition. At sight of the boy she threw herself on her knees and, with hands upraised, exclaimed, 'Is this Jesus Christ ? Is it God Almighty ?' Nor could we refrain from expressing the wish that this 'cruel war' were over, when we made prisoners of the old gentleman and the young men who had come to his house to spend the pleasant Sunday afternoon in the society of his lovely daughters. We returned to the gunboats soon after dark.
"At 9 A. M. of the 24th, as we were about getting under way to return to Yorktown, a farmer came in with a flag of truce. He said a supply train was passing at a short distance and could be easily captured. The force on the Putnam, consisting of com- panies A, O, and D, was landed, and under command of Captain S. II. Merrill, of Company I, was ordered to reconnoiter for one hour. These companies advanced about three miles, which brought them in sight of Matthews Court House, where there appeared to be a small Confederate force. We fell back, and were immediately followed by a body of rebel cavalry. Lieutenant F. M. Johnson and Corporal J. F. Keene, both of Company D, who allowed themselves to be separated from the command, were taken prisoners. We reached the boats without further loss and immediately returned to Yorktown, arriving about sundown. No field officer of the Eleventh accompanied this expedition, it being under the command of Major Cunningham of the Fifty-second Pennsylvania Volunteers."
There was a general review by General Keyes on the 29th of November, and on the 30th there was a brigade drill at Gloucester
1 t
...
89
1
YORKTOWN.
Point, and December 1st a grand review by Major-Generals Dix and Keyes.
On the 10th of December orders were given to prepare three days' rations, and to be ready to march the next day. This was in preparation for the raid to Gloucester Court House. Captain Maxfield tells the story of the expedition :
" Gloucester Court House.
" The regiment left camp before sunrise ; on December 11th crossed the York River to Gloucester Point, and in company with the Fifty-second Pennsylvania, the Fifty-sixth and the One Hundredth New York, and Battery H, First New York Artillery, took up the line of march for Gloucester Court House, where we arrived at 4 p.M. We remained in the vicinity of the Court House, sending out foraging parties in different directions. These parties captured herds of cattle, sheep, mules, and some fine horses. The cavalry, which led the advance from Gloucester Point, advanced to within a few miles of the Rappahannock. The expedition was commanded by Brigadier-General Henry M. Naglee, and was intended to serve as a diversion in the rear of the rebel army at the time of the Battle of Fredericksburg. We commenced our retreat just after sunset on the 14th, and arrived in camp at 3.30 A.M. on the 15th without the loss of a man, bringing in the captured herds and the prisoners taken by the cavalry.
"One of the incidents of this expedition occurred when a mem- ber of the Eleventh attempted to pay for certain articles of food at a house near Gloucester Court House. The occupant absolutely refused to accept the soldier's greenbacks. One of his comrades, perceiving the dilemma, produced a bill on the 'Bank of Lyon's Kathairon,' a patent medicine advertisement, which the lady readily received, supposing it to be genuine Confederate money."
CHAPTER X.
PREPARING TO LEAVE VIRGINIA.
The Fourth Corps -- General Keyes-Changes in the Organization of the Regiment.
LATE in December it began to be rumored in our camps that we were to take part in a military expedition of large proportions. The point of attack was unknown to us, of course ; but we knew that it must be in some more southern latitude, for the climate of Virginia would not allow of a winter campaign-to Wilmington, to Charleston, to the Gulf perhaps, but certainly farther south than Yorktown. And glad enough we were to believe it true that we were to move ; for, although our life at Washington was a " monotonous and irksome one," as Newcomb phrased it, yet it was a hustling one compared to that at Yorktown. In Washington there were distractions ; the city, with its great and interesting public buildings, and a continual movement of large bodies of troops, to occupy attention. But at Yorktown, a city in name only, encircled by a great carthwork, parapets, and bastions, within which circle were the headquarters, the artillery trains, the stores of subsistence, clothing, and ordnance, and a few war-worn buildings. Its architectural attractions consisted only of a dilapidated church, that was surrounded by a churchyard dating back from pre-Revolutionary times ; a " city" that was merely a high point in marshy surroundings that made the solemn sound of the dead-march an altogether too familiar one. Life here was detestable, and not one of us but hailed the prospect of a change ; for, send us where they would, we could not be worse off.
In leaving Virginia we severed our connection with what was left of the Fourth Corps, and with General Keyes. Of the original divisions of the corps, ours was the only one remaining a part of it, both the divisions of Smith and Couch now making up the greater part of the Sixth Corps. And as we took with us a large part of Casey's old division, the Fourth Corps, as Jeff under General Keyes's command, was composed of new regiments mainly,
1
1
91
PREPARING TO LEAVE VIRGINIA.
only a few of the old ones remaining with it. Its future military history is a brief one. General Peck, at Suffolk, held that city against Longstreet's attempt to take it in April, 1863. General Keyes remained at Yorktown, from where, at the time of Lee's invasion of the North in June, 1863, he commanded part of an expedition that landed at White House, and sought to break Lee's lines of communication, if not to take the city of Richmond. In this movement General Getty moved on Hanover Station with seven thousand men to seize the railroad, and General Keyes moved with five thousand men to seize Bottom's Bridge, and thus clear a road for General Getty to advance on the city. Getty's column succeeded in destroying a portion of the railroad, and General Keyes moved his force as far as Baltimore Cross Roads, where he had two small engagements with the enemy, one on June 26th and the other on the 3d of July. Nothing came of this threaten- ing movement, however, General Halleck slighting General Hooker's urging that General Dix be ordered to assume command of all the available troops in his department and moye directly on Richmond, and seize it bofore Lee could countermarch to its relief.
Shortly after this the Fourth Corps was discontinued, and the regiments composing it were transferred to other corps. The corps afterwards known as the Fourth was the consolidated Twentieth and Twenty-first, and served in the Army of the Cum- berland. But the real successor of the old Fourth Corps was the ever-gallant Sixth, into which went the divisions of Smith and Couch. Couch rose to the command of the Second Corps, suc- ceeding Sumner and preceding Hancock. Smith we will meet again in the campaign of 1864.
We Peninsula campaigners remember General Keyes as a pleas- ant-faced gentleman, with a peculiarity of sitting his horse a little sidewise. At Yorktown I was often sent from brigade head quarters to corps headquarters, with messages, often verbal ; and when I had to see General Keyes personally, I was always received with as much courtesy as though I were not a mere private soldier. Such politeness was not always accorded private soldiers by officers of much less rank than that of major-general.
I am pained to see that General Keyes is so slightingly men- tioned by General Walker in his admirable history of the Second Corps. General Keyes did not press his left-wing movement
92
THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
before Yorklown as strongly perhaps as he should have done, but I do not find that the other corps commanders excelled him in celerity, he sharing in the general hesitation apparently. Besides. a look at the map will show that his movement, to have succeeded, must have been carried across the Warwick, naturally well de- fended by swamps, and artificially by formidable works, and that to reach the Half Way House, in rear of Yorktown, he must have first beaten off the major part of the rebel army. As it is con- fessed that the movement was ordered without a knowledge of the strong line of defense, and as the Warwick persisted in flowing in a different direction from that laid down for it on the headquarters maps, General Keyes but exercised common sense when, on dis- covering the nature of the natural and artificial defenses before him, he relinquished his effort to advance.
At Fair Oaks, General Keyes was all alive to the dangers of the situation, something that some of his coadjutors were not ap- parently, unless be alone is to be blamed for not foresceing the storm that flooded the Chickahominy and made it impassable by reenforcements. He certainly guarded against a surprise by making an early disposition of troops and batteries ; and more than he did in the battle, both by intelligent direction and per- sonal example, could hardly be asked of any subordinated corps commander. Heintzelman was really in command of all the troops on that side of the Chickahominy, and the failure to send Kearney into action at an earlier hour must rest on him.
And after Fair Oaks, when placed with his divisions to guard the line of the lower Chickahominy and the fords across White Oak Swamp, the active and intelligent reconnoissances Keyes made through all the country to the left-clear to the James-gave General Mcclellan a topographical knowledge that was invaluable to him in his retreat to the James. MeClellan intrusted Keyes, too, with the important duty of moving his corps across the White Oak Swamp and securing strong positions to cover the passage of the other troops and the trains, and this work must have been done quite to MeClellan's satisfaction : for it completed, he ordered Keyes to move his corps to the James, followed by Porter's corps, to occupy Malvern Hill. Then after that battle, in which one division of his corps, Couch's, took a most prominent part. General Keyes was instructed to cover the retreat to Harrison's Landing. Altogether, as General MeClellan states in his report : " Great
!
93
PREPARING TO LEAVE VIRGINIA.
credit must be accorded to General Keyes for the skill and energy which characterized his performance of the important and delicate duties intrusted to him." And that he retained the confidence of General Mcclellan to the last is shown by the fact that he was left at Yorktown to set that fortress in condition to withstand the attempts the Confederates were expected to make for its reposses- sion. In MeClellan's despatch to Halleck from Fortress Monroe, dated August 22d, he says : " General Keyes is still at Yorktown, putting it in a proper state of defense." The record certainly shows that General Keyes performed all services required of him in the campaign with energy and intelligence.
A painstaking, methodical officer, scrupulously carrying out all orders of his superiors, without a trace of insubordination, it is unjust to couple bim with Heintzelman, who was strikingly self- willed. Had Keyes, and not Heintzelman, been left to act in conjunction with Sumner and Franklin at Savage Station, Gen- cral Walker would not have had to fasten on Keyes the stigma. that he finds it a historical duty to put upon Heintzelman-that of marching away and leaving Sumner and Franklin to a fate that. they only escaped by the good luck that detained Jackson.
A year had now gone by since the regiment was organized, and many changes had naturally taken place in its organization. Deaths, resignations, and discharges had taken from it many more than had been added by our recruiting officers. A compar- ison of the following statement of the formation of the regiment as it now stood, with that of its original organization, will show the extent of the changes among the commissioned and non-com- missioned officers :
FIELD AND STAFF.
Harris M. Plaisted, Colonel.
Robert F. Campbell,
Lieutenant-Colonel.
Winslow P. Spoiford, Major.
Henry O. Fox,
Adjutant.
John Ham, Quartermaster.
Nathan F. Blunt, Surgeon.
John F. Bates,
Assistant Surgeon.
Richard L. Cook, Assistant Surgeon.
James Wells, Chaplain.
Henry C. Adams,
Sergeant-Major.
94
THE STORY OF ONE REGIMENT.
William H. H. Andrews,
Quartermaster Sergeant.
Samuel W. Lane,
Commissary Sergeant.
Nelson H. Norris,
Hospital Steward.
John Williams,
Drum Major.
Joseph Webb,
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.