USA > New Hampshire > History of the Twelfth regiment, New Hampshire volunteers in the war of the rebellion > Part 11
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But the terrible experience of the last hour and a half has taught them a lesson that each one is now practicing ; for every man has his tree behind which he is fighting, though most of the trees are too small to afford but a partial protection from the rebel bullets.
Some have already used their last cartridge, and are getting more from the cartridge-boxes of the dead. Many of the muskets have become useless and been discarded for others picked up from the ground, or taken from the hands of the wounded, while those remaining whole have become so foul that the cartridges can only be driven down their barrels by punching the ramrods against a tree.
From their advance into the woods up to this time the unflinching heroes of the Twelfth have breasted the battle-storm alone, no other regi- ment having been seen that wore the blue, except one belonging to another brigade, that had been lying in the edge of the woods, some distance to the right and rear, and which arose and gallantly charged the flanking column of the enemy, before referred to, just after its discom- fiture from the oblique fire of the Twelfth and the battery that opened upon it, capturing one of the rebel battle-flags, and then fell back over the brow of the hill and was seen no more.
But now, or about this time, a Zouave regiment appears on the left and the remaining braves of the Twelfth, who have only been saved so long by fighting in Indian style, hope for such active cooperation as will at least engage the attention of the foe in front and detract somewhat his concentrated fire upon themselves. But their hope is vain, for as seen at the opening of the battle, there was more show than fight in most of the Zouave troops. No sooner do they get up near the level range of flying lead, than they flatten out upon the ground, under cover of the brow of the hill, where they remain a few minutes, and then rising up and discharging one volley -their bullets going fifteen or twenty feet above the heads of the rebels - they retreat, as their historian will probably say, quickly, but in good order to avoid capture. And such a statement, considering the situation, ought not, perhaps, to be considered altogether inexcusable, although it would be doing much less violence to the truth to substitute the word fighting in the place of " capture"; for there was quite as good a chance to practice the one at the risk of the other, as when the Twelfth was ordered in, and found not even the fragment of a regiment engaged with the enemy or anywhere in sight.
The situation of what remained of the regiment had now become des- perately critical and hazardous- a mere handful of men trying to fill and hold a wide breach which must soon be closed up by the enemy.
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It is only a question of a few swift-flying moments. Yet more swiftly from the hot-barreled muskets of three or four score men, behind as many bullet-scarred and shell-splintered trees, round ball, buck-shot, and Minie- bullets are still being hurled against the foe .*
About this time Lieutenant Morrill. of Company D, seeing that but a score or two of men remained, and thinking doubtless that further resistance would be more foolish than brave, informed Lieutenant Bedee, command- ing Company G, that he was the ranking officer left on the field, and that retreat or capture seemed the only alternative.
This officer, who had been too earnest and active in the fight to notice before that most all the officers were killed or wounded, and he in command of what was left of the regiment, at once aroused himself to a full sense of the responsibility so unexpectedly thrown upon him. But retreat being to him a better word for the timid than the brave, and remembering that the order to Colonel Potter was to hold the ground to the last moment, determined to continue the fight while he took a swift survey of the field, to see if that moment had actually arrived.
But fearing, from the way the bullets were still flying, that unless something was at once done there would be none left for either capture or retreat, he gave the command, " Lay down," wisely intending to save his men while he decided what to do. But Sergeant-Major Bartlett, who had been watching the enemy's movements, knowing that to obey the order would be but saving the few fortunate enough to be alive, for lingering deaths from starvation in rebel prisons, immediately sprang to the side of Lieutenant Bedee and commenced to remonstrate. But scarcely had he uttered a word before the latter, looking in the direction indicated by the sergeant's finger, where a force of the enemy could be plainly seen marching close around their left, instantly straightened up from his slightly bent position (as he stooped to listen to the sergeant who was shorter and stood lower), swung his sword around and high above his head, and, with a voice that must have been heard, if not understood, by the rebels themselves, gave this order : " RALLY 'round the flag, boys, and get OUT of this."
Thinking, by the first part of the order, that the lieutenant could see one of the flags somewhere there was a moment's delay in obeying the last and much more important part. But it was only a moment, or nearer the sixtieth part of one, before every man was using all the reserve strength left in him to " get out" in the quickest possible time.
Someone has said, who pretended to know, as being present, that the little squad left of the regiment retreated as coolly and deliberately as they fought ; that they rallied around and formed a line on the colors, both in the centre, and marched out of the woods as slowly and in as good order as they marched in. This all sounds and reads well enough,
* Some of the rebels said after the battle, that it was the first time they ever knew grape and can- ister used by infantry.
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
but nothing could be farther from the truth. First, there were no colors in sight to rally round, and second, instead of " slowly" and in " good order," it was every one for himself, and the Devil, or one of his hell-pens of the South, for the hindermost.
How the state colors were saved by their gallant bearer has already been related, and how the stars and stripes were saved from capture will be found recorded in the history of the colors.
From the quick change of orders. and the vehement and explosive em- phasis that Lieutenant Bedee put upon the word "out " in his last one, the men at once understood that retreat had been already too long de- layed, and that it was their legs and not their muskets that must now save them. But they did not then know that the door to the narrow and only avenue of escape was swiftly swinging to its close.
Ten minutes later and it would have been shut and bolted, and every one captured or shot.
The enemy, on either side, was far beyond the position held by the Twelfth before that position was abandoned. On the right, he had ad- vanced along the plank road. near which the regiment fought. more than half a mile to its rear, captured a part of a battery on Fairview, and was already engaging the rallying line of the Third Corps near the Chan- cellor House : while on the left. the rebel force had taken and held the whole of the ground from Hazel Grove, where the fight first commenced in the morning, to the western slope of the Chancellorsville plateau.
Thus it can be seen, as will be proved by the best authority, that the Twelfth for some time had been fighting and desperately trying to hold its ground in the very midst of the enemy ; that it had fought for at least two hours, and held in check for that time a much larger force of the enemy, without assistance or support worthy of mention, and. except for a few minutes, single handed and alone: and that at the time of its retreat it was over half a mile in advance of the nearest organized Union force, small or great, in the corps, or anywhere in that part of the field .*
It should be stated here that, of the fifty men and officers that were taken prisoners in this battle, nearly all had been wounded and were captured as far back as the brook and sand hill directly in the rear of where the regiment was then fighting.
On the retreat, after crossing the brook, most of the scattered squad obliqued a little to the right in order to flank the steepest part of the hill, and came very near running directly into the rebel lines : a sharp turn and a favoring angle of elevation saving many of them from the leveled rifles of the waiting rebels, who demanded their surrender.
Though thus narrowly escaping capture or death, their course was the best left them, for had they taken a direct one. many more would have been shot down before reaching the top of the hill. That any of the few who took the latter course lived to reach the Chancellor House is little less than a miracle.
* See General Sickles's statement and Captain Hall's letter at the end of this chapter.
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That the national colors of the regiment, that went down with him who bore them, were not captured by the exultant and sanguine victors of the field, pressing close behind, ere they ever safely scaled the hill-top, was certainly providential.
When the nearly exhausted few - not more than twenty-five or thirty at the most - emerged from the ravine where they last encountered the foe, and showed their blue uniforms on the lower side of Fairview, the quick eye of General Sickles, who was watching the swift approaching lines of gray, caught sight of them, and spurring his horse to the front of his guns, double shotted with grape and canister, shouted out in frantic tones to his gunners about to pull the lanyards : " Hold on there ; hold your fire ; those are my men in front!"
The foremost line of the enemy -if line it could be called, for they came out of the woods in squads so eager were they in their pursuit - had reached the top of the hill, in plain sight of the reserve line of the Third Corps, when the small remnant of blue suddenly came into view but little ahead of their pursuers, and taking a diagonal course that brought them directly between the Confederate advance and a part of Sickles's artillery that in a moment more would have opened, as a few minutes later it did, and swept the field.
Thus by the quick eye and timely action of their gallant corps com- mander, the bullet-proof survivors of the last regiment of that corps to leave the field were rescued from final destruction about to burst from the muzzles of their own guns.
Seeing the reception awaiting them at the Chancellor House, near which General Sickles had placed his artillery, the rebels stopped to close up and reform their lines.
In the mean time Lieutenant Bedee, getting himself and men into some- thing of the shape of leader and led, with Second Lieutenants French and Dunn and his lieutenant-colonel and major, had reached the reserve line and reported to General Sickles himself, who, amid the cheers of his men, rode forward to meet him.
" What regiment, and where's the rest of it ?"
" Twelfth New Hampshire, and here's what's left of it."
" Fall in, my brave men, and help us hoid this line."
" But we're all out of ammunition, General."
" Puss to the rear then, quick, and give my guns a chance."
A minute or two later and the rescued few were seeking a safe spot to rest in the woods in the rear, while our artillery was cutting wide gaps through the enemy's lines in the opposite direction.
The Third Corps, which from early morn had borne the brunt of the fight, and been pushed slowly back, until despairing of any assistance, it had here taken its last stand, its brave commander plainly seeing that his further retreat was General Hooker's defeat, for the Federal line would be severed at the centre.
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He had called and called, but all in vain, for reinforcements ; and even then a single division from the First or Fifth Corps, impatiently waiting within quick supporting distance for the long expected order to move for- ward to the relief of their comrades, would have changed the disastrous opening of the day into a glorious victory before its close.
But the decisive hour came and went, and with it the last chance to retrieve the sad fortune of that sad Sabbath service to the God of battles and His holy cause of freedom.
General Hooker, disabled by a shell, could no longer direct nor con- trol ; General Couch, second in command, did not know, it seems, what to do, nor have the courage to do what he knew; and General Mead, at the vital moment, while Hooker was still unable to act and Couch could not be found, though requested by his superiors and earnestly solicited by his subordinates, dare not take the responsibility, and refused even to send a single regiment from his own command to the support of General Sickles, whom he well knew was hard pressed and could not longer hold his important position.
" Thus all in vain are thousands slain, For want of a little nerve and brain."
General Doubleday says : " The Third Corps left their last position at Chancellorsville slowly and sullenly. * * A single division thrown in at this time would have retrieved the fortunes of the day."*
From what has already been written, it will be seen that when General Sickles retreated back to his last position, near the Chancellor House, he left one of his regiments, still stubbornly fighting the enemy in the woods, more than half a mile in front of his new line of defense: and, as will be seen hereafter, that neither he nor either of its own division and brigade commanders knew where it was, or what had become of it.
Why this regiment, whose actual part and place in the battle of Chan- cellorsville is but little better known now than then, so far as any official report of its heroic acts has ever been made, was thus left to fight out its own fate, without others to support or orders to retreat, is one of the many army blunders, softly called oversights, the cause of which thorough in- vestigation would discover not far from the wall-tent entrance of official incompetency.
One, who had the best mind and means to know whereof he affirmed, has said, " It was because the d-n staff officers didn't know any- thing." But, whoever was responsible, field commanders or their staff, the consequences were none the less lamentable, and many brave men of the Twelfth on this day, like scores of thousands during the war, were needlessly sacrificed.
And yet there are, perhaps, better reasons to pity than to blame : for it is only those rare intellectual faculties, that are still more rarely found
* See Scribner's "Campaign of the War," pages 50-55.
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united in the same subcranium organization, that can make a great general.
And of the thousands of subordinate officers necessary to the make-up of a great army, there are comparatively few who are cool and collected enough to perceive their duty, and brave enough to perform it on the field of battle.
Scarcely had Lieutenant Bedee taken his little command through the line before he was hit in the head by a piece of shell, which crazed him for a time, and Lieutenant French, wearing straps without a single bar, had now the honor of commanding the regiment.
From colonel to a second lieutenant, twenty-eight officers reduced to two, and only about a score left together out of more than five hundred and fifty enlisted men that went into the fight, is a sad but truthful pen picture of the Twelfth New Hampshire Regiment as it fell back beyond the reach of rebel bullets at Chancellorsville.
CHAPTER VI.
CHANCELLORSVILLE.
(CONCLUDED.)
The battle was now nearly over, and yet the day was not half spent. Wellington at Waterloo, when it seemed, as the sun was going down, that he could but little longer withstand the terrible assaults of Napoleon's victorious legions without immediate assistance, is said to have prayed for Blucher or night.
Hooker needed neither reinforcements to advance, nor darkness to cover his retreat, for thirty-five thousand fresh troops stood waiting at his elbow. Why he did not use them will be considered later in this chapter.
The Confederates had " fought like devils," but the very desperation of their onslaught had well nigh exhausted them, and but little more than the momentum of the crushing and almost resistless battle-ball hurled by them with such force earlier in the day, was left to complete the victory.
But the Federal troops had been as stubborn to resist as the Confeder- ates had been impetuous to attack, and even more so in some parts of the field. The Third Corps held its ground for more than three hours against superior numbers on its front and flank, and exposed, part of the time, to an enfilading fire from the enemy's guns at Hazel Grove; retreating at last, as we have seen, " slowly and in good order," and wanting but little support to have held their position to the last.
Had the enemy followed up his advantage with the same boldness and energy that he showed and exercised in gaining it, the effect might have been a complete rout of the Union forces, and the result much more dis- astrous than it was.
That General Lee did not push his advantage Sunday afternoon evinced quite unmistakably that his best foot had been put forward at the start, and that the other was getting lame and weary. That he was losing strength much faster than he was gaining ground was apparent to every corps commander on the field.
It has frequently been said by ex-Confederate soldiers who were there. and nearly always referred to by them when speaking or writing of this battle. that the Yankees fought more determinedly at Chancellorsville than in any other battle where they ever had the honor of exchanging compliments with them. And this is undoubtedly true, for in no other
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battle of the East did the Union troops have so much confidence in their leader or so strong a hope of winning a complete and decisive victory.
But however good their courage and strength, there were some regi- ments that, like the Twelfth, had long breasted the storm at the front, sadly wanting now that the battle for them was over, in the last named element of combativeness. The courage of the few brave " Moun- taineers" who had escaped the terrible carnage of the field, though somewhat diminished, was still sufficient again to dare, but their strength to do was almost gone.
No one who has never been there himself can have any adequate idea how exhaustive to the vital forces is the struggle for victory between con- tending forces on the field of battle. The muscular power is usually severely taxed by long and forced marches, and want of sleep and rest, before reaching the field of conflict ; and then comes the great strain upon the nerves, without the aid of which all the muscles are but inert weight to cumber instead of aid. So that when the excitement of the battle is over, and the nerves relax, the combatant finds himself almost as weak and fatigued as if he had just recovered from a long sickness.
Such was the condition of the survivors of the Twelfth, as they passed through the reserve line to the rear and sought a place of rest in the woods beyond. It was at this time that Captain Hall, of Whipple's staff, who, by the order of his chief, had been for some time hunting for it, found the regiment and conducted it back out of range of the enemy's shells. Up to this time, nothing had been known of the position or con- dition of the regiment by either Colonel Bowman or General Whipple.
After several hours of rest, lying at full length upon the dry leaves, where most or all of them fell asleep, the fifty or more that had already found and gathered around the colors formed a rallying nucleus for those who were still hunting for the regiment ; and toward night, they, with others that had come in, were ordered back to the river to find a place to bivouac and reorganize.
Marching slowly and wearily along, and halting every little while to rest, they at last reached the river, as tired as if they had marched all day instead of only two or three miles. Here fires were kindled and efforts made by those who were able - for some actually were not - to make a cup of coffee and to roast a piece of pork, for notwithstanding a large part of their five days' uncooked rations was still in their knapsacks, their stomachs were as empty as their cartridge-boxes.
About 12 o'clock that night the whole division was called to arms by a sudden and spiteful outburst of musketry on the picket line; but in a few moments all was again quiet along the Rappahannock, and the men gladly resumed their restful slumber.
The next morning's roll-call found but ninety-seven men and four offi- cers of the Twelfth present for duty. This remnant was organized into a small battalion of four companies, commanded by Lieutenants Fernal,
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Smith, French, and Dunn ; and Capt. John F. Langley, who had been for some time acting as assistant inspector of the brigade, was returned to his regiment and took command. Lieutenant Dunn wrote in his diary, under this date: "Who would have thought, nine months ago, when I enlisted as a private, that I should have command of the remnants of two companies of the regiment now?"
General Whipple, having got the regimental fragments of his division into marching shape, if not fighting condition, once more, advanced again to the front. But he had fought his last battle, and this was his last march. An hour or two later he was shot by a rebel sharpshooter, and, while being carried from the field, expressed the hope that he might live long enough to give Colonel Potter and his brave men a just report. That he did not is greatly to be regretted. But the fact that, while bleed- ing and dying, the thought should have even entered his mind, to say nothing of its open expression as one of his last and most earnest wishes, proves conclusively that he fully recognized and appreciated their heroic deeds and great services, and had determined that full justice should be done them upon the lasting records of their country.
There was no fighting during the day, and the whole division was priv- ileged to rest in reserve. At midnight, when all save the corps com- manders and the watchful pickets were sleeping, a council of war was held in the tent of the commander-in-chief. Of all the things done, or left undone, in General Hooker's whole military career, none, as it has seemed to many, was so indefensible and so strangely in contrast with himself- read and judged by his past military record - as his decision, with three to two of his corps commanders against him, to retreat without further effort from the battle-field of Chancellorsville.
The following was a day of preparation to do what the previous night had decided. One hundred men from the Twelfth - leaving but a guard behind - in charge of Lieutenants Fernal and Smith, were sent down near the river to throw up entrenchments. They were ordered to leave their knapsacks, muskets, and all equipments except their canteens in the care of those who were to remain in camp.
Near noon, thick, threatening clouds quickly gathered overhead, from which soon fell such torrents of rain as drenched everything above the ground and flooded that. An army overcoat was about as much protec- tion against it as a linen duster in a smart April shower. In short, it was the eruption of an aerial volcano from which came not only a deluge of water, but fish, toads, frogs, and snakes, that are not supposed to have their habitations above. Fish six or eight inches long were found on the ground after the shower.
This cloud-burst, as it seemed to be, though anything but pleasant to the men watching or working in the trenches, was a merciful God- send to the wounded, many of whom were still lying on the field unpro- tected, except by the shade of the trees. It allayed the inflammation of
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their wounds, checked the fever that was burning them up, and gave them a fresh and bountiful supply of ozone from nature's own laboratory. Thus by the copious tears that the heavens shed upon the wounded and dying, after every great battle, are the sufferings of thousands relieved, and the lives of hundreds saved.
As night approached it had become an open secret to even the rank and file, that a speedy retreat was contemplated ; though some would not allow themselves to believe what, at the same time, from accumulating evidences, they could not well doubt.
The men on detail had not yet returned, and much anxiety was ex- pressed lest their muskets, equipments, and knapsacks would have to be destroyed. These fears were realized when, just as it was growing dark, orders came to destroy everything that could not be carried.
Knapsacks were piled up and burned, together with what muskets and equipments remained after the men had taken as many as they could or would carry across the river. Many a dearly cherished keep-sake or picture of mothers, wives, and children at home, or who had gone to their long homes since the Twelfth boys last bade them adieu were con- sumed in the flames that burned up their knapsacks and clothing. Some of their owners, finding that the army was to retreat, and permission to return for their knapsacks denied them, took their chances to do so, despite orders to the contrary, and hurried back in the darkness to find only a pile of smouldering ashes in the place where they had left them.
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